Weather or whether?

I was reading an email that a friend wrote. Halfway through, you could see me visibly twitch. I stumbled across a question asking me "weather or not" they should do something. I corrected them, which got us talking about weather in general. Here in Colorado, the weather is really unique.

Ask most Coloradans and they would probably quote this phrase or similar: If you don't like the weather, cross the street.
Once, I was in the backyard of a house we lived in farther south. It was raining and so I walked to the other side, where it wasn't. Then I stood half in the rain and half out.

I'm not saying that this happens all the time, but the weather does change drastically. If it's sunny in the morning, make sure to bring a raincoat with you, because it may be raining later. Spring and Autumn are the worst. Last spring, it was sunny in the first part of the day. In the afternoon, all within one hour, it rained, snowed, became sunny and rained again.

Whether or not the weather is nice during one part of the day, it may not be on the other side of the street. If you're on vacation and want to have a good time, I guess it depends on whether or not you have the right clothing for the weather. Something to keep in mind, tourists.

Global Warming or an Ice Age?

This last month has been remarkably chilly here in Manitou Springs. In mid-August, I heard our heater kick on for the first time this season. August, here in Manitou, is generally the hottest month of the year. Yes, we had a few really quite hot days, but most of the month was very temperate, sometimes downright cold. I didn’t really puzzle too much about it, because it didn’t seem that entirely strange. Even the day that the heater kicked on, it just seemed like one in a million.

Well, now it’s September and our heater comes on every night as the temperature drops. This is practically unheard of for early September here in Manitou. Today the weather in Cripple Creek, a casino town not too far from here, was forecast to snow. And here in Manitou, it felt like the early days of winter. It felt like snow for sure. We spent the day cooped up in the house wearing sweaters, covered in blankets, huddled over heaters…

Are we having an early Autumn, or possibly bypassing it completely? Could this be the beginning of a Great Winter, such as the world last saw when the pilgrims from Asia crossed the Bering Strait onto this continent? I have heard it said (who hasn’t?) that Global Warming is in progress. The ice floes on the North Pole are disappearing. But perhaps the earth is just winding up like a clock, about to swing in the other direction. It will be like a nuclear winter, without the nuclear (hopefully, but you never know). Our heaters won’t work and we’ll be forced to become traveling nomads, following game across the frozen seas in order to feed ourselves. We won’t have farms, although there will always be the used snow and ice salesman trying to sale his wares: “Snow, snow inna bun!”
“Bun? Bun? I’ve not seen one of those since I was a little lad on my granddad’s knee!”
“Oh, well this is a genuine bun made o’ ice, see?”
“I’ll show you bun made o’ ice…”

Before too long, we’ll all be eating our neighbors to stay alive. But then, even if we feed ourselves, we’ll die from hypothermia anyway.