HOW HOT WAS IT?

The numbers are in: 2012, the year of a blistering March heat wave, a severe drought in the Corn Belt and a massive storm that caused broad devastation in mid-Atlantic states, turns out to have been the hottest year ever recorded in the contiguous United States.

Write a poem about the environment.
In the USA and CANADA....2012 was the hottest year ever.
You can write it from any perspective...there is a good article from the New York Times dated 1/8/2013.
The poem can be in any genre.
The poem can be in any length

I will be happy to answer any questions which come up.

__________________________________________________________
It’s Official: 2012 Was Hottest Year Ever in U.S.

How hot was it? The temperature differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree, but last year blew away the previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree Fahrenheit.

If that does not sound so impressive, consider that 34,008 new daily high records were set at weather stations across the country, compared with only 6,664 new record lows, according to a count maintained by the Weather Channel meteorologist Guy Walton, using federal temperature records.

That ratio, which was roughly in balance as recently as the 1970s, has been out of whack for decades as the country has warmed, but never by as much as it was last year.

“The heat was remarkable,” said Jake Crouch, a scientist with the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., which released the official climate compilation on Tuesday. “It was prolonged. That we beat the record by one degree is quite a big deal.”

Scientists said that natural variability almost certainly played a role in last year’s extreme heat and drought. But many of them expressed doubt that such a striking new record would have been set without the backdrop of global warming caused by the human release of greenhouse gases.

Even so, the nation’s 2012 record is not expected to translate into a global temperature record when figures are released in the coming weeks. The year featured a La Niña weather pattern, which tends to cool the global climate over all, and scientists expect it to be the world’s eighth or ninth warmest year on record.

Assuming that prediction holds up, it will mean that the 10 warmest years on record all fell within the past 15 years, a measure of how much the planet has warmed. Nobody in the world who is under 28 has lived through a month of global temperatures that fell below the 20th-century average, because the last such month was February 1985.

Last year’s weather in the United States began with an unusually warm winter, with relatively little snow across much of the country, followed by a March that was so hot that trees burst into bloom and swimming pools opened early. The soil dried out in the March heat, helping to set the stage for a drought that peaked during the warmest July on record.

The drought engulfed 61 percent of the nation, killed corn and soybean crops and sent prices spiraling. It was comparable to a severe drought in the 1950s, Mr. Crouch said, but not quite as severe as the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s, which was exacerbated by poor farming practices that allowed topsoil to blow away.

In addition to being the warmest year since extensive records for the contiguous United States became available in 1895, last year turned out to be the second worst on a measure called the Climate Extremes Index, surpassed only by 1998.

Experts are still counting, but so far 11 disasters in 2012 have exceeded a threshold of $1 billion in damages, including several tornado outbreaks; Hurricane Isaac, which hit the Gulf Coast in August; and, late in the year, Hurricane Sandy, which caused damage likely to exceed $60 billion in nearly half the states, primarily in the mid-Atlantic region.

For people who escaped Hurricane Sandy relatively unscathed, the year may be remembered most for the sheer breadth and oppressiveness of the summer heat wave. By the calculations of the climatic data center, a third of the nation’s population experienced 10 or more days of summer temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Among the cities that set temperature records in 2012 were Nashville, Athens, Ga., and Cairo, Ill., all of which hit 109 degrees on June 29; Greenville, S.C., which hit 107 degrees on July 1; and Lamar, Colo., which hit 112 degrees on June 27.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/science/earth/2012-was-hottest-year-ever-in-us.html?hp&_r=0

Interesting comp, though this actually seemed like a colder year for me.

It was so hot
my face was red
but the sky was blue
This is true
Going to the swim pool
Water cool
So hot
Mouth needs water
Took a slip H2O
That shit melted
ASAP
But I perfer to burn
Than to freeze so
Please
Summer come back soon
Bye :(

Summer 2012 Hot as Hell


The summer of 2012 was like Mercury,
Getting hotter and hotter with every revolution.

A dry painul heat wave bitch slapping my face,
The scorching aspalt bonding my shoes to the ground.

Every drop of ice cream evaporated into the air,
Every drop of the  boiling hot water burned my tongue,
Every ray of light a solar flare,
Every beat of air a lip chapping hell.

My skin drier than a desert piss,
This hell more ominous than the river Styx.

You know you have a POETIC LICENSE...this permits you to write
about the topic in the most creative ways....Do not let the
description hamper you from entering!

