Two days of weather and it’s raining not just drops but petals.
Blossoms fall from the trees, cling to sidewalks, cars — and park benches, too.
A house I passed yesterday in the twilight caught my eye, its front lawn covered with vivid pink petals, from a Kwanzan cherry, I think. If I’d had time I would have stopped and snapped a picture.
Instead I remember this: an ordinary house, a tree branching green, a yard with pink snow.
Snow-starved Washington is finally basking in a day off that is not due to sequester-related furlough.
The government, schools, offices — all closed. Students, teachers, bureaucrats — even lobbyists, I imagine — are staying home and letting the world spin on its own for a few hours.
As predicted, it’s a heavy, wet snow — not so much falling as plopping from the sky. Or maybe it”s plopping from the white-coated trees. Or maybe both.
Today’s photo looks much like yesterday’s. But it’s not from the vault. It’s real time.
Here in the suburbs of D.C. we don’t just argue about federal policies, we also debate what to call our snow storms. Though the Weather Channel calls the snow that’s supposed to start tonight “Saturn,” the Washington Post‘s Capital Weather Gang has named it Snowquester. And it’s not giving up the fight.
Putting aside the more primary question — which is why, since “Snowmaggedon,” we feel we must name our snow storms? —this naming convention does reveal an interesting turf war.
Apparently, the Washington Post‘s Capital Weather Gang asked folks to send them storm names last Friday, and the winning response was “Snowquester.” It’s the perfect appellation for a March snowstorm in sequester-weary Washington. And much more apt than Saturn, people say.
Will the name Snowquester stick? More to the point, will the snow?
We will have to wait and see.
We’re getting rain today, at least an inch they say. I’ll be downtown, as sheets of water pelt the alley, blur the view of First Street, dampen my lunchtime walk.
But out here in the suburbs, the rain will be seeping into dry soil, moistening gardens already growing, including the pesky wild onions, which have been sprouting earlier than usual.
If we’re lucky, the drops will glisten on pine boughs, hang out there longer than seems possible or probable. Little jewels — they’re hard to photograph. I’ll keep trying.
We’ve had more than our usual share of flurries this winter. Snow without purpose, not driven, not sticking much, just dancing in the air.
One minute the day lightens, the next it grays, and then … it’s white out (though not whiteout).
This is snow-globe snow, decorative, ornamental, does not mean business. It could be lint from an errant dryer. Or ash from a meddlesome volcano. Or bits of fluff from a cottonwood tree.
But no, it is snow. It melts on the tongue. It coats my hair when I walk through it, which I did yesterday.
Flurries are difficult to photograph. They are ephemeral. It is part of their charm.
It’s the end of January, not the month known for going out (coming in?) like a lion. But this year it’s doing just that. Wild wind, rough rain, flash flooding.
King Lear weather.
“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples…”
We are not the first to see weather as sign of a disordered world.
But this time, maybe we’re right.
(Not this steeple! It’s in Annapolis.)
After several futile forecasts yielding nothing, we woke up this morning to a white world. Not quite an inch yet but it’s still falling and roads are cold enough that every flake is sticking.
Maybe weather-watchers knew this snow was on the way, but I didn’t, so I felt like a kid this morning when I glanced outside, saw the white coating on the deck, the flurries in the air. For just a minute I felt that leap in the heart: No school today! No school!
And then I remembered: I don’t go to school anymore. I go to work. And yes, we are having work today.
(We didn’t receive quite this much! This is an old photo…)
Because the real thing continues to elude us. Because we are either too far south, too far east or (this time) too far north. (Hard to wrap my head around that one.)
Because the last time we had two inches of snow was almost two years ago, here is a picture of what it was like in the old days.
We have more than virtual snow, however. We have that acrid taste in the air when snow is near. And we have the cold air behind the front. Cold air that pushed the clouds away and gave us back the sun.
The season has been mild for us, so I’m glad I took the mountainous route home yesterday. The road winds from Intestate 79 to Interstate 81 on two-lane roads with drop-dead views.
The drop-dead part is not entirely metaphorical. Guardrails are few, elevations are high, descents are steep. Some of the hairpin turns make your stomach drop, especially heading east, when you’re on the one-foot-more-and-I’d-be-over-the-edge side.
My heart was pounding extra hard about this route yesterday, because the road was still sloppy and gritty from a nighttime dusting. I almost turned around, but am so glad I didn’t.
New snow had whitened each branch of each tree, freshened the ground cover, softened all but the craggiest mountain peaks. For miles I drove through tunnels of white under a blue, blue sky. And then, I crossed some divide, descended to some height and the snow was gone.
It was winter without the work. Drive-Through Winter.
The snow was late, as snow often is in the mid-Atlantic. When it shows up at all. Let’s just say we’re accustomed to disappointment, to sprinkles instead of flurries, to sleet that “holds down the total.”
Snowmaggedon and Snowpocalypse, those were aberrations. A dusting on the grass, that’s our fate.
So when I woke this morning to dry pavement, I didn’t think much of it. Another false alarm.
Twenty minutes later it began. Not flurries, nothing tentative about it.
Snow falling as straight as rain.