WEATHER: Driest Fall

Last week the weather news was askew:

¶ With phenomenally low water in the Mississippi, salt water from the Gulf of Mexico backed no miles up to New Orleans, where fishermen caught sea trout and pompano, and people's mouths puckered at the brackish water in city mains.

¶ "Green winter, many deaths," sages quoted in Minnesota. No snow to speak of had fallen, and Minnesotans still watered their lawns after one of the driest Novembers in memory.

¶ Low river stages in New York, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, TVA's area in the South cut down the...