Vermont Views Hang On--Is It Really Getting Colder?

Author: Liz Lathey

As September slips by, we all enjoy the last of the warm weather before it gets cold again. For most students here, the weather now is the nicest it gets before we have to bundle up for the below-zero wind chills of the winter that we all know and love. However, Vermont actually got very hot this summer, which some attributed to an overall global rise in temperature. I know that I noticed a significant increase in temperature this summer from others previous. This is not to say I'm complaining: I love hot weather. But the unseasonable warmness of Vermont is causing many to question how imminent the problem of global warming really is.
I am one of many people who had not given much thought to global warming. The weird lack of snow last winter, however, was something that really made me start thinking about it.
Memories of trudging through hip-high (knee-high on the non-vertically challenged) snow in my Catholic school skirt with winds whipping around me at millions of miles an hour were not recreated last winter. This is partly due to the fact that I threw away that skirt on the last day of eighth grade, and also that there just was not as much snow last winter as we have seen in other years.
And, although it was cold last winter, it was not nearly as cold as it has been in the past. I can remember very clearly going snowboarding early on in high school where the wind-chill factor was 50 below. Needless to say, we spent about as much time in the lodge as on the mountain. Last winter, I didn't even have to wear that many layers on my frequent Winter Term journeys to the Snow Bowl, much less go inside between every run to thaw out.
As fall and winter approach this year, we are all waiting to see what the weather will bring. Many students will soon start their daily prayers to the snow gods for good skiing and riding conditions. Others may appreciate the lack of snow and be thankful for warmer weather.
Although I prefer warmer temperatures, I think I will be among the former; Vermont is supposed to be cold. I guess I'd rather have cold weather than a global temperature problem. That I don't have to wear a skirt in the middle of December anymore probably helps.