CAMERON COLUMN: Nasty weather? Blame this guy

Guilty. What can I say? It has to be my fault.

I know this will sound almost beyond rational belief, but yes, I am to blame for this drippy, miserable October weather that can best be summed up with the phrase: “Honey, should we round up some neighbors and build an ark?”

I hear you laughing.

How can this one clown have a doggone thing to do with Pacific storms, or climate change, or whatever the hell has turned North Idaho into low-wattage waterfall?

Sure, it sounds nuts, but I have proof.

When the same thing happens over and over to the same person, no matter the location or circumstances, eventually you just have to throw up your hands and say: “Seems crazy, but it’s him.”

Certainly there’s a statistician somewhere who could assess the series of events I’m about to present, crunch the numbers on a powerhouse computer and conclude, to within a fraction of a percent that...

“Seems crazy, but it’s him.”

LET’S just pull an example out of my portfolio, shall we?

As they say doing card tricks: Pick one, any one.

Fine, we’ll start with Flagstaff, Arizona — beautiful mountain town, and pretty predictable weather, too, with nice summers punctuated with what the locals call “monsoon season” from late July through September, then some predictable winter snow (hey, it’s Arizona but the place is 7,000 feet above sea level).

So at one point I moved there in late summer. Gorgeous. Even the monsoons (beautiful mornings followed by afternoon thunderstorms) were mild that year.

October was dreamland. But then so was November.

In fact, on the night of Nov. 21, my date and I cooked steaks on my apartment deck. We only put on sweaters when it got pretty late.

We stared at the stars until well past midnight.

And the next morning, my alarm went off at 7 and I saw gray out my bedroom window.

I thought: Hey, it clouded over while I slept.

No, the sky had opened.

I looked down at the outdoor parking lot and my car was gone – well, not really gone, but invisible under 23 inches of snow that had fallen between 2 and 6 a.m.

Yup, 23 inches in FOUR hours — a shade more than the national average snowfall for a full year, all between an outdoor barbecue dinner and an early shower.

We had to be rescued that morning, as did most residents. I mean, even in Flagstaff nobody prepares for Ma Nature dropping a glacier on the place during one night.

NEXT CASE: It is never really cold in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

There’s a reason the area produces more fruits and vegetables than anywhere in the world.

OK, it’s blazing hot for about three months in the summer, but the rest of the year is just simply fantastic. Highs in the 70s (60s in the middle of winters), lows almost never below 45.

Golf weather all year round.

But when I took one winter off to escape the cold, windy, icy crud of December through February in Kansas City to rent a lovely place and work on a book — with occasional de-stress days on the links — the entire valley set records for cold.

It just never warmed up.

Oh, and the same thing happened one December when I took a job in Charlotte — another no-freeze zone — and moved to the South Carolina suburbs.

The interstate from my house in Tega Cay to downtown Charlotte was constantly littered with cars in ditches — and locals screaming: “Is this ice? Do y’all BELIEVE this is ice?”

Yes, that was record cold, as well — and by some distance.

YOU MIGHT be saying that these few oddities could happen to anyone.

So I’ve saved some things for the grand finale here.

I grew up in California, lived in or around San Francisco from birth to age 22.

In all that time, I remember two earthquakes — one that scared us kids in the seventh grade but really wasn’t much, and a second that barely made chandeliers sway in a San Jose restaurant.

So eventually I moved away for years and years — but then I got sent back home for just a few days to cover the 1989 World Series for the Kansas City Star.

You know what’s coming, right?

Sigh...

From a swaying rooftop press box high above Candlestick Park in San Francisco, I endured the infamous Loma Prieta quake (7.1 on the Richter scale, if you’re counting), that horrendous temblor that saw highways collapse and a chunk of the Bay Bridge fall completely loose.

No exaggerating here, I believed I would die that night.

I’m telling you, this is all on me.

When I show up someplace, bizarre stuff happens and it’s never much fun.

So blame me for the rain.

And before you say my run of curses wasn’t THAT bad, give me a final drum roll...

When I joined the Air Force after college, my first duty base was in Topeka, Kansas.

Before I’d completely unpacked, the worst tornado in the city’s history cut the place in half — leaving 17 people dead and buildings torn apart like matchsticks.

The following night, I was stationed on a street corner in a ruined section of Topeka, in full Tactical Air Command battle dress — with a loaded M-16 rifle and shoot-to-kill orders — as authorities took the ultimate stance to prevent looting.

Now...

You still think I have nothing to do with this?

In another era, I’d already have been burned at the stake for witchcraft.

So I suggest you stock the larder for winter.

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Steve Cameron is a special assignment reporter for The Press. Reach Steve at [email protected].