Freakish weather

The 2004 movie “The Day After Tomorrow” showed how climate change has gradually and drastically disrupted weather patterns to the extreme, causing massive floods and freezing temperatures that killed thousands in the US.

What happened in Pinagmungajan town, western Cebu last Thursday was nothing short of a freak weather accident, said senior weather analyst  Al Quiblat of the Mactan office of the state weather bureau Pagasa.

A whirlwind—which in itself is rare, not unusual in this tropical country—is accompanied by a flurry of hail stones that battered houses and sent residents scampering for safety.

Though no one was injured, the weather phenomenon shook residents enough for them to stay inside to wait out the hail storm. The hail stones looked like small shards of ice that one finds in a refrigerator’s freezer section and if last Thursday’s storm lasted any longer, it would have done serious damage.

The chances of that happening again in Pinagmungajan or anywhere else in Cebu next year, let alone later this year? Probably as remote as hitting the mega lotto jackpot, but last Thursday’s phenomenon confirmed the fears of even the average arm chair weather observer; that global warming brought by incessant pollution has screwed up climate patterns enough for tropical countries like the Philippines to experience seasons usually associated with their (literally and figuratively) colder neighbors from across the globe.

Time can only tell whether that would be a good or bad thing but for sure, more of the same will happen unless Filipinos and the rest of the world do something to  stop the further scrambling of the planet’s weather patterns.

While Cebuanos may dream of a white Christmas right in their own backyard as a result of last Thursday’s freak weather anomaly, it won’t be a good thing for the farmers and fisherfolks who rely on steady, warm weather to raise and harvest their crops and to get their daily catch.

Not that one would expect the hail storm and whirlwind to become a regular occurrence anytime soon. Yet last Thursday’s weather anomaly showed to a large extent that humanity’s continuing disregard for the pollution they inflict on the planet would result in Nature making its payback through floods, El Niño, La Niña and hail storms, whirlwinds and God forbid, tornadoes.

The Cebu Archdiocese was quick to remind the Catholic faithful that the hail storm was not a “wrath of God” type of incident intended to punish them for whatever wrongdoings they or their neighbors committed.

Yet it was more than enough to make even the most apathetic stand up and take notice. It is a reminder to us all that we’ve not been taking care of the planet as well as we should.