This doesn’t happen often, at least at the tail end of February.
That was the local temp today at 3 pm. Alas, it is also a Monday, meaning I couldn’t sit outside as much as I wanted during the warm hours, though I was able to sip tea on the deck for a few warmth-on-my-face minutes. Out of idle curiosity, I checked the temps at about the same time in Miami.
Huh. What about Fairbanks?
Well, at least that’s seasonal.
When I had a few moments today, which weren’t that many, I sat under the blue-marble skies out on the deck.
In some comfort, since temps nearly, or did, reach 60° F., and the air was still. Another oddly mild day in this oddly mild February.
In a few places, spots of green underfoot.
The dog sat outside with me for a while as well. That must have been a tonic for her weakness, since her appetite, gone for about a day, returned shortly afterward. That might count as post hoc ergo propter hoc, but I doubt the dog knows anything about logic.
Most of the January snow is gone, melted by rain late last week and temps above freezing most of the time since then. More above-freezing temps are forecast for the forecastable future, or another week or so. An odd thing for winter stasis, which is usually a run of days consistently below freezing, but I’m not complaining — and will be glad to be rid of January, as usual.
Another press release that isn’t in my wheelhouse came today, not even within shouting distance of my wheelhouse, unless you count the very occasional times I’ve written about stadium development. Namely, it’s about sports. Rarefied sports: The Super Bowl.
I extracted the following table from it, which reports info from a company that tracks secondary sports ticket sales. These are average ticket prices (so far) for the upcoming Super Bowl and the final averages five games before it.
2024 (49ers vs. Chiefs): $10,408
2023 (Eagles vs. Chiefs): $7,672
2022 (Rams vs. Bengals): $8,347
2021 (Bucs vs. Chiefs): $7,738
2020 (49ers vs. Chiefs): $6,705
2019 (Rams vs. Patriots): $5,629
Italics added, though I could have added them to each and every price listed, to denote how nuts I believe the figures are. Of course, ten grand isn’t what it used to be – can’t even get half of a new car for that, nor (maybe) a decent cruise to Antarctica.
Still, it’s no small sum to devote to parking yourself at football game that only occasionally lives up to its hype. At least, that’s what I hear. Somehow over the years I’ve forgotten to watch the game on TV. That might happen again if I’m not careful.
Sunny and nearly warm on Saturday, at least for a few hours. Time for a stroll around South Ridge Park in Hoffman Estates.
Perhaps a mile all the way around the pond. Not crowed on the path at all.
South Ridge is one of a small string of parks in that part of the village connected by walking paths, all located away from main streets. The better to be enjoyed mostly by locals, no doubt.
Skipped the playground, which includes (not pictured) an obstacle course for small fry. These days, our small fry are large fry. But there were a number of families around, enjoying the playground equipment on a Saturday afternoon in the park.
On Saturday, we made our way to the edge of Lake Michigan.
We’d come on the sunny last day of September to Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve, a unit of the Lake County Forest Preserve District. For a little more than a century, the U.S. Army maintained a presence at Fort Sheridan and in surrounding acreage for a shifting variety of uses, until base closure turned the site mostly over the private development, with a relatively small slice added to the forest preserve system.
The decommissioning was in the 1990s. I remember writing about the redevelopment, but after I quit much local reporting about the Chicago area ca. 2005, I tucked whatever I knew about Fort Sheridan in a remote filing cabinet in my memory. That is, I forgot it until not long ago, when I noticed the forest preserve on a map – a paper map – and determined to go, since we were due for lunch with Wendy and Ted later in the day in Evanston anyway.
This forest preserve is only partly forest. We took short trails through prairie. 
A ravine runs through it.
Coloration has started. 
Barely but vividly.
A summerish weekend to kick off October, and we were out and about in the warmth. Soon temps will be more in line with the usual Octobers of northern Illinois.
Some trees are changing, but most still are holding their green. That too is bound to change soon.
Five years ago in October, I spent some time in San Antonio after the passing of my mother. That included a walk around downtown. I was persuaded that my mother wouldn’t have wanted me to mope around the house, but rather do what I would have done anyway. That is, go out and see things.
Even in very familiar places.
San Antonio tends toward pleasant weather that time of the year, and so it was that day. A lot of people were visiting the Alamo, taking in some of the demonstrations on the grounds. Such as the firing of period firearms.
