Category Archives: Weather

Weekend at Home Ahead

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No picturesque sunset today. Not around here, anyway.

From the NWS recently:

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST FRIDAY…

* WHAT… Periods of snow through mid evening with an additional 1 to 2 inches possible. West winds will gust as high as 45 mph this evening, and this will result in significant blowing and drifting snow. The worst conditions are expected this evening.

* WHERE … Portions of north central and northeast Illinois, including the Chicago metro.

Not bad except for the wind. I expect some odd snow shapes in the yard when I go out to shovel in the morning. If only the wind would sculpt the snow into ridges paralleling my driveway, with little in it.

Not likely. Also, where’s that snow-blowing robot? Well, here. Looks like it’s still in beta, though — crowdfunding’s a giveaway — and probably costs a fortune anyway. But there’s always the hard-core solution to accumulated snow. Probably illegal in the suburbs. Something Florida Man might do, expect he’d be hard-pressed to find any snow. Maybe Florida Man’s cousin in the UP would.

What a treasure cave YouTube is. A good thing if you have to be at home, which is the way it would mostly be even during an ordinary February. First, a band that owes much to Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, and they do well with it. I’m sure the luminous Tatiana Eva Marie, the lead singer, must have been influenced by Francophone chanteuses, but I’m too ignorant to know who.

I know nothing about Armenian folk songs. If one of the comments under this video is to be believed, this sweet tune is a song of resistance against the enemies of the Armenian people, and everyone knows who they are.

Old song, young voice: Rachael Price. That’s the case for the other singers as well.

A weekend’s a weekend, and a thing to savor if possible.

Icicles

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After the most recent snow, temps have been close to freezing, and the sun came out. That meant the formation of icicles.
That melting dynamic won’t last long.
Don’t like the looks of that. I thought the border with Canada was closed. Anyway, we aren’t going to get away with a mild winter after all.

Snow to Finish January

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Over the last weekend of January, more snow. Another eight inches — or 10, or a foot, it’s hard to tell — on top of the 7 or so earlier in the week.

Not a blizzard like almost 10 years ago exactly. Just a steady fall for 12 hours or more, and the trucks tasked with plowing the streets were able to keep up with it. On Sunday morning, we dug out our driveway. Tiring and tiresome, but not particularly hard, and so life will resume uninterrupted on Monday.

There wasn’t a lot of wind, but there was some, and I think it knocked over the grill.
One of the three legs was weak anyway, so down went the tripod, as broken and ruined as the Delphic tripod must have been when Theodosius ordered the Temple of Apollo destroyed in AD 390. Unlike that tripod, there’s a replacement grill waiting in the garage for spring to return.

Snow Day, But Not Really

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Heavy snow last night and into the morning. We were up at 7 a.m. or so to shovel, but soon postponed the task, since we knew we’d have to do it again in a few hours. And that’s what happened after the snow finally slacked off around noon.

We got 7.5 inches, according to the NWS, making it the first heavy snow of the season — always good when it comes this late — and the most since the unusual snowfall of November 2018.

One reason we were up at 7 was that a phone call interrupted whatever odd dream I was having at the time. Who can be calling now? I wondered.

It was a Schleswig-Holstein High robocall. The school has been holding some classes in person lately — optional, with Ann choosing to stay home. The call was to tell us about a snow day, except that unlike in the past, classes weren’t cancelled, simply moved online. Seems like I was right. Snow days are no more.

Poplar Creek, Winter ’21

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So far winter hasn’t been all that harsh. No blizzards, no subzero stretches. We’ve gotten snow a few inches at a time, which has thinned out during days just above freezing. Still, I suspect an Arctic blast is coming soon. Probably after the heavy snow due tomorrow night.

In the meantime, temps around freezing mean we can take walks in forest preserves. Not long ago we took the dog out to the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve (formally the Arthur L. Janura Forest Preserve). It’s close by here in the northwest suburbs, but we hadn’t been in a good while.

Poplar Creek FPPoplar Creek FPPoplar Creek FPOff the main path is a path to Bode Lake.
Poplar Creek FPPoplar Creek FPLooks frozen over, but I bet the ice is pretty thin, so no walking on the lake unless you’re a small creature. No ice fishing either. If that’s the price of a mild winter, I don’t mind.

Flags of Insurrection

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That doesn’t look too bad for January.
Been reading a lot about the insurrection today, partly because it’s my job, partly as an American citizen who ought to take an interest in the political illness gripping the nation. With any luck, in retrospect, yesterday will be the day the fever broke. But I’m not betting the mortgage money on it.

