an open letter to the weather gods

To whom it may concern who is in charge of the weather:

I am a Canadian, living in Toronto, Ontario, and am increasingly disconcerted by the weather situation. As such, I am writing to you about my concerns.

First, I found it rather disconcerting that when travelling to London and Paris recently that I never once had to use an umbrella (despite the fact that upon advice, I had carried several and as such faced an overweight charge by Air Canada when leaving the country). Not that I am complaining... just that it apparently was very unusual weather, thus a bit strange.

(Stranger yet was the fact that there was almost snow in London while I was there and the people were very excited about that eventuality... to the extent that on the radio they were reporting snowfall by postal code district. It never reached our district. Thank goddess for that!).

I also found it extremely odd that we returned to Canada with a more balmy temperature than we had left in the UK. Especially since we had left during a blizzard, and I'm advised that in between times all the snow had melted, then a deep freeze and more snow had come again, and then melted.

Second, (since I'm back in Canada now and actually care about the weather in Toronto!) I would really appreciate it if you would talk to the people who are in charge of reporting the Toronto weather and clue them in to reality. On Monday and Tuesday it was unseasonably warm... between 12C (54F) and 14C (57F). People were sitting on patios, it was so warm. I nearly passed out coming home on Tuesday evening carrying groceries because I was overdressed. The weatherpeople were telling us we could expect this bounty all week!

In this regard, yesterday morning I prepared to go to work dressed like this:

I even checked the Weather Network before leaving... the prediction was 12C (54F) and sunny with cloudy periods.

However, luckily for me I decided to step out onto the balcony before leaving (even though I had become used to two days of smoke breaks without a jacket... in January!!!). It was a bit chilly. So I thought I'd better bring a scarf...

Good thing I did. By the time I got downtown to work, the wind was howling and I needed to put up my fabulous Moebius scarf like this:

Hail hail Cat Bordhi! I didn't realise I could do this trick with the scarf!

Anyway, this kept me going. The actual temperature today turned out to be 3C (37F) with a windchill (don't you love that!) of -5C (23F). And I'll tell you - that was some wind. It nearly carried my cigarette out of my hand a couple of times... my coworkers were all looking to steal my scarf off me because they had seen the same weather forecast I had!

I really, really hesitate to complain about the recent warmer weather... but why are the weather people telling us it is carrying on when it is decidedly not? It seems to be that they just don't know. And we Canadians in particular get very, very confused with temperate weather in January.

So, Weather Gods... I have four words for you:

MAKE UP YOUR MINDS.

Is it warm, or is it cold? Pick one and stick with it, please. When it is 14C outside please don't forget that the Canadian office buildings are heated at 21 or more C and that we all start passing out halfway through the workday - especially when we can't open any windows.

Tomorrow the Weather Gods are calling for the same weather as today... so I'm prepared:

It had best not turn into a 14C day... or I will be writing a far stronger letter indeed when I have passed out in the subway due to overheating!!!

Yours very truly,

Kristina B.

PS. And please, please don't take that tactic of saying "Well, it's all YOUR fault... global warming and all." I'm very sick and tired of being blamed about that. And, by the way, that does not explain the weather trends from 1945-46 which CTV News feels free to display every night (perhaps you should tell them not to put up the highest ever and lowest ever temperatures for the day in question....???) It seems that 1945 was the coldest year ever and 1946 was the warmest year ever... until now. I don't suspect that pollution was quite the problem back then that it is right now... !!