What a strange winter this has been! The winter of 2011-2012 will go down as one of the most unpredictable in years. In the American Northeast, we had a major snowstorm a couple of days before Halloween. Around six inches fell in New York, New Jersey, and parts of Pennsylvania. Close to a foot fell in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Even more snow blanketed areas farther north.1 Though there was still another seven weeks of autumn left, many expected that this was a pre-cursor to a rough winter.
Well, with spring in sight, I can say that this has been the mildest winter I have ever experienced. New York has had only two snowfalls since then—both of which were little more than dustings. And the temperature barely dropped below 32 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the whole season.
Of course, if you are reading this in the American or Canadian Northwest, you’ve probably never seen as much snow as you have this year. The town of Cordova, about 150 miles east of Anchorage, Alaska, received about 18 feet of snow during one stretch in early January.2 Eastern Europe has experienced a cold-spell drubbing not felt in our lifetimes.3
All of this has added to the usual round of mocking that the poor meteorologists are subjected to this time of year. The fact is, however, that meteorology has become a sophisticated science, and the field saves many lives each year.
In April of 2011, we saw the greatest outbreak of tornado activity in recorded history.4 From April 25 through April 28, 343 tornados were confirmed by the National Weather Service.5 Twenty-one states across the Union and one province in Canada were struck. 321 people lost their lives. Yet, as terrible as that number is, far more might have been lost. The National Weather Service was able to issue tornado warnings at least 20 minutes ahead of time for 90% of the tornados.6 There is no doubt this reduced the loss of life.
It has been only in relatively recent times that mankind has begun to understand how weather patterns work. The science of weather is a lot younger than some peer fields in the earth sciences. Central to meteorology is the water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle. This cycle is based on the premise that the oceans and lakes are ultimately the source of the precipitation we see in the world, whether it is in the form of rain, snow, hail, or sleet. In short, oceanic (and lake) evaporation is the source of the world’s precipitation.
One of the earliest to theorize this was a Roman architect and engineer by the name of Marcus Vitruvius who lived in the first century BC. Leonardo da Vinci came to the same conclusion 1,500 years later. Proof however wouldn’t come until the pioneers of modern hydrology came on the scene in the persons of Pierre Perrault (1608-1680), Edme Mariotte (1620-1684), and Edmund Halley (1656-1742).7
“By measuring rainfall, runoff, and drainage area, Perrault showed that rainfall was sufficient to account for the flow of the Seine. Mariotte combined velocity and river cross-section measurements to obtain discharge, again in the Seine. Halley showed that evaporation from the Mediterranean Sea was sufficient to account for the outflow of rivers flowing into the sea.”8
It wasn’t until the seventeenth century that modern science proved oceanic evaporation to be the source of the world’s precipitation—which is absolutely profound.
Now I find this of particular interest: over 2,650 years earlier, King Solomon wrote: “All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; to the place from which the rivers come, there they return again” (Eccl. 1:7).
Imagine that! The water cycle was in the Bible all along! Solomon, moved by the Holy Spirit, wrote that the place the rivers return to (namely, the oceans and seas) is ultimately the source of those very rivers. It’s just what Perrault, Mariotte, and Halley found so many centuries later.
The prophet Amos records a very similar thought in approximately 750 BC: “The Lord’s home reaches up to the heavens, while its foundation is on the earth. He draws up water from the oceans and pours it down as rain on the land. The Lord is His name!” (Amos 9:6, NLT)
The Bible is a supernaturally engineered book whose Author transcends our time-space-matter universe. He is the One who created the universe and set its laws in motion. This includes the earth and its associated water cycle. Thus, He could casually mention these details in passing, centuries before any of His creatures figured it out. Yet more evidence showing the Bible is the Word of God! – Robert Sullivan
endnotes
1 http://wxch.nl/Oct2011Storm
2 http://bit.ly/digging-out-alaska-storm
3 http://bit.ly/thousands-trapped-snow
4 http://bit.ly/april25-28_2011-tornado
5 http://1.usa.gov/zv7fbo
6 http://wxbrad.com/?p=1107 (source NOAA)
7 http://bit.ly/new-world-encycl-hydrology
8 http://bit.ly/new-world-encycl-hydrology
Photo?/?Graphic sources:
http://istockpho.to/water-cycle-illustration
http://bit.ly/pumpkin-snow-hat
http://bit.ly/corova-driveway-snow
http://bit.ly/tornadoes-in-alabama
http://on.doi.gov/xTF3dl
If you would like to learn more on this topic, please visit the Christian Evidences website at www.christianevidences.org
Christian Evidences also has a Facebook page:www.facebook.com/christianevidences