I Pinned My Hopes on El Nino

At some point in the miserable, hot, dry late summer I heard a news report that NOAA was predicting the return of El Nino, a warming of Pacific water that somehow brings rain to Kansas and other inner-continent states. 

We’ve been in a La Nina phase for almost two years now. La Nina is a bitch who tries to turn Kansas into a desert, so I was happy to hear that El Nino would be returning, bringing an end to our drought. I pinned my hopes on El Nino.

This morning Dennis said that “Kansas rain” was falling. We now consider a sheen of moisture that condenses on the concrete driveway and stone walkways to be Kansas rain. The sheen then evaporates.

I assured Dennis that El Nino was coming to save the day. But then I thought, “Shouldn’t he be here by now?” so I checked the Internet. Whoops! NOAA has canceled its El Nino prediction. Instead we will have neither El Nino or La Nina, but  “La Nada,” the nothing. I’m not joking; that’s what it’s called.

I’m disappointed and will not pin my hopes on a NOAA prediction again. El Nino is a tease, if you ask me.

But, hey, isn’t it odd that both our east and west coasts are being flooded with water from the sky while our continent’s inner core is drying up and could soon become a desert? Oh, what changes that would bring to our so-called civilization! 

If only I hadn't read about geology, which reminded me that our inner continent was once an inland sea, teeming with creatures whose skeletons are preserved as fossils in the stone wall that separates our back yard from the woods. 

All is change.

Copyright 2012 by Shirley Domer