So I got up this morning and looked out my front window, and this is what I saw:
Then I looked out the back door, and it wasn’t any better (as if I’d expected the weather to be localized to only the northeast half of town):
I hadn’t been paying any attention to the weather reports lately — in the Spring we only have to worry about tornadoes, usually, and the predictions for those are mostly useless — so I hadn’t expected Winter to be reborn. We’ve got 5 or 6 inches of snow out there, with a couple more on the way. And everything had been so naked and brown just yesterday!
Flying the Jolly Roger…..Sweeeeeet.
We fly the pirate flag as a purely festive, seasonal thing — I only put it up Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer.
NCAA finals time, and you did not expect this sort of weather…
If my (selective) memory serves me right, in the balmy southern state of Iowa, early April always marked the return of Father Frost ;)
Well, here, we have mid to high 50s in central europe, so no complaining. Enjoy the snowball fights…
I had taken the unwillingness to assume that the wheather is identical at front door and back door to be typical of cats. Several successive cats have asked me to let them out of the front door after concluding that the weather at the back door was too wet and windy for any self-respecting cat to be out in. Of course, they were highly insulted by the wheather at the front door too. The human should do something about this!
So what about global warming? Huh??!! OBVIOUSLY there can’t be global warming if there’s still SNOW & ICE!!!
That sucks for the birds that had already started to nest. Do any ornithologists (or more serious birders than I) on here know if a nest in mid-incubation can recover from a sudden snowfall like that?
Around here (northern Indiana) it’s still pleasantly springy, and I’m expecting to start seeing the first waterfowl-lings in a couple weeks or so…
The easter bunny is gunna freeze his aspidistra off.
Who or what was naked and brown?
Stop it before it gets to southern Illinois!
The ground. I noticed that. My wife keeps telling me it’ll go green with the rain, but I’m still waiting. In the meantime, I must be turning American because now – when I look at TV shows from the old country – I notice how green it looks.
Snow’s fun, though
I feel PZ is mising a trick with his Jolly Roger.
Back in the second world war it used to be a tradition for British submarines when returning from patrol to fly a Jolly Roger with smsbols such torpedoes, or a gun, or a a dagger for special ops, indicating what successes they had.
Maybe PZ could add a dunce’s cap for each creationist he shoots down. Might need a bigger flag though.
I continue to wear a jacket. I take it off when I go outside, though: It’s only office weather that’s unpredictable and often cold.
Hard to shoot down something that never flew in the first place.
Ian said:
“Hard to shoot down something that never flew in the first place.”
Fair point, can we make that sunk without trace after failing to float after being launched ?
It’s been getting close to 90 degrees here, in southeast Georgia, lately. I envy you.
If you doubt this is possible, how is it there are PYGMIES + DWARFS???
While I don’t envy you PZ, I would like to mention it is a nice 80 degrees here in Morgantown, WV. Too bad the nice weather isn’t going to last. The prediction for Thursday through Sunday is.. snow. Imagine that.
It’s 78 here in Austin and we’re supposed to hit 88 according to the forecast for today. If it gets that hot, the wife’s threatening to turn on the A/C for the first time this year.
There must be a front coming b/c we’re back down to 72 for a high tomorrow and 68 for a high on Saturday.
I don’t know what I’d do without 20 degree temperature swings. Ahhh…Texas.
Heleen –
I too had a cat in mind reading PZ’s post, but it was the one
from Robert Heinlein’s _A door into Summer_
I moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles two years ago. Snow in April is one thing I don’t miss at all.
My daffodils are blooming here in the balmy southeast Costa Del Sol of Minnesota… but up the road Eau Claire has a snow advisory. Interesting stuff, weather.
Forecast today in the stinkin’ desert:
This Afternoon: Sunny, with a high near 91. West southwest wind around 10 mph. Ninety-one [BLEEPING] degrees in APRIL!
I have NEVER had to get the cooler going in April, and I’ve lived here since I was 4.
