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Monday, April 14, 2025

The Labeling of Things

One of my favorite things about people is the way we feel personally victimized by the weather. (Why yes, there is rain in today's forecast.) Humans have created years, and then subdivided years into quarters, and assigned each quarter a season. Are there any studies that say that seasons last three months in every single part of the globe, or even any? Not that I'm aware of. But once we assigned these things, we then are consistently affronted when the weather does not cooperate. We track highs and lows. Create charts and data visualizations, and judge whether the weather has fallen into our expectations. 
It is spring where I am. We have had warm days and cool days. The cool day that follows a warm day always feels so much cooler. On one such day a gentleman on a street corner yelled, "The weatherman lied," at the sky. 
Everyone seems sure the weather where they live is more unpredictable, more changeable than the weather everywhere else. Climate change has, of course, affected when and how weather changes. 
But given there's a Mark Twain quote about weather changing unpredictably, it seems weather has been befuddling us all for at least a century or two.  
Hope the weather is within expectations for you today.