Don't take these beautiful days for granted

When the temperature flirts with a divine 85 on August Eve, take a moment to think of this:

The Winter from Hell that’s been forecast by climatologist Cliff Harris and Press meteorologist Randy Mann is now possibly only four or five months away and creeping closer by the day.

Going back more than a decade, back to when the record snows of the Wicked Winter of 07-08 were still melting, Harris predicted that sometime around 2019 to 2021, a bigger, badder, snowier winter was headed our way.

The 170 or so inches that caved in roofs and blew snowblowers out stores’ doors with hurricane force might end up being considered little more than a snow flurry on steroids. Is 200 inches possible in Kootenai County? What would that look like? More to the painful point, what would that feel like?

As Cliff so often says, only time will tell. But these two seasoned weather professionals see signs aligning in the direction of copious quantities of frozen H20 either this coming winter or next. If you don’t own an industrial strength shovel or a trusty snowblower, you might just peruse the Press ads and see who’s got something sweet on sale this summer.

We know, we know. What kind of malicious editorialist would interrupt this sunshine daydream with a frozen forecast from the imagination of Stephen King or Edgar Allan Poe?

Well, there is something to be said about communities getting the stuffing knocked out of them by Mother Nature. When that happens, they pull together against the common foe. And it doesn’t matter which symbols they display on their vehicles, politicians they revere or churches they frequent. When we’re all buried, the only way out is helping one another.

So with that positive thought firmly planted, we now return you to paradise on yet another gorgeous summer day in North Idaho.