756 Remember how deep snow was when you were a kid?

Up to your knees, maybe your waist? Ha--gotcha! Last night on ABC News they told us the snow really was deeper in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and then the weather pattern changed. We got some big storms in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, but not often. My own children remember primarily the winters of 1977 and 1978 when schools were closed here in Columbus. I have photos of my dad in Illinois shoveling snow off their roof. John Stolzenbach, one of our pastors, was a Columbus school teacher back then, and I remember they did a special program on TV for the school children stuck at home, and he was one of the hosts.

So what’s up with the weather? Apparently, not global warming. Experts were interviewed for the weather story last night--and whooda thunk it--they disagreed on what was causing it!

"We believe the weather pattern we are currently in is very similar to what we saw in the 1940's, fifties and sixties; that is, a log of extremes," says [Bernie] Rayno [Accuweather.com].

He looks not just at today's snowstorm, but at the entire weather picture for the past year — hurricanes, tornadoes, mudslides in California, and bitter cold in the Midwest.

"The overall weather pattern we see over a given amount of time, a given amount of years also fluctuates," says Rayno. "And right now we do believe we are in a cycle that will lend itself to a lot of extremes over the next five to ten years." It is reminiscent, he says, of what happened in those earlier decades. In 1947, for example, New York City suffered one of its worst blizzards ever, 25 inches of snow that paralyzed the city for days.”

In the Chicago Tribune they reported what dumped on the city and then moved on east: “The storm raged on as it moved quickly through Ohio and Pennsylvania, continuing to dump up to a foot of snow far north of its path. The storm was expected to further intensify off the New Jersey coast, and blizzard warnings were issued for a good portion of New England, including New York and Boston, where snowfalls up to 20 inches were forecast.”

Our daughter called last night from Cleveland where they were visiting her in-laws. “Mom! They know how to handle snow in Cleveland,” she told me breathlessly. “We’ve had a foot of snow in the last 24 hours, the streets are clear and we’re going over to [cousins] for pizza. ‘Sposed to get more tonight. How much have you had?” “About 1.5 inches,” I sighed. “The town’s a mess and all sorts of things were cancelled.”

Some things about winter in central Ohio never change.