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Category Archives: Weather

Wacky winter weather

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I feel like I have lived in three or four climates in the past few days.

On Sunday, I left Regenstein Library at about 4:30 p.m. It was warm enough to walk the 1.3 mile comfortably, which would give me an opportunity to stop at Parker’s Pets. Hodge needs more toys like I need more cat bite scars, but I wanted to see the store, and every moment he spends biting toys is a moment not spent biting me.

As I looked around the sky seemed odd. It wasn’t right. Something about the feeling that it gave me reminded me of my dreams in which I’m at home, in my bedroom, looking out over the sunlit woods and field, and yet I am disturbed to find that this post-dawn light is shining at 10 p.m. A sensation that an apocalypse is night come over me, yet I convince myself that this is normal, that this is the way things are meant to be.

It was about the time of sunset, and the western sky was completely obscured by a very black, low-hanging cloud that seemed disingenuously ominous. To the east, the sky was as weirdly white and bright. At a time when the western sky should be filled with light and the eastern sky should be darkening, the reverse was true, and I felt odd and disoriented in time and space as I walked away from western darkness to eastern brightness, away from the sun and toward the light.

After the 0 degree F temperatures of last week, thermometers here hit 60 degrees F Monday. There was lightning when I left work, which has happened before in January but is disconcerting at this time of year. It seemed to be a distant storm, with very little thunder. For hours, sheets of lightning sporadically lit the sky over Indiana and Lake Michigan. On the bus and later, after midnight, I saw the lightning mainly from the corner of my eye, which sometimes made me wonder if I had seen it at all.

Tuesday morning was cooler, but still warm, with wind and rain. When I first looked out the window, I could see little through the rain and fog. It was clear when I poured coffee. It was foggy when I took the empty cup to the kitchen. It was clear when I got dressed. When I finally stepped outside, it was foggy again despite the wind.

By the time I arrived at Hyatt Center, there was a brief, faint hint of sunlight in the southern sky. After months of unbroken clouds and oppressive skies, even diffuse sunshine seemed as alien to me as the dream of 10 p.m. light. It also reminded me that spring must return someday, with its own varieties of disturbing weather — snow, rain, cold, heat, wind, storms, floods, and the soft sunshine of happiness, the light that puts life into perspective.

I’ll be waiting.

Note added 10 January 2008: The sun was spotted briefly at sunrise today, although the clouds quickly consumed it. It is reassuring to know that it is still there in its many-splendored glory.

Turn, turn, turn

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The violent storms of August 23 bypassed Hyde Park. With the number of trees snapped in two and uprooted here during the storms of the past couple of years, it was a relief to me to come home from work that day and see everything still standing. The brunt of the storm hit further north.

With all the rain this month, the grass and trees are now Ireland green, and there’s not much sign yet of changing colors. It feels like autumn to me, however.

  • The birds are no longer collecting for their nests or chasing potential mates or rivals around.
  • I have not been able to spend time in the garden, but during my few visits I have not seen the red admirals flitting about since I came back from Ann Arbor, even when the weather was warm and sunny and perfect for butterflies.
  • I am starting to see plenty of Japanese ladybugs, which can become a pestilence at this time of year. They were clinging to the windows during the storm, and I found one in the living room this evening.
  • Now I hear the “whine” of a dogday harvestfly or two — a sound that takes me back home 30 years ago, when hot August afternoons brought out the call of many dog day harvestfies in the woods. I had it in my head, quite illogically as I knew, that that “whine” had something to do with the outdoor TV antenna.
  • The sun is noticeably further south in the sky, which helps to soften the brightness and harshness of the high midwestern sky to which I have never become accustomed.
  • The sun sets significantly earlier every day. There is now little time after work to sit outside, and the evenings seem short, the night long.
  • I have not seen fireflies at dusk when I’ve been out. I know roughly when they appear — the third week of June — but I’ve never known when they leave.

These, more than cooler temperatures or changing colors, are the signs of fall that I feel more than see or observe. The differences are subtle, yet they affect me and my mood deeply. This year, I have a sense that something that never truly began is already over.

I love the harvestflies, but I miss the red admirals.

More spring storms

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The day began sunny and became warmer than expected. At about 3 p.m., a thunderstorm blew through, and the temperature dropped 18 degrees. Then the sun came out, so I walked to the lake, where I ate a late lunch. Then it got cloudy, and I sat there watching lightning streaks come out of the sky down to the horizon behind the buildings in South Chicago across from Promontory Point. It was lovely. The thunder came. Then I heard kids down toward the beach screaming and running, and I watched a wall of rain move through the air north from the beach toward me until I was hit. I heard it when it was about 20 feet off. It was fascinating to watch the wall move, the people flee, and the drops hit the water.

Spring storm

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A storm just blew in relatively fast. There’s a downpour, the tops of the trees are roiling in the gusts of wind, the lake is churning, one small boat is gunning for harbour, people are running in the streets, headlights and lights all came on, and it looks as though twilight has set in. Lovely.

Inspired by a drain

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If my Hyde Park neighbours notice me at all, they must think I’m a very strange bird. This may not be saying much, as Hyde Park is habitat to an odd flock.

Saturday and Sunday, I’ve been walking around and sitting at Promontory Point while the weather is tolerably warm for winter. I’m wearing old, powder blue sweat pants stained with grey alley-steps paint, a 20-year-old sweater with obvious holes, and walking shoes with enough rips and scuffs to make a dumpster diver think twice. The ground is wet from the melting snow that came down a couple of weeks ago, and there’s no reason to get dressed up — neither a head of state nor a prospective love of my life is likely to appear around the next corner (both types have managed to avoid or elude me here since 1979, so I believe this is a safe assumption). Besides, the love of my life, whoever and wherever he may be, knows that my exterior is naturally rough.

My dress won’t get me into too many better restaurants, but I’m comfortable. If that weren’t enough, though, I’ve taken to looking down drains. So as the strollers stroll, the joggers jog, and the cyclists cycle, they are likely to come across a dotty middle-aged woman in shabby, worn clothes, staring down the drains in the ground.

I might stroll, jog, or cycle by quickly, too.

But I love water, and with this thaw water is tinkling rapidly down these drains as the melting snow from the mound of Promontory Point flows in a stream downhill. I may never again wade in the flow of 18-Mile Creek at Chestnut Ridge in Erie County, New York, or stand at the bottom of its tiny waterfalls, but I can feel the sun of perhaps 33 years ago on my back and the cool water gurgle-glistening over my feet. Saturday, there was still ice surrounding the drain by the 55th Street underpass, so I could watch the water’s movements as it flowed under the ice toward the drain. It’s like seeing and hearing a miniature world. By early Sunday, the ice was gone, and there was a simple stream; later, there was just a wet spot with no flow.

Nothing ever stays the same.

I’ve been trying to catch the lake at freezing and thawing but it seems to happen suddenly and always when I’m not looking. Once it seemed to happen within a few hours when it was not very cold.

Earlier this week, the inlets were covered with ice but beyond them was open water. I didn’t realise this, but the effect was odd in the early morning with the glare of the low and rising sun. The open part of the water was a flat mirror that merged the with the horizon and sky, while the inlet at 57th Street was covered with ice that seemed untouched by the sun’s rays. It looked like they were separate, disparate elements; the ice appeared real, while the water almost disappeared transparently.

By Sunday morning, most of the ice in the inlets had melted (virtually overnight), and only a few ice floes and chunks resembling boats remained on the water.

I wonder if there will be waves tomorrow.

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