The Current Seasons

In these recent years, the climate has changed. When I say that the climate has changed, I mean that the temperatures and the flow of seasons has changed. In the past, in my area, we had four distinct seasons. Summer, in which the temperature could get up to about 104 degrees Fahrenheit or about 40 degrees Celsius. There was also spring, which would bring tornados or hailstorms (hail is usually small ice balls that fall from the sky like rain). The autumn, which was always very cool and sometimes snowy, but it provided some of the more delicious foods that we all liked to eat. Then there was winter. In the winter it was always cold. The temperatures were always minus zero during the wintertime. When I was a kid, we had heavy snowstorms or blizzards every year. The electricity lines and the phone lines would regularly break, and we would have to live as if we were camping. This meant that there was NO electricity, no communication via phone, and of course there was no such thing as the internet. In the area that I grew up in, it was important to prepare for the winter, just the same as it is to prepare for typhoons in Okinawa. This was the standard when I was a child.

Nowadays, the weather in my home area is not what I remember. The summer is so much hotter and more humid than I remembered. We used to be able to just go under a tree or find some shade to be able to cool down. Now it feels like with no A/C you might die. The winter is not as severe as I remember it either. In recent years, there have been few heavy snowstorms, and blizzards seem to not be an issue these days. The spring and the autumn are generally the same as they used to be because they produce a lot of delicious food, and the weather is basically pleasant. However, there have been many events where there has not been enough rain during these seasons, and the harvests have not been able to produce as much food as in the past. Another problem of the reduced snow and rainfall is that the summers are too dry. They are so dry these days that there are forest fires in almost every state. It seems that, year by year, these fires grow in number, size and the damage that they produce.

I have seen very similar things in Japan as well. When I came here, which was in 1994, it used to snow every year. The seasons had predictability. These days, the seasons seem to be incorrect. For example, this year, it seems that the rainy season is in the very early spring. I am sure that everyone can agree that summer seems too long, and winter seems very short.

Kevin

Vocabulary
temperature (noun) - the measurement in degrees of how hot or cold a thing or place is
flow (noun) - the steady and continuous movement of something/somebody in one direction
distinct (adjective) - easily or clearly heard, seen, felt, etc.
blizzard (noun) – a very strong snowstorm
no such thing (idiom) - does not exist or is not possible
A/C (noun) – air conditioning