Blizzards, rampaging floods, lashing hurricanes whipping up waves the height of seven-story buildings.
Something is DRASTICALLY WRONG with the weather!
What does it all mean?
SCREAMING headlines are pointing up alarming changes in the weather. "Century's Worst Cold Wave Smashes South," "Blizzards Lash Britain; Rhine River Freezes," "Temperatures Plunge to Sub-zero in Japan," "Midwest Locked in Arctic Nightmare," "Argentina Suffers Worst Drought of the Century."
And all this from the past few weeks, in a winter that is not yet over.
Try to picture in your mind the absolutely mixed-up, crazy-quilt pattern of floods, windstorms, rain, snow, cold. Then heat waves that have been hitting our nation and much of the southern hemisphere recently. On one day alone, February 2, just about every extreme condition possible in the weather wracked the United States. Gales and floods swept through the Northwest; record heat baked the Southwest. Arctic cold and a snow front blanketed the Northeast, and thunderstorms and a hard freeze afflicted the Southeast — ALL ON THE SAME DAY.
Two main factors characterize our present-day weather — EXTREMISM and COMPLETE UNPREDICTABILITY! Drought conditions are broken overnight by torrential rains, producing rampaging floods. Temperatures plummet 50 or 60 degrees in a matter of hours, only to rise from sub-zero depths to above freezing marks, often on the following day.
This winter has been the worst in Great Britain in nearly 300 years! Geography Professor Gordon Manley in London reports that not since 1684 — and that is almost a century before the independence of the United States — have the British Isles taken such a beating.
Cecil Tibbitt, an amateur forecaster from Terrington, St. Clement, England, who accurately predicted the bitter cold wave last September, says the coming summer months will not provide any relief. He says they will be "hotter than we've ever seen. People will be dying from the heat and it will be anything from 80 to 100 degrees in the shade." Tibbitt also predicts "water rationing in Britain by June." (United Press International release, February 3, 1963. Emphasis mine throughout article)
Hot, scorching summers, frigid, death-dealing winters!
You may not have realized it, but never before in recent history has there been such a concentration of cold weather. "The coldness of the present winter throughout the free world," reported the New York Times on January 24, 1963, "has been UNPARALLELED, UNEXAMPLED, and UNPRECEDENTED in the memory of veteran observers."
Let's Understand Why
It is time that we understand what these totally abnormal conditions mean. Few people will admit that the Bible has anything to do with present-day world problems. Fewer still realize that Jesus Christ said that utterly chaotic weather upsets would be ONE OF THE MAIN SIGNS pointing to. His return. His disciples knew that He was going to come again, unlike the vast majority today. They asked Him what conditions would prevail before His coming. "What shall be the sign of thy coming," they asked, "and of the end of the world?" — this age, this society of man governed contrary to the laws of God (Mat. 24:3).
Christ replied that first "many shall come in my name (not just the "obvious" few), saying I am Christ." These would come claiming to be His representatives, claiming that He is the Christ, but denying the message that He brought, the good news of the Kingdom — the reign — of God. Next, verse 6, He said there would come "wars and rumors of wars." What could more accurately pinpoint our cold-war era, with its constant eruption of "brushfire" wars, fought under the constant overhanging threat of all-out nuclear annihilation?
Now notice verse 7 — "and there shall be FAMINES and PESTILENCES and earth quakes in divers places." Famines and pestilences are the direct results of disasters in the weather, especially droughts, floods — and FREEZING COLD. Few have thought of this latter factor before. Not until the devastating Florida and Gulf Coast freeze this December had people realized what a death-dealing blow a wide-spread freeze can deal to agriculture and to the economy of a nation.
Wiped out almost overnight was 80% of Florida's $500 million citrus crop. Destroyed were 78 MILLION BOXES OF FRUIT! Think of that fantastic figure! Altogether 78 million boxes! Do you remember the last Florida freeze, in the winter of 1957-1958? That cold spell destroyed well under half this amount!
Throughout other parts of the South, agriculture losses were heavy. Unharvested autumn vegetables in South Texas were declared by Agriculture Department officials as a total loss. Livestock was also hard hit. In Alabama, broiler growers alone suffered damages up to $3 million dollars. The governor of Alabama urged that his state be declared a disaster area.
The same alarming conditions are prevailing in Europe. Winter crops in southern France, Italy and usually sunny Sardinia have been almost wiped out. Farmers in the Marmande region of France reported almost 100 per cent losses in cabbage, cauliflower and carrots.
Hitting Your Pocketbook!
Wherever you happen to live, you have already noticed the effects of the disastrous freeze. Such items as oranges, grapefruits, tangerines, tomatoes, green peppers and cucumbers are selling for nearly twice as much as a year ago in some sections of the United States. Prices on some produce have even tripled.
