Bad weather even coming to Deep South in the next few days

All right, right wingers, get it out of your system.

"Al Gore is fat!!"

OK, now let the grownups talk.

If there's one thing that never fails to amaze me, it's how inept some people are at picking names that will help people come to terms with issues. Some years back, when environmentalists began warning people that the way we live is hurting the planet, they called it "global warming."

If they had simply been more accurate and used the term "climate change," it would be obvious what is happening. The weather is getting weirder and wackier, from San Diego to Bangor, from Seattle to Key West. Summers are hotter, winters are colder and when the big storms come, they seem to do more damage.

When Sandy hit New Jersey in 2012, it didn't even have hurricane status, but it was one nasty storm that pretty much tore up the Jersey Shore.

How could they tell?

Come on now. It isn't California or Florida, but generations of people in New York and Pennsylvania grew up spending many happy summer weekends at the Jersey Shore.

Anyway, the weather has been getting rougher and rougher, to the point where the winter storm expected to hit much of the Southeast Tuesday is being called a "once in a generation" event. WSB-TV in Atlanta is saying the south suburbs -- where we live -- may get as much as three inches of snow.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not whining about the "storm." I spent four winters living at altitude in Colorado and Nevada, where our once in a generation storm would be called snow flurries. On the day after Christmas in 1987, I had to drive from Colorado to Sioux Falls, S.D., and there was already a foot of snow on the ground when I left with another 10 inches or so on the way.

Now that's entertainment.

Winters here in Georgia are strange. When we moved here in November 2010, we got a colder than normal winter and we actually had snow on the ground once. Then the next two winters the temperature rarely even got down to freezing.

This winter has been colder, although without much in the way of precipitation.

No matter how cold or wet it gets here in this week, we would still be a better site for the Super Bowl than New Jersey.

Why?

Well, we have had two Super Bowls in Atlanta, in 1994 and 2000, and conditions for the game were quite pleasant indeed.

In Atlanta

The Dallas Cowboys beat Buffalo, 30-13, and the St. Louis Rams beat Tennessee, 23-16. Neither was among the most memorable games, and neither was among the best halftime shows. We had Rockin' Country Sunday with Travis Tritt, Tanya Tucker and others in 1994 and Tapestry of Nations with Tina Turner, Phil Collins, Christina Aguilera and others in 2000.

But it was a very pleasant experience for the fans.

Why? Because the stadium had a roof over it. If you're not going to play the game in Miami or Southern California, indoors is the place to be.

In the Georgia Dome.