Global warming and the law of averages

It's been, by all accounts, a spring in Seattle that has been colder and wetter than usual. Last year, I am told, it was unusually warm. The year before that, in Boston, it was an exceptionally hot summer having just followed an unseasonably cold winter.

It is inevitable that I will one day experience weather that is perfectly average. I will greet my neighbor and say, "My, this is exactly the climate I was expecting." And she'll say, "Yes, Andy. Do you have something else to complain about?" "Of course."