Oddly enough, Quartz published an article about the flags carried by the insurrectionists. I was inspired to look into the matter when I noticed some flags that I didn’t recognize in the many photos of the event.

Besides the modern U.S. flag, many others are recognizable, of course, such as the 13-star U.S. (Betsy Ross) flag, the Confederate battle flag, the Gadsden Flag, the U.S. Marine Corps flag and the Thin Blue Line flag.

Even odder, according to Quartz, “the flags of Canada, Cuba, Georgia, India, Israel, South Korea, and South Vietnam were spotted in the mob.” Go figure.

Some I’d never heard of: the Republic of Kekistan flag, the Three Percentage flag and the VDare/Lion Guards of Trump flag. Usually ignorance is a bad thing, but I’m glad I’ve never heard of any of those before.

Spring Valley Winter ’21

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I don’t know Rep. Mike Gallagher (R.-Wis.), but I believe he had the spot-on quote for the day, which I heard on the radio this afternoon: “This is banana republic crap.”

Five months ago, the full flush of summer marked Spring Valley. Two days into the new year, the place was markedly brown and gray and white.Spring Valley Nature CenterWe had a pretty good walk anyway, especially since the paths were mostly clear of ice patches.
Spring Valley Nature CenterSnow and ice fell during the last days of December, and on New Year’s Day itself, but it was above freezing the next day, enough to melt some of the ice. Not much ice on the creek either, but I wouldn’t want to fall in.
Spring Valley Nature CenterThe unpaved trails offered the crunch of snow underfoot, a sound I like.
Spring Valley Nature CenterThe peony field.

Spring Valley Nature PreserveThe snow was wet enough to cling to most of the trees.Spring Valley Nature PreserveIt sifts from Leaden Sieves —
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road —

(Emily Dickinson)

Snow Days No Mo’

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“A major winter storm swept through the Mid-Atlantic on its way to the Northeast, bringing heavy snow, freezing rain and dangerous driving conditions,” I noted in the NYT this evening.

Not a particle of snow hereabouts, but I’m sure our turn will come eventually. That made me wonder: are snow days now things of the past? Even when kids are back in school in person again, say next winter, a heavy blizzard would mean they have to stay home, but they can still go to school remotely, as they do now. I suspect most kids don’t realize this yet. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when they do.

Not that it matters in this household any more. Next year in college, if Ann feels like a snow day, she’ll cut classes. But she and her sister might be in the last generation, in this country at least, to remember getting out of school for inclement weather.

The concept was mostly hypothetical to me as a student. During my entire K-12 run in Texas I only got two that I remember. As a parent, I’ve experienced a good many more than that.

Winter ’20

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Winter starts on December 1, as far as I’m concerned. Some past years, that day has obliged us with snow cover, or least snow flurries, such as in 2006 and 2008 and 2010.

Not this year. I had to be out early in the morning to be somewhere, but it was merely dry and below freezing.

Or maybe winter started the night about a week before Thanksgiving when I was out ’round midnight and spotted Orion riding high in the sky, trailed by the loyal Canis Major.

 

After I got home yesterday, I had a lot to do, and so didn’t spent much more time out in the early winter temps, or even thinking about them. Early in the evening, I looked up the local temperature. About as cold as I thought: 28.

Then I had a moment of idle curiosity. The Internet was made for just such moments, so I looked up what I wanted to know: how cold it was at that moment in Anchorage, Alaska: 37.

Not as cold as I thought. The kind of thing TV weather presenters occasionally yak about, though usually in January: Look, it’s colder in Illinois than Alaska! But according to the respective 10-day forecasts, it will soon be single-digits in Anchorage, but not here.

Thanksgiving ’20 &c.

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Clear and cool lately, with daytime temps in the 50s. Not bad for late November. So far, no snow yet except for a dusting we had a few days before Halloween. It didn’t last. Next time, it probably will.
october snow
Pleasant Thanksgiving at home. Nothing made from scratch this year except the gravy, but the boxed macaroni and stuffing you can get at Trader Joe’s isn’t bad at all. And what’s a Thanksgiving dinner without olives, I tell my family. They aren’t persuaded.
Thanksgiving victuals
Took a walk last weekend at Fabbrini Park in Hoffman Estates.
Fabbrini Park
The geese were still around, mucking up the place.