If It's Wednesday, it must be Wet and Windy

What the hell is up with our weather?

It was 60 on Friday, and on Sunday it was 16. Today's high was 55, but tonight it will be 25. Oh, and we had a frickin' hurricane this morning.

This morning shortly after I stumbled out of bed I heard a roar that sounded like a semi truck was pulling into my living room. I ran to the window to see what it was, and lo and behold, there was a tree bent over like it was trying to touch its roots. The gusts ripping through the alley behind my bedroom sounded like a jetliner taking off.

Fortunately the rain subsided by the time I left for work. Unfortunately, it was back with a vengeance when I resurfaced on Fulton Street 45 minutes later. The corner at Nassau was flooded probably 8 inches deep. It was raining horizontally. Twisted, tattered remnants of umbrellas clogged garbage cans and skitted across the street like silver and black tumbleweeds. There was no choice but to fold up my umbrella and make a dash for it. Unfortunately, my "dash" from subway to office still takes 10 minutes.

I saw cash blow out of the hand of a customer at a coffee cart. I saw a woman get out of a taxi only to have a gust of wind catch her coat and send it up over her head. Blinded, she stumbled forward feeling her way with one arm while struggling to pull her coat down with the other, and waded into a puddle at the curb that completely covered her shoes. I saw people clinging desperately to the shredded fabric of their umbrellas. I saw an umbrella turn inside out and fly out of a woman's hands and then get smashed by a bus on Water Street.

The New York Times reports that gusts were clocked at 68 miles per hour. That's only 7 miles shy of a category 1 hurricane.

When I turned the corner on Front Street I honestly was nearly knocked over by a blast of wind. Wet wind, I might add. It was like being hit with a firehose. At Starbucks, a drenched wench was complaining to the barrista: "I'm on my way to a job interview, LOOK at me!"

The service door on my office building was shattered. It's twenty to five, and my jacket is still wet. (And I went to the staff meeting with wet underwear. Itchy!)

Scientists have been warning us that global warming doesn't just mean higher average temperatures, it means more extreme weather. This doesn't bode well.