2007: The year that was anything but normal

As we shiver our way into yet another new year, we optimistically hope it will be a better one than the previous. In 2007 the global warming alarmists were swooning over Al Gore's Nobel Prize, while an equally determined group of climatologists refuted it as more likely a natural climate phenomenon the Earth sees occur periodically, dating back well before man ever existed. Global man-made warming or not, from this layman's standpoint, 2007 was a year of extremes.

We kicked off the 2007 New Year with almost summer-like temperatures, following a Green Christmas. The month remained slightly warmer than usual until near its end, when the mercury dropped like a rock. Then, as though a reminder that we seldom escape true winter weather for very long, nature slapped us with a blizzard-like two feet of white stuff on Valentine's Day. As though it was balancing out for the warmth of January, temperatures remained well below normal right on through March.

When April and the Spring season arrived, we could say goodbye to cold and snow, right? Wrong. Trout fishing had barely got underway when, on April 16, our area was buried with heavy wet snow from an unusual-for-the-season nor'easter that downed trees and power lines. Once we recovered from that, May and June were more typical, with the exception of a freak June flood that claimed four lives and destroyed homes, roads and bridges in Delaware County.

July and August ushered in a summer that was cooler and wetter than normal, but September countered by being warmer but still wetter than usual. In fact, there was no frost in our area the entire month, and we normally get the first one in the final week of the month. Early October saw traditional fall foliage, but none of it was created due to freezing, but rather by the trees ending their leaf-growth cycle for the year. The first "killing frost" occurred well after our foliage had peaked, and then rain and wind pretty much ended the brief colorscape.

Early November gave promise to a warm, late winter. But then, by the middle of the month, snow arrived and stayed right through December. Deer hunters wishing for a "tracking snow" got their wish, but it was somewhat negated by all the snow clinging to ground-level limbs and boughs that limited vision on opening day. Then a couple days before Christmas, temperatures soared and rains melted the deep snow, giving us a primarily "Green Christmas."