Weathermen don't always know what is going to happen, but there's no reason to worry

I am sitting at the desk in my home office just waiting for another round of winter.

In my little corner of central Kentucky, just under a foot of snow paid a visit on Monday. By late Tuesday afternoon, we were kind of digging out, but when I got up Wednesday morning, my driveway was covered again. By the time the snow stopped, we had another three or four inches of the white stuff.

This morning, Friday, Feb. 20, it took several cranks before my car finally sputtered a time or two, then started running. The weather app on my smart phone told me it was 19 degrees below zero.

By noon, we had warmed up 29 degrees to 10 above.

I guess it was just time for a heat wave, you know.

And I am now waiting for another storm.

According to the Lexington weatherman who I think could probably predict anything, this one is unpredictable. Whereas he's usually confident to make a call – and is usually dead-on – he kept saying things like, “We are unsure of how this one will develop.” He warned this one could have a wallop too, but how it would eventually dump the precipitation was unclear.

Snow? Ice? Sleet? Freezing rain? Rain only? A mix?

Just to see what someone else was saying, I switched to one of the Louisville channels to check out the weather forecast from the guy I watched when I lived in that market up until last April. His forecast was pretty much the same.

Snow? Ice? Sleet? Freezing rain? Rain only? A mix?

He wasn't completely sure, but said he could fine tune the forecast as the time got closer.

When I last checked their predictions a few minutes before starting this blog, they had both gotten much more specific, just a few hours ahead of the storm and it looks like I need to dig in for another major round of wet, heavy snow.

Some would try to explain the volatile nature of 2015's late winter storms on global warming, which makes no sense to me. The new term is climate change. I'm not enough of a scientist to know.

I do have enough experience to know that in my lifetime, central Kentucky has had a major winter storm about every five or six years. It rarely fails.

This one has shut everything down for a week and with the new storm coming, who knows how long it will be before we are completely back to normal.

The last time it was that way was in 2009 when we suffered a debilitating ice storm that was, in my opinion, much tougher to deal with than the one that hit on Feb. 16, 2015.

I don't have the exact dates but I remember another major ice storm in 2003 or 2004.

There was a big snow storm in 1998 that shut things down for several days.

In 1994, I made it through the toughest winter storm I ever remember enduring. It was so bad that the interstates were closed for a day or two. I had a farm at the time and it was so bad my tractor got stuck and I could not get fresh hay to my cattle. Temperatures were about 20 below and the wind was blowing. In sports terminology, that was a major league storm, all-star variety.

From 1985-94, I don't remember any major storms but do recall the temperatures dropping dramatically not long before Christmas in 1989. We had another major event on Feb. 1, 1985, when my father passed away. The road crews did a marvelous job clearing the road to the cemetery at that old country church we attended.

In 1978, winter delivered a punch no one will forget. It got so bad that the Ohio River froze. I was a student at Roanoke Bible College in North Carolina, but remember my parents sending a bundle of pictures and news clippings to show me what I had missed.

People older than me tell me about “the big one” at intervals just about the same as I have experienced.

You will never convince me the winter blasts like the ones I have endured this week are abnormal. They are an inconvenience, certainly, and because of our highly-mobile society, they might seem to be worse than in the past.

But they are part of the wonder of God's creation. They are simultaneously beautiful – in my book, nothing is prettier than a field of fresh snow – and a reminder that God is in control of the seasons.

Psalm 135:7 says, " He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses." (NIV)

Those weathermen I watch amaze me. Their ability to pinpoint what the weather will do, usually well in advance, is uncanny. They are right far more than not.

But this storm we are expecting tonight has had them baffled for a few days. They don't always know, just as I don't always know about what the future holds.

It reminds me of that great old gospel song by Ira Stanphill:

I don't know about tomorrow;
I just live from day to day.
I don't borrow from it's sunshine
For it's skies may turn to grey.
I don't worry o'er the future,
For I know what Jesus said.
And today I'll walk beside Him,
For He knows what is ahead.

Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand.

Every step is getting brighter
As the golden stairs I climb;
Every burden's getting lighter,
Every cloud is silver-lined.
There the sun is always shining,
There no tear will dim the eye;
At the ending of the rainbow
Where the mountains touch the sky.

I don't know about tomorrow;
It may bring me poverty.
But the one who feeds the sparrow,
Is the one who stands by me.
And the path that is my portion
May be through the flame or flood;
But His presence goes before me
And I'm covered with His blood.

Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand.