I went for a walk this morning. I see that we’re in that transitional phase between deep summer and inescapable Fall. We’re not quite into Fall yet, but the signs are clear.
The trees are still green, but here and there we see blotches of yellow.
If you ask me, the weather is nearly perfect: sunny, warm, but not unpleasantly so, with cool breezes (although we do occasionally see fierce thunderstorms). I wouldn’t mind if the weather were like this year around, but the trees know better, and they know what’s coming. They’re making preparations.
I’m also seeing brown leaves piling up curbside, blown there by the wind, so I know some trees are shedding leaves already.
The more fragile forbs are taking it even further. The flowers are losing their petals already. The milkweed we planted in our yard to feed the monarchs are reduced to brown, rustling stalks.
Get ready. October is almost here.
It is no longer known as “Fall.” It has unofficially been changed to ‘pumpkin spice season.’
We had autumn the first half of September, now it’s been in the upper 80’s for the past week. Next week it’ll probably be winter. $^#&%^% Central Illinois.
Also, how many of those already harvested pumpkins will even see 10/31?
Here in the UK the temperature plummeted ten days ago, marking the end of summer. This last week the overnight temp did pick up again a little bit, and today (at least where I live) we’ve had the first thunderstorm since midsummer. Rain is forecast almost solidly for the next four weeks now, which is the traditional sign of the beginning of both spring and autumn — only time will tell whether we get a winter in between.
“Pre-fall” = “pre-lapsarian” in proper academese.
How many apple trees do y’all have in Morris?
My building turned on the heat.
My cherry tree has been dropping just enough leaves on the walkway and back deck to cause me to use the leave blower once a week. Also, the rose of sharon bushes are dropping all their flowers which blow around and end up staining the concrete.
I loved Autumn in Edmonton, Alberta back in the day. All two weeks of it!
October started long before October started. Huge balloon things started growing in peoples’ yards. Displays of worshipping for wealth and unknowable waste landscaped the townships.
I started seeing Halloween decorations in the stores a month ago. It was still mid Summer.
I’m now also seeing Thanksgiving decorations in the stores.
We haven’t even made it to October yet.
So, how long until we start seeing Holiday/Xmas decorations in the stores? Along with Xmas sales?
I’ll make a guess around mid-October.
Don’t forget the War on the War on Halloween. Every year the fundies go berserk about celebrating Halloween, not realizing that ghosts don’t exist, and those skeletons you see every where are fake, mostly made in China out of plastic.
Followed shortly afterwards by the War on the War on Xmas.
Fundie xians don’t have holidays.
They have Wars on Holidays.
I’m a bit future South than you and beside a humongous lake but walking down the street yesterday evening, it was more like August than late September.
I am not even seeing much in the way oy leaves turning and so on. Very, very strange.
In Houston, Spring Fall Summer and Winter are all the same.
Still hot in Florida and I’m sideeyeing a CAG storm that hasn’t developed yet that may hit anywhere from SW Florida to Texas. Michael was a CAG storm. Still too soon! Shit might get real next week. Hope not.
Other than that I’m looking forward to a cool down in late October. Should run my heat soon to burn off the dust.
Sycamores drop early here I think. Maples turn. Oaks drop leaves. No real snow. Rare flurries that melt on impact. We’ve probably moved away from the two or three time a year freeze watch and especially the much rarer warning due to climate change which doesn’t exist in our state government that would rather turn state parks into golf courses and resorts.
Here in Wisconsin, the Christmas decorations are going up at Menards (our regional big box home improvement store chain). That must be a sign of something. Not something good, but something.
Paul K: They’ve been up since August in the local Costco. While the Halloween stuff started showing up in June.
Environment Canada issued a “Frost Advisory” for the City of Calgary.
The weather here in middle Honshu, about 100 miles north of Tokyo, is very similar to what PZ is describing–bits of yellow on leaves, some brown ones already on the ground. The joro spiders on my balcony are finishing off a lot of insects, including some mosquitos I’m glad to see put out of circulation. I had a great view of some of the webs in the light of the recent super moon, but my phone cam and I couldn’t figure out how to show their gleaming glory.
Currently in Cheltenham, in SW England, where the OP could be describing conditions here over the last week. 70 degrees, sunny, cool evenings. A very nice break from the heat of Central Texas.
We did have an unusually violent thunderstorm yesterday afternoon where one lightning bolt struck so close and loud it sounded like a transformer exploding. My mum has no phone service as a result, thought somehow internet is working even though it uses the same line. 🤷
Here on the opposite side of the flat earth… I just planted spring onions and garlic in my brand new gigantic garden by the beach… that I have been waiting to live in for 12 years now.
The sun is actually just now starting to come out for extended visits.
Don’t give me this Spiced Pumpkin malarkey. We all know what season it really is.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-decorative-gourd-season-motherfuckers
Almost equinox. 22nd this year so I gather.. & That’s three quarters of the year gone really astronomically approximately speaking. (Solstice-equinox-solstice-equinox-solstice.) Whoah. Ye non-existent gawds time flies..