Return to Sender: Mother Nature is Not Sweet

Dear Mother Nature:

We get it already. You like playing with our heads. After two weeks of gorgeous Indian summer, it’s suddenly turned to fall overnight. We were shocked yesterday to walk out into the chilly wind and see our sidewalks paved with fallen foliage. Where the day before, we could get away with a light trench, yesterday we had to return home to change coats and grab a scarf and hat. (Granted, the hat was partly a vanity thing – we don’t want our coifs blowing and tangling in the wind. Better to keep our hair in place and protected under a hat.)

Those of us who hail from warmer climates were excited, last week, to get away with dining al fresco in November. All of the Halloween revelers were pleased that their slutty costumes didn’t have to get hidden underneath thick coats or be worn over thermal stockings. And if the SEPTA drivers were going to strike, they couldn’t have chosen to do it at a better time: we walked from University City to Center City and back several times over the course of the week and didn’t mind one bit.

But all that has changed, and quickly. As we write this, The Weather Channel is reporting that Philadelphia’s “feels like” temperature is thirty-eight. Tonight’s low is a nippy thirty-four. And while daytime temperatures will remain warmish for the next week or so, the nights will be getting increasingly chilly. We’re not just trying to be Cecily Tynan here, Mother Nature (although we wish we could look as good as she did when she swam with sharks – sorry fellas, no Google images of that story, but if you Google her you might get some eye candy anyway). We know you’re well aware of what’s going on with weather patterns down here and all.

We just wanted to take this opportunity to ask you, though: what the fuck? Are you going through “the change?” It’s not just in Philadelphia; look at the devastation you’ve caused to the southern part of the United States. But because we’re selfish bastards here at Phillyist, we’re just going to think local and ask you about what you’re doing to us. Snowfall prediction for the winter of 2005-2006 is 29.4” according to the Philadelphia Weather blog. The blog also reports that yesterday, CBS3 issued their winter forecast: 24” of snow, and fifteen nights in a row with lows below twenty degrees. That, Mother Nature, is what we call damn cold.

We chose to move to Philadelphia over, say, Boston, because we’d been assured that the winters aren’t nearly as terrible. And our friends from Boston moved to Philadelphia to escape the terrible winter weather. Something isn’t right, Mother Nature. Average snowfall in Philadelphia is about 5” and average nighttime lows are in the mid-thirties. We understand that global warming is supposed to be making winters colder and all, but we thought that was going to be a gradual shift. We didn’t think twice about using aerosol hairspray or driving SUVs. We figured that would be our children’s problem. We never expected that we’d be forced to come face-to-face with the negative effects of global warming. Boy, were we wrong.

Is this your way of telling us we should all be driving Priuses? Because if that means a lower heating gas bill, we’ll head on over to our local Toyota dealers now.

Photo Credit: Enchanted Ways Fairy Art Postcards