Nature's Revenge on Urbanized Growth

I was in the middle of my treadmil workout tonight- the Jack Johnson music on my ipod engulfed me in an accoustic euphoria, I was participating in a slight version of what I call "dance running"- when I saw Chicago's beloved John Hancock Building come on the local news.

I silenced Jack for a second to follow what was going on in my old hometown. As I watched melted icicles fall from the building and smack a passing lady on the street below, I let out an obnoxious giggle and disturbed the sleezy "muscle men" around me. I don't know why I find this event so humorous- I guess because its so unusual. Being pelted by HUGE chunks of melted icicles that fall out of nowhere from a 100 story building.

Ice was falling in foot long sheets- hitting passengers and vehicles.

"It was like it was raining ice," said Keith Hackett, a doorman at the Westin Hotel just north of the Hancock Center. "People were running around dodging ice."

How would you have liked to have been the officer on duty who first got that call? Or trying to explain your icicle injury to friends?

In my weather and climatology class, we spent a lot of time studying how the human created environment disrupts normal weather patterns. I was amazed to learn that tall building shadows can actuall cause the formation of snow at a certain height- which turns to rain at street level. It could be snowing above your head and you wouldn't even know. Or that under certain conditions, it can rain on the leeward side of a building even when it is not rainign anywhere else in the city. It was also disturbing to learn about how urban structures- such as roads, building, and sreets, push out the earth's natural cooling agent which is one cause of the rising earth temperatures around urban centers.

This whole tampering with nature thing is beginning to worry me- but as long as icicles continue their indiscriminate target practice on unsuspecting city pedestrians, I will always have something to laugh about.