Flooding or Heat – Take Your Pick

In many parts of the country it’s been a strange few months from a weather perspective. From flooding along the nation’s major rivers, to devastating tornadoes, even in places like New England, it’s been one thing after another. In Chicago life has been no exception.

The city is just returning to normal after several days of heavy rain caused flooding on city and suburban streets. The swollen waterways south of the Windy City didn’t fare that much better either, unable to absorb more than six inches of rain that fell between Wednesday and late Thursday. In addition to the water, the severe storms also knocked out the power for hundreds of thousands of customers.

Looking at the bright side, some in Chicago remarked that the storms had a positive effect in bringing an end to the city’s stifling heat wave felt earlier in the week. Wednesday’s high of 95 at O’Hare was just a couple of degrees shy of the record, while other cities registered 97 and 99. All of this seems quite out of the ordinary for this part of the world – yet it isn’t.

History clearly shows us that weather patterns are cyclical. In fact, they are so much so that each cycle in North America lasts a predictable thirty years or so. In other words, over the course of three decades, weather tends to worsen on all fronts, until it bottoms out and stays at that level for a few years. Things then gradually improve over the next thirty years until it tops out on the other end. That’s why so many adults at either end remember drastically different weather during their youth.

What’s being experienced today in Chicago and its suburbs many of us remember from days gone by. This is nothing to panic over, as Chicken Little did, because the sky is indeed not falling. While it is certainly a tragedy that people are losing their homes, and in some case their lives, it does not portend the end of the world.

In Chicago, they will clean up the mess left by the water; they will have their power restored in due time. And this summer there will be plenty a baseball fan at Wrigley with only baseball on his mind – because we Americans are resilient. A little heat and water are not going to keep us down forever.

Even in Joplin and other places hit hardest by this year’s spring weather will rebuild. Just like New Orleans; just like South Florida and Southern California have done so many times. So whether it’s flood waters or heat – take your pick – we will overcome. We will indeed overcome.