Skywatch No. 30

We denizens of Michigan like to poke fun at our weather (which of course is in reality merely a thinly-disguised pompous declaration of hardcore-ness). 65F one day, blizzard the next!

Yes, well. The day before this photo was take was a snow-melting, sun shining, let's-open-all-the-windows-and-wear-tshirts-because-it's-above-freezing day.

January

Winter. Snow, idyllic as it graces spreading branches and drifts noiselessly from the sky. Then slush and sludge squelch underfoot. The warm spell passes, and jagged chunks of ice grind and crunch threateningly, unyieldingly. The wind is bitter to the point of dull pain.

For now, from the inside looking out:

Today, miracle of miracles, the temperature peaked above freezing for the second day in a row. Snow melted. Patches of grass have appeared in places, and some of it is even green. I am, suffice it to say, impressed.

Heat Wave

We're currently sitting in the middle of a nice mass of warm air. The temperature topped 50°F yesterday, and that qualifies as a heat wave. An unseasonably warm day in February, for us non-equatorial norther-hemisphere dwellers, feels exceedingly pleasant. Most of the snow has melted; the massive plowed mountains, the kind built up in parking lots, are now small car-sized piles. Grass is once again visible. It's trampled, yellowish grass, but grass nontheless. There's mud everywhere, and the sound of running water. Even the river has started to thaw a little near the middle. This morning, an opaque fog shrouded everything. It's like spring come several months early. 

All this is very well, but it's also slightly worrying. The number of unseasonably warm days has been increasing recently, as well as record high temperatures and more extreme weather- this past winter has been harsher and had come earlier. It's frustrating to see that a number of people don't realize what even small seasonal shifts mean. Human biological patterns may not be directly or noticeably affected, but many other species are. If one population collapses, it leads to others- its competitors, its predators or prey- undergoing other, often unfavourable changes. That's not too good for us either.

Skywatch & More Snow!

Pardon another old photo- I needed this, as colorful sunsets are becoming rarer as the days grow longer. Just last week we had sky nearly as clear and beautiful- it quite reminded me of this sunset, so I brought this out. It was quite a sight in person. Unfortuantely, it didn't all fit into one frame, and so has been hastily and rather badly stitched together.

Anyhow, we are well on our way into winter. It's always held some sort of charm for me, especially right after snowstorms when the trees are still coated in white (people often say that infrared photographs remind them of snow-covered branches; I find snow-covered trees more interesting because they resemble infrared ones). Earlier this week

we had some fresh snow. It came in gloriously fat, wet flakes that clung to every surface for days.

Snow also has the advantage of being highly reflective. This is not so great during the day, but at night, especially clear, moonlit nights, it practically glows. So recently I've taken to setting up night shots. Both forest photos in this post are long exposures taken at night.

Winter's Arrival

This sky shot is actually from last year, but perhaps a little earlier in the year. Winter has been coming on and it has been a while since we've seen the clouds in this kind of splendour.

We had snow about a week ago- the first real snowfall, not the palsy stuff that dusts the ground and melts in a couple of hours, but enough to shovel. I actually bundled up, siezed my camera, and trekked the neighborhood.

There was a good good bit of excitement over this, but to no avail. In a few days it became a good part slush, and by now it's mostly frozen slush. I'm not going to lie, but slush is really not as great a subject as snow (not to mention wetter, messier, less interesting, and a with greater tendency to produce nasty slopping noises when stepped on), and ice is really just a pain (unless it gets classes cancelled).

November

I looked out the window today, and received something of a shock. Autumn has come and gone in the blink of an eye. November, it feels, came long ago, but only within the past week or so has it actually begun to feel like November. The weather is miserable- it's cold and wet, and the next week is likely to see a mix of snow, rain, and the like. The sky is almost perpetually a dreary blanket of steely grey that casts a watery light over everything. The sun showed itself a bit today, though. The trees are bare, and straggling lines of geese can be seen winging across the sky. Usually I welcome the start of cold weather, but it feels a bit different this year.