BY MARIE McCAIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Water pools on Eastern Avenue after a recent storm.
(Glenn Hartong photo)
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Fires race through tinder-dry Florida. Flash floods swamp New England. Thunderstorms rip the Tristate -- seemingly on a daily basis.
As spring gives way to summer, atmospheric experts say chaos is the nature of the weather beast.
It's not entirely the fault of El Nino.
Nor of the newly emerging La Nina, El Nino's colder counterpart.
"A lot of it is just the vagaries of the weather," said Martin Hoerling, a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's climate diagnostic center in Boulder, Colo.
"The buzzword is chaos," said Walter Robinson, an associate professor in the atmospheric sciences department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"The atmosphere is a chaotic system. There doesn't have to be a reason for why you get what you get."
For whatever reason, spring in the Tristate has been one of the wettest on record.
The National Weather Service in Wilmington recorded April's rainfall at 9.77 inches -- 6.02 inches above normal.
May fared no better, recording 5.12 inches, which is .84 inches above normal. We've already had 7.33 inches in June. That's 5.05 inches above normal.
Average temperatures were slightly below normal in April, above normal in May and they have been below normal so far in June. Whether summer, which starts Sunday, will bring relief from the rain remains to be seen.
AccuWeather senior meteorologist Bernie Rayno says probably not, at least not immediately.
Much of the Midwest has been covered by a puddle of cool air that sits in the middle and upper atmosphere, he said. As the warm seasons progress, direct sunlight is heating the air. The effect is like a hot-air balloon that rises through the colder air. The warm air collides with cold air to create rain.
"Thunderstorms are very tricky to predict this time of year," Mr. Rayno said.
"It's hard to say not only where they will occur, but how large an area they will cover.
"The summer temperatures will probably run into the 90-degree range and could dry things out."
For locals who live along waterways, such as Miami Township residents Mike Souders and Ron Valvano, preparing for wet weather has become old hat.
When Mr. Valvano first moved to East Miami River Road, the house he'd purchased was little more than a shack, sitting about 25 feet from the Great Miami River.
Though he knew the house would need much work, he figured it would be worth it because the area is quiet and quaint and he'd have a beautiful view of the waterway.
Little did he know how good a river view he'd get -- especially when it rained.
Nine years, thousands of dollars, a deck, and an addition later, Mr. Valvano has learned to pile his belongings on the first floor when it rains.
A couple of doors away, Mr. Souders has hired a contractor to build up his back yard and protect his house by dumping sand and concrete debris along his portion of the shoreline.
"The best analogy I can think of," Mr. Robinson said, "is if you take every week or month of weather and roll a pair of dice, you get what you get. Sometimes you get a string of six-six. It doesn't mean the dice are fixed.
"It's random. That's what this weather chaos means, and you can just have a run of bad luck."
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