Nurture Nature Center Tells Us Why the Weather's Bad

If you have ever wondered what that big wet thing between us and P'burg is, the Nurture Nature Center can tell you all about it.  

They can also tell you all about why every so often, it decides to come up into the center of town (and no, it is not to check out the Easton Farmers Market)  If you haven't been to the Nurture Nature Center yet, shame on you.  You are missing out on a tremendous resource that might just change the way you look at our rivers, our watershed and our weather.  

On Thursday night,  I had the pleasure of listening to a genuine National Weather Service Weatherguy, Gary Szatkowski, explain why our weather has sucked so much lately.  He didn't use the vernacular, of course.  

But, he did illustrate with graphs and charts (no really, it was fun.  He could really made that data sing!) how we have had the wettest weather in a 117 year period while Texas has had the hottest and driest weather in that same time frame.  Pretty heavy stuff, really.  He explained, with the help of The Sphere, how hurricanes are formed and how tricky it really is to predict and track them.  We also learned that this winter will probably not be nearly as crappy as the last couple.  But, Mother Nature is a fickle lady, no?

A brief word about (or just "the Sphere" as I like to call it).  It is perhaps the single most impressive bit of media technology I have seen since I first swiped a smartphone.  I admit, I have lived a rather sheltered life.  But this thing is cool.  There are only 70 of them in the world and it is right here in downtown Easton.  It really must be experienced.

But, back to the presentation.  Gary explained through the use of actual scientific data how our climate is actually changing over time.  Now, for those skeptics that are still out there, please sit down.  

This is not a conspiracy.  This is data.  Numbers make no judgments.  The people who interpret them do.  Gary, being a Very Good Scientist, did not make any disparaging remarks about your SUV's or about offshore drilling.  He was very respectful of the fact that people have differing interpretations of what the data actually mean.

 So before filling the comments section with ill informed rants, let me just say that the is the PERFECT place to have that discussion. They encourage dialog and community involvment.  They have access to actual scientists and metorologists.  They can talk to real live rocket scientists from NASA.  I'm not kidding.  They know people who have been to space...well, maybe not.  But, they can show you pictures of space.  And who doesn't love that?

Check out all the really cool programs coming up at the Nurture Nature Center website.