Weather Report: Spring’s Winter

No-name creek re-freezing along its edges --

As I pulled on winter boots and coat and scarf and chook and mittens this morning, the temperature was 23ºF, with a “feels like” report of 9ºF. What is nowadays referred to “feels like” used to be called “wind chill” not all that long ago, but when I was a kid, it wasn’t called anything at all. We just had temperature, no matter how hard the wind was blowing and how much colder it felt than what the thermometer showed. 

Crows calling in the northeast at 9 a.m. sounded like ducks, their voices muted and distorted by the wind, that wind in the tall pines sounding like waves out on Lake Michigan. If woodpeckers were at work this morning, their hammerings were drowned out entirely. And yet, although the forecast had called for nothing but clouds today, large swathes of blue sky showed as the sun rose. A welcome sight!

Glimpses of blue sky and morning sun!

 

Lake Michigan Today

Above you see waves crashing onto the beach at the end of Onomonee Road in Leelanau Township. Below is the long view, looking west-southwest from the high bluffs of Peterson Park (crashing waves out of sight below trees), showing how far out into the lake the roiling waters are filled with suspended sediment. There is danger of shoreline flooding today.

Dust Storm -- Overland From the Playa

In the Midwest, the weather news has been snow, ice, and cold. Here in the Southwest, it's been wind.

We could see the dust in the distance from about 20 miles away. As we drove closer, the storm naturally appeared larger. 

We were in the clear in Willcox, but driving from there to Dos Cabezas we were heading right into the storm. We could not even see our mountains in any direction.

And then, happily, before Dos Cabezas, we came out the other side.