When there’s a big snowfall in the Cleveland area, Andy Lenart is out plowing his neighbors driveways. He doesn’t own a plowing business per se. He’s like a lot of plowers in this part of the country: a guy looking for a little extra cash who happens to own a pickup. “It came with a plow, and I started to do my own driveway with it, and then a friend of mine asked if I could do a couple driveways, and it turned into four driveways,” he said. Lenart grew up in Auburn, Ohio, about 40 minutes southeast of Cleveland. The snowy seasons these days are a lot shorter than he remembered them growing up. “I started doing this, say, 12 times a year. And now the last three years, I’ve only been out four or five times,” he said. “You start talking about global warming, and it’s real. I’m convinced. I have facts written down on my charts when I do this.” The last two winters in Cleveland have been unusually warm. Snowfall was way below average . The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts this winter is going to be warmer than usual again across giant swaths of the southwestern U.S. and for most states east of the Mississippi River. When you live this close to Lake Erie, climate change doesn’t automatically equal less snow. It’s not that straightforward. “It’s hard to tell, because every season is so different being in Northeast Ohio,” said meteorologist Salix Iverson with the National Weather Service in Cleveland. The biggest snowstorms here happen before Lake Erie freezes and after it thaws. So as the climate warms, Iverson said, “it freezes over later than it has been in years past. That would essentially give the region a longer window of time where […]