For some, the middle of September means the summer is coming to a close and the fall is about to begin. Well, that might be true in some places, but in Tahoe, we don’t have time to think about that stuff. This is the time of year when all good citizens must be dedicated to an important annual ritual: Predicting the winter. Actually, for most Tahoe locals it is not as much a prediction as a hope. A time when we come up with all the reasons that this winter will deliver copious quantities of the white stuff bringing us boundless joy and just general all around awesomeness.
The good news is that we can get away with these “predictions” even though they only occasionally come true because: a) Nobody really knows what the winter will be like, so those weather forecasters talking about El Ninos and La Ninas don’t know any better then we do what will happen, and b) Nobody remembers our horribly incorrect predictions from last year.
That said, here are the top five reasons why we just know this coming winter is going to be a doozy:
5) There are a lot of dead squirrels on the roads. This obviously is because all those squirrels are so intent on gathering nuts that they are going nuts and running across the road at exactly the wrong time.
4) The Old Farmer’s Almanac says that thunderstorms in the summer lead to snow in February. And we had a lot of thunderstorms this summer. Thus it will dump in February…can we move that up to December please?
3) If you look at the graph of Lake Tahoe’s water level over the last 100 years it looks like a heart beat. It goes down, it goes up. It’s been down for a few years, it’s time for it to go up.
2) The raccoons, bears and other animals have thicker coats then usual. The spiders are horrendous. The mice are active. And a butterfly turned left instead of right in Asia last week.
1)Last winter we didn’t get much snow and it made us unhappy…so we really, really want to have plenty of snow this year. Please, please, please.
So there you have it. It’s going to be an awesome winter, because the butterflies said so.