JIM ‘PAPPY’ MOORE: Learning to Love Weather
By Jim “Pappy” Moore
Weather ebbs and flows on a worldwide basis. It is created by the heat, cold, pressure and moisture in the atmosphere. These conditions are in constant movement around the planet. When warm air and cold air mix, storms clouds and attendant rain, snow, sleet, or hail result. Tornadoes emerge. Hurricanes form.
We are largely at the mercy of natural forces. Earth tilts toward the Sun or away from it, creating our four seasons as regions move closer or further from the Sun’s heat. North of the equator we have winter in December, January, February and March. South of the equator it is the opposite. Their winter is June, July, August and September. This natural tilting keeps the world in balance. Otherwise, life on Earth for humans would be very different. It would be too hot to live in many regions and too cold to live in other regions. Be thankful for the seasons. Without them your life on Earth would be very different.
Life on Earth is sustained by rainfall, and by other forms of precipitation. Water is essential to us as humans. We are mostly water. We need the constant replenishing of our water supplies. If all the rain came in one month a year, it would make life here untenable. We would flood without limit for that one month and go without needed water much of the year. Our food supplies, our plants which provide life-giving oxygen for us to breathe would die. This never-ending balance of nature allows our planet to live for thousands of years in a state where most humans in most environs can survive.
Occasionally in our history, humans have experienced an ice age. During such periods the Earth’s distance from the Sun varies just enough to change the worldwide temperature, lowering it. Ice advances from the north and south hemispheres of the planet. As much as there is current worry on Earth over global warming, freezing cold is much more dangerous to humans. Even now, more people die from cold weather than from hot weather. We tolerate hot weather much better than we tolerate cold weather.
Changes in weather affect the emergence of new life in the springtime. Pollen must be able to exist for plants to germinate. Plants bloom. They provide food for all manner of animals and bugs. Rain is required to support the emergence of this new life. Too much rain and the growth cycle can be hurt. Too little rain and the growth cycle can be cut short. Farmers live with this dilemma annually. Too much rain can kill their crops. Too little rain can burn them up.
Animals and their springtime procreations depend on weather. Too much and they lose offspring. Too little and they lose offspring. Their crops are dependent upon cycles of rain and dry.
I try to avoid being out in bad weather. Accepting thunder, lightning, rising water, heavy winds are a part of life. We are blessed to live in an era when we are much more able to weather these storms, to know about them ahead of time. Two hundred years ago we did not know about the weather until it arrived on the horizon.
Rain, snow, sleet, hail, high winds. They all serve a purpose. Unless they turn deadly, we should welcome them. They are nature seeking a balance. Learn to see weather as nature balancing the atmosphere so that our life on Earth remains livable.
Copyright 2023, Jim “Pappy” Moore. All rights reserved.
