Incoherent Ramblings: The Weather Report

The weather in Frostburg, Maryland, is, to use a single word, difficult. To use another, perhaps more accurate, word; the weather in Frostburg is bewildering. For some three and a half odd years I’ve seen it first hand. Seventy degree days in November, snow in late April, school canceled because the air outside is just short of being cold enough to freeze the various liquids in your eyeballs. These are just a few of the types of strange weather patterns that plague Frostburg and the surrounding areas. Up until recently I thought that it was just a part of life, a combination of complex meteorological effects that lead to this section of the Appalachian Mountains to have four seasons in a week. Little did I know how wrong I was.

It’s actually more like five seasons. The combination of summer and winter at one moment , which I call Sumter (not to be confused with the fort that was a medium-sized part of the American Civil War) is real. Wait. No, it’s not. I just looked it up on the internet. There’s no name for it. Whatever.

All that being said, earlier this week I was sure that I had found sinister reasons for the Burg’s strange weather while I was taking a leisurely stroll through the arboretum. The air was crisp enough for me to exude little puffs of vapor with each exhalation. The leaves of the various trees were turning their various colors, and all in all it was a very pleasing experience. As I came towards the center of the wooded pathway I found myself pleasantly disturbed by several trees that seemed to be in full bloom as if a very nice looking young sapling, foliaged to the nines, and with many years of seed bearing ahead of it, appeared out of nowhere. There was no such tree might I add, just older trees that were unaffected by whatever was going on with these Viagra trees, who were ready to settle down and do whatever it is trees do during winter – gather energy for the upcoming year I suppose. The only actual conclusion I could see was that there must have been a secret society of meteorologists who were working in the area at creating an actual weather-controlling device, similar to the one from the original animated G.I. Joe movie. Granted, if there was such a society making such a device they would most likely use it to insure that their predictions were never wrong and not for world domination. But really how much of a jump is it from improving your ratings to global conquest?

Back to the trees. Being a man of intrigue I began to examine the trees. Upon closer inspection it came to my attention that these were evergreen trees, and that I was an idiot.

My own personal insanity aside, I remember the exact moment I knew that the citizens and students of Frostburg had incurred the wrath of a weather god with a sense of humor. It was in the second semester of my freshman year. The winter was winding down and while it hadn’t been particularly harsh, I was able to see why people thought that Frostburg wasn’t named after Meshach Frost. For the few months beforehand, however, all of my older, more experienced friends continuously warned me that weather in the Burg wasn’t just a little on the cold side but downright weird. I didn’t believe them. I knew everything. Sure weather could kill you, but how strange could it get? That’s when it snowed six inches in April, which I could honestly handle. What I couldn’t handle was when all of that accumulated snow was gone the next day. All of it. Not a trace of frozen water to be found outside of refrigerators. I’ll admit that I was scared. I thought I had gotten myself into some type of horrible weather based curse. Nope, it’s just Frostburg. Just good old Frostburg.