This is the craziest winter. I grew up in Texas where the seasons, let alone the weather, can change in five minutes. From there, I went to Alaska where winter is a way of life. There, insane things are expected, but the winter of 2013-2014 in LA, Lower Alabama beats anything I have ever seen.

One day, the temperature is in the teens, the next day, in the 50s. This past week we had sub-freezing temperatures with rain, sleet, and snow, then sunshine and temperatures in the 70s four days later. I lamented to the Admiral that we were still too far north. Then the weekend came and things were back to “normal.”

The weather prognosticators dance around that word with such phrases as, “more seasonable” and “in line with historic data.” That is weather person speak for, “We don’t have a clue as to what is going on.”

I am for redefining “normal” when it comes to weather. Instead of describing the weather in terms of years and decades, maybe it should refer to months, or in the case of recent events, weeks or days. There is nothing normal about what has been happening atmospherically as of late.

The summers are hotter, the rain ceases for months one year, then drowns the garden the next, the winters are colder, and all these events are setting records, all spitting in the face of the concept of normal. One hurricane season, we are on the ready every day, the next, only one warning, and that didn’t drop enough rain to wet the pavement.

Have you noticed this year that weather people are naming winter storms? I think they are doing so to appear to be in control. If you give a storm a name, as we do pets, it humanizes the beast and it becomes somehow manageable. Then we have compassion for poor little Leon as he shuts down the south for three days.

When I started to write the English language, I was confused as to how and when to use the words “whether” and “weather.” I theorized to a very frustrated teacher that the word “weather” had its root in “whether” and the words were interchangeable because, “Folks don’t know as of a morning ‘whether’ it will be hot or cold, but misspelled it as ‘weather’, and we are stuck with it.” She didn’t buy it.

“Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it,” is a quote attributed to Mark Twain, and later used by Will Rogers. Both Twain and Rogers would have a field day this past week. I wish I was as clever as they to come up with tongue-in-cheek humor to explain the recent weather, but I am not in their league. I do have a few observations however.

I am for eliminating weather forecasts. They change every 20 minutes anyway, and if there was no prognostication, there would be no prognosticators, but that would put a lot of people out of work. I guess that is not such a good idea, but it would be interesting to live as folks did a 100 years ago. It would make us all a lot more observant and would raise weather discussions in the barbershop a few decibels as forecasting was debated.

I haven’t heard from the global warming doom-sayers this winter. I am sure they would spout some mumbo-gumbo that the weather is colder this winter because the polar icepack is receding, because the ozone hole is confused, and that does something, causing this, then that, making it not rain, and be cold while it is hot, and snowing, and clouds do this while the jet stream causes the Gulf Stream to do that. Got all that? No, me neither.

At some point, we all learn that weather is weather, and you can’t do a thing about it. If you don’t like it, it’ll change, just like last week. Pick one, cold or hot. In LA, you can have both in the same week.

David Wilson Atwood is a local writer whose human-interest columns offer a unique perspective. He may be contacted at: www.starchasers.us.