2012 was a very bad year
too hot to have sex
what more can I say?

I havent noticed
the heat much,
since really,
all i've felt
is the coldness
of space
that she's left
in my house.

How hot was it?
Hotter then the Devil's pussy
So hot the frogs wore shoes
To hot to get down and messy
To hot to even sing the blues.

悪魔の代弁者 akuma no daibensha

akuma no daibensha
"beware beware of guest brought here
And on the brink of hell may appear."
Of immoral men, who far excel
All th' inhabitants of hell.
let 'em in let 'em in
for the smell of burning skin.
here they will weep, a sorrow-some groan,
bodies decay and turn to stone.
sacrifices thee by soul,blood and lust.
randomness chant switch and adjust.
riches and happiness they deserve so well,
but they shall feel the hottest flames of hell.
eternal darkness of land that bring.
D.L.N the demons will sing.
"beware beware of guest brought here
And on the brink of hell may appear."

-Kuimiko Yamamoto
means- devils advocate

"Warmth from the Heart of Mankind"

It was so hot I wore no sweat
Its drops evaporated into the clouds of thunder
So hot was it I felt a chill
When the howling winds and rain washed over skin
Cracked and dried from uncommon fire
Breathed down on Earth from shies too bright
For even clouds to shadow white skin seared brown

Rivers once fed life with greenery
Thirsting one moment then flooded and drowned the next
Homes lost neath raging waters
Then left low and dry neath Sun and mud moved by Nature's scorn
Followed closely by the fury of Hellfire
From the winds of drought that sucked dry the mold
Taking root in the foundation of human exhaust filling the sky


JJ

The more things change... Here are two poems I wrote in the past. I just feel like including them for the good of mother nature, not for consideration in the contest.
-------------------------------------

"He Who Laughs Last Will Be A Fertile, Mutant Cockroach"

When I look up in the air
I can see the wind blowing
I can see the trees dying
From the tears the sky is crying
It'll take much more than care
To ease Mother Nature's pain
To wash acid out of rain
Oil is a quiet hurricane

Show them all the evidence
But they won't believe their eyes
Even now they still deny
Water is not all that clouds the sky

When a doughnuts hole is gone
There is nothing left to eat
When ozone’s hole is complete
There won't be anything but heat
That's no way to heat our home
We need an alternative
And more initiative
The bottom line is that we live

If we murder Mother Earth
Count now what your money won't be worth
No one will laugh, no one will wear the final smile
There will be no one to put on trial

(*03/03/1990)
------------------------------------

"Mother oh Mother"

Mother why do they execute you before sunset?
What crime did you commit to deserve a fate such as this?
Did you fail to provide for your children's needs and greeds
Or keep water from their mouths when their thirst went un-quenched?

Perhaps you forgot to feed their hunger for more and more
Maybe you left your children unprotected from each other
And when they journeyed into unknown lands did you forget them?
Did you not provide them with direction when they were lost?

But for you they would have no sunset to schedule your death
No rains would come to drink or water seeds to feed their greeds
The sun was yours to keep them warm and see your beauty all around
You held up the stars and the moon to guide them through darkness

Still they kill you with sticks broken from trees that you grew
Strung up with weeds to blow the answer in the wind
They melt the frozen waters to drowned the world in human sorrow
And if you're not dead by then they'll stone you when the sun set ends

(*04/20/2011)

JJ

Thank you JJ....there is still room for a few more poems...I think everybody forgot how hot it was as it is getting to be a very very cold winter around the world....

Good grief....should I extend this comp now or let it lie without too many further additions? Who knows?

THE WAIT

I heard the cock crow once
Then stifled as the heat pounced

the morning dew has become a myth
Mercilessly, the sun beat the length and width

seeded I lay ,unwillingly, still
long drew the day ,as the poultry descended,
grouped in the shadow rite where I lay buried,
parched and weary as they squawking berated,
“oh! summer  please conclude your vigil!”

Cracked lay the earth where the dam used to be
The sun stole the water to make some rain for me
Then wind came along and made all the clouds flee

The church bell tolls as all prayers unite
Humans, plants and animals all begging for some respite
Comfortable weather was the plea…

Being a seed,more simple was the one from me,
,I wished for rains so I can start my journey
As cemented within the baking earth,
I await my blossoming birth

Sorry Kitty hope i'm not too late  with my post