EXORDIUM BY WAYNE NIELSEN
W
elcome to Issue 98, our Global Outlook edition.
Our pipes to the back bathroom froze the night my daughter’s boyfriend mistakenly shut the dripping tap.
We had been seeing record breaking cold for more than a week, and had kept the bathroom operational throughout until that night. I had even walked my Chocolate Lab in my full ski apparel – wind pants included – because it was so darn cold; we only went half our usual distance. Every year we seem to get a new cool name for the extreme winter weather. In year’s past we have had a “Polar Vortex,” “Northeaster” and “Sharknado,” though I may be mixing the latter with a cult classic. This year, we had a “Bomb Cyclone” that 2
dumped snow across the region and down the eastern part of Virginia, and then all the way up the coast. What pray tell is a Bomb Cyclone? According to Mr. Google, it is an “explosive cyclogenesis (also referred to as a weather bomb, meteorological bomb, explosive development, Bomb Cyclone or bombogenesis) that refers in a strict sense to a rapidly deepening extratropical cyclonic low-pressure area.”
Cool name.
It reminds me of one of my favorite lines from The English Patient, where Almásy describes various winds, saying: “Let me tell you about winds. There is a whirlwind in Southern Morocco, the Aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. The Ghibli from Tu-