Not, I think, using actual ammunition. But everything else seemed authentic, especially the loud bang!
Angry clouds passed by this evening. It had rained on and off all day, rain we certainly needed, and early in the evening we got treated to a heavy downpour and the sound of sirens for a few minutes. As for as official warnings, this:
The National Weather Service in Chicago has issued a
* Tornado Warning for…
Northeastern DuPage County in northeastern Illinois…
Northwestern Cook County in northeastern Illinois…
* Until 715 PM CDT.
* At 651 PM CDT, severe thunderstorms capable of producing a tornado
were located along a line extending from Schaumburg to Glendale
Heights, moving east at 30 mph.
And a NWS warning in Spanish buzzed on my phone. By 7:15, the sun was out again, shining on a drenched landscape. We’d gotten a lot of rain, but not a bit of wind. Guess that blew parallel to us.
Then: “The National Weather Service said a tornado touched down near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Wednesday following warnings of severe weather for the city. A confirmed tornado was on the ground around 7 p.m., according to the National Weather Service in Chicago,” ABC News reported.
“ ‘This tornado has been touching the ground intermittently so far and is moving east. There are additional circulations along the line south of O’Hare. Seek shelter if in the warned area,’ ” the ABC article said.
“Many tornadoes have struck in the Chicago metropolitan area, and several have hit within the city limits of Chicago, according to the weather service…” ABC concluded (a spot of background or historical context: I know this kind of conclusion well, having written many).
“The deadliest formed in Palos Hills in Cook County on April 21, 1967. The twister traveled 16 miles (26 kilometers) through Oak Lawn and the south side of Chicago, killing 33 people, injuring 500 and causing more than $50 million in damage.”
Another report (NBC News) mentioned a large tornado this evening near Summit, Illinois, which is a lot further away than O’Hare.
So the threat of high winds seems to have passed, at least at my spot on the Earth. But there’s always another day.
A few more thunderstorms are forecast for the near future, but mostly it’s cerulean days ahead.
Or will that be azure days?
Fitting somehow for Monday morning. Of course, the snow didn’t even last till noon, though it remained chilly all day.
For days before, the warm version of spring had been ascendant, creating conditions for a number of enjoyable meals on the deck. Cold spring returned on Sunday, got worse on Monday but eased somewhat today. Warm tomorrow, then rain, then cold again. Such is the spring cycle.
I almost forgot – because who wants to remember? – that the first night we were in the Uniontown, Pa., area last month, at a upper-mid hotel chain, the fire alarm went off at about 8 p.m. Yuriko had gone to the pool and I was in the room with the dog.
Those alarms are loud. I knew that in some abstract sense, but listening to BLAT! BLAT! BLAT! while you get the dog ready to go, grab an extra jacket for yourself and your wife, and make sure you have all your valuables on your person – it focuses the mind, and not in a good way.
I didn’t think to bring the good camera, which was tucked away. So all I had was my phone, which I use as a phone and to call up maps, but usually not as a camera. Because it takes crappy pictures.
Got to see the South Union Fire Co. in action. Not much action, since there was no fire. Mostly we waited around in the parking lot until we noticed people going back in after about 20 minutes. How did they know the emergency was over? Not because the desk clerk said anything. But I was able to confirm from a passing fireman that it had indeed been a false alarm.
Early this morning, not long after dawn, I woke for the usual reason and from the bathroom window I spotted a thin carpet of snow on the ground. First one of the season.
I took the obligatory picture a couple of hours later, complete with dog.
One of those snows in temps hovering at freezing or just above. A lot melted later, but not quite all of it. Hardly the picture of woods on a snowy evening, but we’ll get to that before long.
Last Thursday, knowing that the warm days were running out this year, I stood at about the same spot and captured the yard about an hour before sunset.
Gentle winds blew, with more than a hint of summer.
Alternating warm and cold, with intervals of cool, here in northern Illinois since I returned in mid-October. About what you’d expect. Less expected has been the fact that most of the warmth has been concentrated on the weekends — especially last weekend, October 22nd and 23rd, but also yesterday and today.
Our coloration is past peak, but there is still color. Today —
Seasonal decoration in our neighborhood, both simple and complicated.
Our last garden harvest this year.
Other colors.
Not specific to the fall, but the pictured spot, some miles from where I live and entirely visible to the public, is still colorful in the fall.