PZ, what’re you doing? Of course the weather turned colder–remember, global warming is caused by the drop in the number of pirates over the years. Hang up a pirate flag for a period of time and you’ve got to expect a cold snap!
We’re getting snow over the weekend. The LONG weekend. The one that is supposed to be all about happy bunnies hopping around in the grass, not trudging through the snow…
Yup, we got about the same last night here in Calgary. I think spring was last week, when we hit 17°C at one point. Damn glad I’m heading to Egypt in a week. Why, oh why, do I live in the Great White North? Snow is a four-letter word beginning with ‘s’….
Man, do I envy you. Sure, it’s a bit late, but there were a grand total of 2 days with any snow on the ground in Vienna this winter and 0 in Paris, and I feel betrayed.
Man, do I envy you. Sure, it’s a bit late, but there were a grand total of 2 days with any snow on the ground in Vienna this winter and 0 in Paris, and I feel betrayed.
Eva:
Thbbt. At least you have a long weekend.
NY is supposed to get lake effect snow this weekend, just in time for the big holiday to herald the arrival of spring. When I complain about the winters, people always tell me about the year it snowed on Mother’s Day.
PZ – I feel your pain up here in Fargo.
*SIGH*
Why, oh why, do I live in the Great White North? Snow is a four-letter word beginning with ‘s’….
My solution: It never snows after the vernal equinox. It’s “fluffy rain”.
In this part of Ohio the day began with sunshine and warmed into the seventies. It is ending with thunderstorms and rapid cooling. Tomorrow’s forecast to be in the low forties, with cold rain. Ah, so. Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.
Oh, come on. “Spring” is just a joke here. It can last as little as a few days before the transition from little, itty-bitty, annoying frosts (oh, say, like the sub-freezing current temperatures in April, coupled with oppressive overcast and snow flurries) to 90’s F temperatures. When it behaves otherwise, it’s glorious for a few weeks. Unless it’s wet. During such a season, the mosquitoes render the outdoors uninhabitable outside of smoking pyres of repellents.
The same temperature regime, inverted, applies to “fall”.
What a place to be (having grown up in south Georgia). It’s certainly ok from many other points of view, though. I Minnesota.
Ok,here’s a glitch that I’ve seen before. My earlier note ended, online, with “I Minnesota”. That makes no sense. The actual line was “I (carat – the symbol) love (carat – the symbol) Minnesota”. I have a passing interest in the reason why scienceblogs makes items that are bracketed with such characters invisible, but I’m not going to spend a lot of time considering it. Perhaps I should use [] or {}. Or – perhaps scienceblogs should make its system a bit more flexible. I have a low tolerance for systems that do not automatically correct for such “errors” or ask the submitter to correct them – I submit, on a fairly frequent basis, items to other fora that do have automated responses to such problems. Scienceblogs is a bit deficient in comparison.
We got gipped in the twin cities. Just a dusting and it’s cold. You can still see the newly greened-up grass through the white snow…
I’m down here in Ohio (Dayton area).
Back in early January we had several weeks with highs near 70F; birds were singing and displaying, and the daffodils came up and the roses sprouted leaves.
Then it got below 0F for several nights, then there was several inches of snow.
Then the last two weeks it has been highs in the 60s and 70s. The birds were singing and flowers were blooming (the daffodils looked pretty ragged with frozen tips). The roses had dead branches from the previous freeze, but were putting out leaves on the lower branches.
Now it’s going to be a week or more of low temperatures in the low to mid 20s.
I think I’m going to have to buy some new roses.
I used to have a cat that we referred to as Bitch Kitty.
She would try one door and not like the weather; when I opened the second door and the weather was still bad she would turn and hiss at me.
Khan:
Cats in comment #4 and cat in comment #6 show the same behaviour then. Does any other cat behave in the same way?
Apart from the question how general this cat behaviour is, why should cats blame their human?
Hey, imagine how they felt around Houston TX, and southwest of Houston such as Victoria, when such scenes appeared on Dec. 25, 2004.
http://www.uhv.edu/flame/February_2005/NEWS_Snowfall.htm