Sixty in January? Is that crazy, or what?

It’s 60° and sunny today. Or as my local weatherman says, “it’s a beautiful day.” The problem is that today is January 30, and the average temperature for this time of year is 42°.

Don’t get me wrong, I can’t deny that it is very nice outside. I’m actually going to go outside and “enjoy” the “nice” weather after I post this.

But its 20 degrees warmer than normal and it’s going to stay this warm for the next five days. Much of this winter has been this warm, at least where I live (Lexington, Kentucky). We’ve had a few weeks of seasonable weather, or as the local TV reporters say, “miserable weather.”

Twenty degrees warmer than normal during the winter is a nice change when it happens every once in a while, but when it happens nearly every day, it’s a sign that something is wrong. The current conditions may be “nice” but this weather is actually worrying. It’s actually disconcerting. But it’s hard to convince people that it’s a problem when the meteorologist on TV gushes about how nice it is.

We will only convince people that climate change is real when TV meteorologists describe 60° in January as “freaky.”