Not only that, the quality of the fruits and vegetables surviving the freeze has been very poor in many instances. Said one wholesaler concerning his market, "I've never seen a worse situation, and I've been buying for 30 years. It's as though the juice was pulled right back into the tree."
Another vital point to remember is that the effects of a bitterly cold winter such as we are now experiencing do not stop with the first sign of spring, but rather intensify. Heavy snow cover, unable to seep into the frozen soil, melts fast under the first good spring thaw. Result — devastating multi-million dollar run-off floods and a lowering of the underground water table at the same time.
Make no mistake about it. What you are now witnessing is not only one of the worst winters in history, but also a ground-laying phase of the horrible famines and disease epidemics prophesied to occur in the near future!
Just How Bad Has It Been?
Let's take a quick review of just what has happened so far in this violent winter of 1962-1963. Not in living memory has the weather map presented such an incredible picture of nation-wide record low temperatures. Fantastic 50 below zero readings were recorded in Wisconsin and parts of the Mountain States; an almost incomprehensible 40 below at Cresco, Iowa — with two other Iowa towns, Decorah and Elkader, not far behind with respective marks of 38 below and 34 below. Des Moines residents suffered through 17 straight days of subzero readings, matching a 51-year-old record.
America's Southwest has rarely if ever seen such a winter. A marrow-freezing 39 below stunned Las Vegas, New Mexico. Maverick, Arizona recorded the lowest temperature in the history of that state, with a — 37°.
In the South the chilling statistics become almost unbelievable. Somerset, Kentucky, registered a 28 below reading, while Kingston Springs, Tennessee recorded an unofficial minus 30.
Still further south, a record low for this century was set in Atlanta, where residents of the Georgia metropolis shivered in — 3 degree weather. Tupelo, Mississippi, with 2 below, couldn't escape the sub-zero blast either. Even down to the Texas Gulf area, temperatures plunged into the teens.
Accompanying the bitter cold in several places have been record snowfalls. "One of the worst blizzards of modern times," as the UPI expressed it — piling snow up to 20 feet high, and pushed along by 75-mile-an-hour-winds — buried sections of northern Maine and New Hampshire in late December. The "Bangor Daily News" was forced to temporarily suspend publication — the first time that had happened in its entire 125-year history.
"Heat-Wave" In Alaska
While the bulk of the United States was a veritable icebox, Juneau, Alaska recorded a "balmy" 33 above, and Anchorage had a plus 32.
And California — for a while, at least — wished it had some of New York State's snow for its barren Sierra Nevada peaks, as it suffered through the driest year of its history. An outdoor tennis tournament instead of the normal winter sport life was staged at Squaw Valley, site of the 1960 Olympics. The desire for precipitation wasn't long in being fulfilled, overfull-filled, that is, as torrential rains soon shattered the drought in the northern half of the state and neighboring Nevada. The rampaging waters of the Truckee River surged through the streets of Reno. Homes had to be evacuated in the famous wine town of Napa, California, and other localities of the Bay Area.
As the massive front moved inward to drench the whole western third of the nation, disaster signals went up from communities in Utah and southern Idaho as well.
Yes, there is no balance whatsoever in our present weather patterns. We suffer through drought, only to be greeted with near-monsoon rains.
And World-Wide
Europe has been suffering through weather equaling, and some areas surpassing, that experienced in North America. Let's see just a few of the outstanding news releases just as they were received here in the Ambassador College News Bureau over the wires of United Press International. "Critical fuel shortages were reported today all over Western Europe, refrigerated since Christmas by a cold wave which in some places was the worst in nearly 300 years.
"Communist-held Eastern Europe also had its difficulties. Snow-smothered Bulgaria proclaimed a state of emergency. East Germany closed non-essential factories and drafted employees for emergency service as miners, truck drivers and power workers. . .
"In Rotterdam, where heavy ice had given drinking water a salty tinge, fresh water could be obtained only on a doctor's prescription. Some gondoliers in Venice had to be rescued from ice 6 inches thick."
Another dispatch from London, same date, reported the following:
"Europe's bitter cold wave, one of the worst known, darkened Buckingham Palace Wednesday and cracked water pipes in the once balmy cities of Rome and Naples. . . Twenty dead were counted in Italy, some in unheated homes and others who tried to stay with their outdoor jobs. Sicily's palm trees stood in 18 in. of snow. Schools were closed in hundreds of Italian villages. . .
"Britain had zero temperatures in the night and moved into a new record with its 34th day of freezing weather. Truck drivers lit fires under their vehicles to thaw them out. On one highway near London the spectacle was described by an automobile association patrolman as like a barbecue. . .
"The sea froze along the British shore in places. At Southampton, fish were caught and frozen in the ice, their heads jutting out. Starving seabirds swooped down to peck at them."