Paul Felix Schott, on 29 March 2012 - 11:13 PM, said:
The Bad Weather Storms now are Babies compared to what is to come.
There have been some monster storms in the past. The winter of 1886 killed tens of thousands of cattle across the northern Great Plains. 7000 died in the Cherokee Strip alone. Ranchers whose herds had thousands of cattle a year earlier were reduced to scavenging bones to sell for fertilizer. Hundreds just packed up and moved east, abandoning their land. At that time, the old soddy houses were being replaced by new clapboard houses made of wood. The wood houses weren't well insulated. Whole families froze to death in them, while the poor folks who couldn't afford a nice house, survived in their old soddies. The temperature reached 46 below zero (F) in Wichita with 18 inches of snow. There's a newspaper article from Hopkinsville, KY that reported 100 degrees below (If you believe that, I'd like to talk to you about this bridge I own in New York.), but there are believable rewports of 40 below from that area. Remember the movie "Monte Walsh"? It's about two cowboys trying to survive the disaster. Remember Rusell's painting "The Last of 5000"? That's the storm. The American livestock industry never recovered. The US government realized that open range wouldn't work and abandoned the policy. It was the end of an era.
Fimbul Winter isn't just a Norse legend. It really happened. In 535 to 537 AD. For three winters and two summers the frost giants made war. There was no summer in Gottland; snow fell all year round for two-and-a-half years! Remember Beowulf? King Hrothgar was a historic king who led a Viking raid on the Rhine in 517. Beowulf's climactic battle was on the ice of Lake Vanern in 539. The story encompasses this storm.
In Ulster, Eochiad MacErc was king. He drowned in a vat of wine on Halloween night in 535 just as Fimbul Winter was getting started. They say he was cursed by a witch. What a Halloween story! And it's true.
In Constantinople, Justianian was emperor. His boy general, Belisarius, was in southern Italy, pushing northward for an assault on Rome. The Franks, driven south in search of food, crossed the Alps in 536, forcing the Romans to shift troops northward, leaving them exposed to Belisarius' army. And the rest, they say, is history.
And what about King Arthur? In Powys and Gwynedd in 535 the Saxon Advance had been stopped and 20 years of relative peace had followed. Fimbul Winter is the setting of the fictional quest for the Holy Graille, three years during which Arthur's knights pursued the Graille and the kingdom languished. There are a few problems with the historical aspects of Arthur's story, but the setting is right.
The Annals of Ulster, 536.3: "Failure of bread." This storm brought starvation and death to northern Europe. It was followed by 30 years of drought. More than any other event, it was the cause of the Dark Ages.
And it could happen again. So some of the storms you're predicting will be truly monstrous.
Doug
If I have seen farther than other men, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants.
The beginning of knowledge is the realization that one doesn't and cannot know everything.