Jet Stream makes for wet summer

Wednesday was the kind of idyllic summer day that puts a spring in Doug Isaacson's step.

The sun was shining.

Birds were singing.

Happy people were milling about in shorts and sandals, chattering excitedly about the Fourth of July weekend, when they would gather with family and friends, fire up their grills, light a few firecrackers and drink a toast or two to the good fortune of being Americans and to have survived another spin around the sun.

It was only 9:30 a.m., and the mercury had already climbed to 67 degrees. The forecast said it was on its way to 78, maybe 80 by afternoon.

"It's going to be a gorgeous day," Doug said, adding that he was hosting a high-ranking military official for dinner and would be required to wear "at least an overcoat."

"So I guess I'll be sweltering later," he said with a chuckle.

I chuckled, too, but as I glanced out the window, my grin fizzled like a damp bottle rocket. Menacing clouds collected over Scranton like clumps of burnt hair in the sink of a discount cosmetology school. Minutes later, it was raining buckets.

Balmy North Pole

Doug assured me that it couldn't be all that bad, but that was easy for him to say.

Doug Isaacson is the mayor of North Pole, Alaska.

That's right.

North Pole. Alaska.

About 14 miles southeast of Fairbanks, 386 miles north of Anchorage, 2,347 miles north of Seattle and 140 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

Today's forecast for North Pole, Alaska, some 4,000 miles north of Northeast Pennsylvania: 81 degrees and mostly sunny.

The 2,099 hardy souls who call North Pole home have been enjoying a swell summer while folks here in our stiff neck of the woods have been tossing out tubes of sunscreen to make room for antidepressant and sinus medication storage.

My thoughts drift to North Pole whenever the weather here is miserable for more than a couple of days at a time. This is usually in the dead of winter, when the weather in North Pole - where the record low is minus 76 degrees - is occasionally warmer than ours.

Fun in the sun

They have summer in North Pole, too. On the longest day of the year, June 21, North Pole enjoys 21 hours and 49 minutes of daylight. Lately, sunset has been around midnight, Doug Isaacson said, adding there are no official Fourth of July fireworks displays in North Pole, because it never gets dark enough to enjoy them.

There is, however, a summer festival, which kicked off with a pancake breakfast at the senior center on Saturday morning. Greased pole climbing, bed races and a parade are also on the agenda.

And sun. Lots and lots of sun.

We'll get some here today, too, forecasters say, but how much is up in the air. A cold front forming in the Rocky Mountains may lumber through here tonight, drawn by a powerful, primordial urge to defile my swimming pool.

As pools go, it's pretty small, but deep enough to be expensive. Although I'm thankful to have it, any pool owner will tell you that above all, a pool is a hole in the ground into which you dump buckets of money.

Several times this so-called summer, I have poured gallons of costly chemicals into the pool, only to see them negated within hours by torrents of rain. The mosquitoes seem to like the water just fine. They're the size of Pomeranians. The pool area is like a rice paddy in Vietnam, without the charm.

Rainy season

While many locals are convinced this June was among the wettest in human history, the numbers tell a less dramatic tale, according to Tom Kines, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College.

June was wetter than usual - 4.6 inches recorded at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International as opposed to the average of 3.97 inches, Tom said. Weather stations in Binghamton, N.Y., and Mount Pocono reported 5.5 inches and 7.5 inches respectively, well above their averages, he said.

The real problem has not been how much it has rained, but how often, Tom said.

"It's rained so many days," that it's easy to understand why some believe this has been the wettest summer ever, he said. "We're getting into that time of year when normally it will rain every three or four days for about three hours, but we've been stuck in this prolonged period of cloudiness and showers."

The main culprit is the Evil Weather Phenomenon Known as The Jet Stream, Tom explained. It is the meteorological dividing line between cool and warm air, and we've been stuck on its bad side since late April. He doesn't expect that to change much any time soon.

"There's some hope that maybe towards the middle of (this) week, we may see a couple of days of warm weather," he said. "Over all, though, for the next 10 to 12 days I think we'll probably average out as near or below normal."

Call your Congressman

I hung up with Tom to learn that U.S. Sen. Bob Casey was in town to push for national health care. I'm all for it, but after his meeting with The Times-Tribune editorial board, I pressed the senator for results on a much more pressing matter.

"When are you people in Washington going to do something about the weather?" I asked him.

He laughed and said he often receives calls from constituents asking the same thing and does his best to give them the weather they want and need.

"I know the government has a weather machine," I countered. "Why don't you use it to help us?"

Mr. Casey claimed he had never heard of the HAARP radio transmitter array in a remote corner of Alaska, which many conspiracy theorists insist can be used to manipulate global weather, - and guide hungry aliens to specific houses when they finally come to harvest us for food.

"I'll look it up," he said with a grin.

Celebrating, remembering

An hour later, another cloudburst soaked the city. It was over quick, but nasty enough to clear the street. It took me back to one of the last summer afternoons I spent with my father, who left us four years ago.

He was in a nursing home recovering from surgery, and the staff was hosting a barbecue in the parking lot. It was moved inside when a sudden thunderstorm rolled up. You haven't truly experienced claustrophobia until you've been jammed into the "community room" of a nursing home with a couple of hundred damp people in wheelchairs.

Dad managed to hang onto a pair of hot dogs during the scramble for shelter. I begged him to take it slow, but he woofed them down like they were the last he'd ever see.

That weekend, we brought him home to be with the family. We had steaks, a few laughs and a lot of memories. A week later, he was gone.

Dad died before we bought the house, and Mom is back home near Pittsburgh today. We'll miss them both, but we'll have other family and friends over to lounge around the rice paddy.

Rain or shine, we'll fire up the grill, light a few firecrackers and drink a toast or two to the good fortune of being Americans and to have survived another spin around the sun.

Then we'll all complain about the weather.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, wishes you and yours a safe, happy Fourth of July. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com