Browsed by
Category: weather

The Calm Before …

The Calm Before …

Comments 0 Comment

A gray sky, a Christmas morning anticipation. The snow is coming, the snow is coming.

It’s coming to cover the leaf piles and the brush piles, the trails and the sidewalks. It’s coming to bury the daffodil shoots that began emerging from the ground in December. It’s coming to cover the yet-to-be-picked-up leaf bags and the two cars that aren’t in the garage. It’s coming to transform the peeled brown landscape into one of perfect white.

I have books to read, chocolate to eat and movies to watch. The house is packed with people and with food. I’ll bundle up and take a walk soon, because there won’t be a chance to take another for quite some time.

Meanwhile, in the heavens, a great storm gathers. The systems have converged, as have the models. What started as a rumor, an office “have-you-heard” on Tuesday, is now (almost) a reality. 

It’s the calm before …

 

Foggy Start

Foggy Start

Comments 0 Comment

A foggy start to this December morning. Moisture beaded up on the car windows, so I took extra care backing down the drive. From such cautious beginnings come slower, less urgently paced days.

Today’s Metro ride on the Silver Line took me through bands of gray clouds with neon signs flashing: “Walmart,” “Exxon.” Tyson’s Corners were softened by the mist.

Clouds had engulfed the city, too, graying the red-brick Building Museum and hiding the pockmarked steps at Judiciary Square.

I hurried to the office, energized by the anonymity, seeking the quiet that comes with still weather, a place to sit down, open the book, call up the screen — and write.

Tale of Two Temperatures

Tale of Two Temperatures

Comments 0 Comment

It’s 90 degrees today in Cotonou, Benin. It was 40 degrees when I woke up in Oak Hill, Virginia. Fifty degrees of separation — that’s a lot for a person who’s never experienced winter.This is just one of the many adjustments we’ll be witnessing in a few days.

I’ve been pulling for one of those warm winters that can sometimes grace these parts, especially when there’s an El Nino pattern. But the next few days promise brisk winds and seasonable temps, and my purple (excuse me, aubergine) wool coat has already been pressed into service.

Nothing to do but go with the flow, whether it’s warm or cold. Nothing to do now but hold on for the ride!


(Rush hour in Cotonou from the back of a zemidjan.)

Battening Down

Battening Down

Comments 0 Comment

Actually, I have done little of this. The rocking chairs are inside and the rest of the deck furniture is too heavy to blow away.

I’ll collect some extra tap water tonight, keep it around in pitchers and bowls. And I’ll check the basement frequently to see if rain is seeping in.

Beyond that I’m planning to clean, organize and watch movies.

It’s blizzard mode, only with rain instead of snow.

Spun-Gold September

Spun-Gold September

Comments 0 Comment

How quickly we embrace perfection and come to expect it. I’m talking about this week’s weather. Cool nights for open-window sleeping. Light-sweater mornings.  Days that start with enough coolness to refresh but that warm up nicely by noontime.

These days give us stability, they give us versatility (we can wear skirts or trousers, shorts or jeans), they give us perfect temperatures for walking, sleeping and waking.

The funny thing is how quickly we get used to them — or at least I do. Oh yes, another day in paradise.

So I’m trying to appreciate every spun-gold September day.  Even if I’m stuck inside for all of them.

A Change in the Air

A Change in the Air

Comments 3 comments

I love humidity, really, I do. I love the way it buoys me up, an invisible presence; the way it surrounds me. I like an air that can hold its own.

Sometimes after a long day in a chilled office I walk the hot sidewalks of a muggy D.C. and my fingers fairly tingle with the moisture in the air. The feeling comes back into air-condition-numbed extremities. I feel alive again.

And yet … this morning I woke up to a lovely, chilled, low-humidity day … and it feels divine.

Suddenly, there are closets to clean and yard work to do. There are books to read and comb through, materials to research. And this isn’t even counting what awaits me at the office.

Summer torpor slows me down, and that can be a good thing, a corrective. But after weeks of stickiness, this low-weight air is invigorating, a mountain stream. It gives me a first-day feeling, a necessary fresh start.

Water, Water Everywhere

Water, Water Everywhere

Comments 0 Comment

A rainy Monday, so maybe not the best day for a post about thirst and the lack of public water fountains. But an article in yesterday’s Washington Post made me think about this endangered feature of communal life.

According to the International Plumbing Code, the number of public drinking fountains required in new buildings is down by half, the article says. There are a few causes. One is the consumption of bottled water, which has quadrupled in recent years. Another is fear of contamination, which ironically has grown since the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974 began requiring municipalities to notify their residents immediately of any problems with their water.

But the lack of clean, safe public drinking water has actually hurt American’s health by driving young people to consume more sugary drinks, the article argues. And a preponderance of plastic water bottles is hurting the environment.

This article explains why I have to hunt longer to find a public water fountain. And it also makes me remember the water fountains of my youth. The one at Idle Hour Park, which made a deep whirring sound and produced a trickle of water that seemed to have been drawn up from the depths of a nearby swamp. And the one in the hall of my grammar school, which we would be allowed to stand in line and use on warm spring afternoons. Imagine 400 to 500 kids drinking out of the same fountain! Still, nothing has never tasted as good as the water that flowed from that cool — and I’m sure unsanitary — tap.

Ninety-Three Percent

Ninety-Three Percent

Comments 0 Comment

Just back from a walk in the mist, the air filled with moisture. Good for the skin, bad for the hair (I’ve given up this week) and, when one is out in it, good for the soul.

How can this be?  It’s the first week of June, a time when blossoms should be bursting from the branch, a time of blue skies and not yet broiling temperatures. This year a week of steady rain and heavy mist, of sodden soil and fallen petals.

Look carefully at the air and you can see the droplets there, a drizzle so fine it surprises itself.

I originally titled this post “Ninety-Nine Percent,” because I couldn’t imagine how air could hold more moisture than it’s holding today. But I checked the weather and found that it’s ninety-three.

Six percent more? No way.

June Channeling April

June Channeling April

Comments 0 Comment

It is June channeling April. Rain is pounding the roof, bouncing off the deck, making those musical gutter sounds it does when it means business.  It is weighing down the bamboo and darkening the deck.

The plants love it, so do people who prefer their summers on the cool side.

But for those of us who like our summers hazy, hot and humid, this weather seems out of place, to say the least. Where is the whirring fan, the glass of iced tea with almost all of its ice melted?

About three days away, that’s all. And so, since there is little to do about it, I’ll put on my tennis shoes and raincoat and float away into the day.

First Summer Storm

First Summer Storm

Comments 0 Comment

I ran into the house last night dodging fat drops of warm rain. The thunder and lightning started as soon as I closed the door. Finally, a spring storm, not a chill winter rain.

Copper ran down to the basement even though I slipped him into a green doggie polo shirt. I’d read somewhere that any close-fitting shirt can be a “thunder shirt,” can make a creature feel safe in the storm.

But isn’t darting under a table in the basement an eminently sensible thing to do? The universal need to take cover. My own grandmother hid in the closet during storms, I’ve been told. And any feelings of coziness storms bring is directly related to how secure I feel during them.

This morning I awoke to a drenched world full of eye-popping green. Not exactly a rainbow but the next best thing.