Too Cold, Too Hot, Too Dry

By WALTER ISAACSON

From coast to coast, nature reminds everybody who's boss

There is, of course, a scientific explanation. A stubborn high-pressure system over the Rockies is keeping warm westerly winds trapped, while Siberian air masses come trundling over the North Pole and down the Eastern seaboard. Other observers, more seasoned, merely grumble that it is the cussed contrariness of Old Man Winter pulling one of his periodic bone-chilling acts on the East Coast. In any case, the record-breaking weather of the past month was, of course, all ordained last August when squirrels gathered nuts and spiders spun webs much earlier than usual.

This much is certain: oranges are freezing in Florida, winter wheat on the parched Midwestern plains is threatened by drought, schools are closed in Boston because of natural gas shortages, heatless New York City residents are being forced to seek shelter in municipally heated armories, and barges are running aground as the water level drops in the less-mighty-than-usual Mississippi. Anywhere one looked, it was too cold or too hot, and nearly everywhere it was too dry.

This much is history: the new President, flying in from his warmer clime, was inaugurated in freezing Washington amid water rationing in the unseasonably warm West, crippling natural gas shortages in the Northeast, and record-breaking cold as far South as Miami. The year was 1977, and a Washington meteorologist said: "Jimmy Carter's first confrontation as President will not be with the Russians, but with the weather." Just to assure that Ronald Reagan is similarly humbled by elements beyond his control, nature has conjured up another trial by ice and drought for a new Administration.

New England has been struck hardest by the cold, with record lows in every state. In East Haven, Vt, the temperature was heading toward a record -50DEG when the local weather station thermometer broke at -40DEG. Compounding the bone-chilling blast was a shortage of natural gas, particularly in Boston. Governor Edward King ordered businesses to set thermostats at 55DEG and closed all Massachusetts schools heated by natural gas. Says one utility executive: "He won't need to announce other actions if conservation doesn't work. There won't be any gas." Estimates are that an average New England family will pay up to twice as much on 1981 heating bills as they paid last year.

The chill has taken a heavy human toll as well. At least 46 people have died from weather-related causes since the cold wave became acute a month ago. A Dorchester, Mass., family placed plastic sheeting over windows to keep out the cold, using a portable gas heater for heat. Overcome by carbon monoxide, the father and a son died. Eight in Boston have already perished in fires this year, including an 18-month-old girl who knocked over a heater onto some newspapers.

In New York City, the cold has continued almost unabated since a sub-zero Christmas Day, and January temperatures have averaged 19.7DEG. Some stingy and cold-hearted "coldlords" were giving up trying to provide heat in rundown tenements, and a few had let boilers slip into disrepair--or even intentionally damaged them. Said City Heat Inspector Theodore Klopsis: "There is plenty of heating oil, but some landlords are deliberately turning off their boilers."

To help alleviate the suffering, the city opened two National Guard armories to refugees from heatless buildings. As many as 2,000 people--mainly mothers with young children--fled their frigid homes to sleep, eat, read, iron and pass the gloomy days on Army-issue cots. Elizabeth Martinez brought her two toddlers, ages 1 and 2, to an armory in Harlem. Said she: "They were getting sick with colds and fever all the time. My little one's hands were green and frozen from the cold. The water was frozen in the toilet bowl."

New York, like much of the U.S., is also suffering from a drought. In the Northeast, reservoirs are at 15-year lows, some less than one-third full. With only a 100-day supply of water, New York City officials are weighing mandatory restrictions. The Governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware met in Trenton last week to declare a drought emergency, banning nonessential water use.

The most disastrous economic effects of the cold wave were felt in Florida, where temperatures dropped to the mid-teens. The state's vegetable crop was almost totally destroyed. Ice formed in 90% of Florida's oranges, and only those immediately harvested and processed could be saved. Preliminary destruction is estimated at 20% of the state's orange crop, a loss of 49 million gal. of concentrated juice. Wholesale prices on canned concentrate immediately jumped 30%.

In the Midwest, temperatures were normal, but precipitation was not. The drought that plagued crops all last year is continuing, with little snow on the ground and low moisture content in the soil. Winter wheat needs the snow both for protection from cold and, come the spring thaw, for water. Even the Mississippi is hitting new low-water marks. The Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg has dredged the river at 18 locations this month. Still the river banks south of Memphis are a graveyard of grounded barges, and captains are lightening their loads by as much as a third to avoid scraping bottom.

The Rockies, where the dastardly high is centered, have also remained especially dry. The best snow at many ski resorts in the region is manmade. At Colorado's Crested Butte, in fact, there is a special type of man-made snow. One day last week resort operators there enlisted a band of Ute Indians to do a snow dance. Sure enough, there was an unexpected snowfall by morning.

Throughout the West, unseasonably high temperatures are making even artificial snow hard to keep and migratory birds hard to get rid of. In the Denver suburb of Aurora, golf courses have been plagued by hundreds of Canada geese, apparently deceived by the balmy weather into thinking they have reached Mexico. "It's wall-to-wall geese," says Bruce Waldo, the parks and recreation director.

The National Weather Service says that many areas of the country may get some precipitation soon, but that the Rocky Mountain high is still expected to keep weather warm in the West and frigid in the East. The service prognosticates in meteorologese: "The 30-day outlook is for temperatures to average below seasonal normals over the Eastern third of the nation . . . Above-normal averages are indicated for areas west of the continental divide."

A less orthodox expert, Edward D. McCarthy, has been observing nature's perversity for 70 winters now, and thinks there is something to be learned from it. He lives in Galeton (pop. 1,500), nestled in a canyon of the Pine River in northern Pennsylvania. "The river is frozen harder than the shady side of a banker's heart," he told TIME Correspondent Dean Brelis. "The rapids are silent, as if they're in an ice-cold grave. There have been no bear tracks for 20 days. God and Lady Nature have whispered in their ears and they're in absolute hibernation. My prayer is for snowflakes aplenty and rain in abundance. All these flush toilets man has created gobble up the water. To find a decent spring a digger must go down 100 feet in the valleys. Nature is telling us that man's abuse is killing the environment." Others will no doubt draw different lessons. But in a week of Inauguration and a promised new beginning, nature has again served notice of its capricious power.

--Walter Isaacson

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