Post by Meteorologist Ryan Wichman.

I had to repost this. I worked as a railroad bridge operator for 4 years in the middle of The Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio.  I worked at the mouth of the River as it empties into Maumee Bay on Lake Erie. This was the view this morning, looking west away from Lake Eerie, up river at the Anthony Wayne Bridge, where it was perhaps -15 Celsius.  I remember all too well being in the bridge house at 7 am in the morning as a blizzard roared down from the west. The screen doors and loose propane tanks blew off into the river and I was enveloped in a cloud of steam and snow. The steam actually occurred because the air temperature was so much colder than the river. I was stuck out there for 2 days before any one could relieve me. Here, in France, this winter, it has simply rained and rained and rained some more. I've only seen a few frosty mornings, but every rier and stream is over it's banks and all the flat fields are flooded. It's unusually cold in Toledo and way too warm here. It is interesting to see world weather charts. The arctic air is channeled through North America in a sort of climate amplification system. That explains why the center of America has such violent weather. It's extremely cold in the winter and very hot in the summer and the violent extreme changes and topography explain the particularly midwestern tornado phenomena. The polar air is channeled into the south, where it propels the air over the mid Atlantic ocean and creates the energy that gives us in Europe relatively warm rainy winters. It's just that this year it is warmer and rainier than I have ever seen it and we have broken all rainfall records and it is, now, officially. the warmest winter ever recorded