Weird Weather (updated)

Hyacinths blooming in fresh snow

 

(to start of project)

A few weeks ago we had snow on daffodil, crocus and hyacinth blooms. Yesterday it was almost 90 degrees. Abnormal is pretty normal here this time of year. I have photos taken several years ago of roses blooming in a snow storm. They don’t sleep well nights at the local vineyards and orchards until April is over and done with.

 

Last weekend we had tornados. I grew up in Georgia where twisters are fairly common, so I know the strange, tortured look the sky has when one is busting up furniture in town – all bruised and discolored, the clouds tattered. It looked like that here. I got the camera and walked into the field, not knowing there were actually warnings out. Later, a tornado did take a swing at the north end of the county.

 

Tornado sky. This water tower is usually pale green,
and clouds white on a blue sky, not the reverse.

 

With everything such a convoluted mess weatherwise, we don’t consider it really-finally-for sure Spring until the May Apples appear. They showed up last week, magically popping up overnight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now everything is in bloom; the hummingbirds are back, and the swifts. Though the water is still cold, if you time it carefully there’s good sailing to be had. Lots of days the wind blows warm morning into night out of the south, steadily pushing Winter back up north. You just don’t want to be on the water when Winter turns around and takes another angry swipe. But yesterday was one of those warm wind days. Made it hard to stay inside breathing sawdust. I kept walking outside to sit in the sun and listen to the birds.

 

Update 4/28/11:

The day after posting this, a volatile storm front pushed a swarm of tornadoes across the South, killing over 300 people, several in Virginia, in the second worst series of storms ever. Unaware of how bad it was, we drove to Richmond with friends that night to hear some music at the old National Theater on Broad Street, passing at times through hail and wind. Standing on the sidewalk in the twilight, waiting to go in, a huge storm passed in the distance. It was ten miles away but so big and virulent with lightning it outshined the marquee. We were mesmerized. It was beautiful in the way scary things can be. Only the next day did we learn what dreadful business it was leaving behind. Was a strange feeling then, like learning the man you bumped into on the street was a serial killer.

 

 

Youtube Link

 

 

melonseed skiff, mellonseed skiff, melon seed, mellon seed   

 

2 Replies to “Weird Weather (updated)”

  1. I kept looking at the water tower with it’s cellular antenna, wondering what that had to do with spring, but gave up.
    I remember visiting the Midwest one summer when a huge hammerhead cloud system loomed to the north. Never having seen such an apparition, I was mesmerized. It looked beautiful and lethal, but reality didn’t take hold until someone yelled at me to get down in the basement.

    Tuesday, April 26, 2011 – 01:40 AM

  2. Well Doryman, you would have had a similar experience here. That water tower is usually a different color, as are the clouds behind it. If it were video, you would see those funny colored clouds shooting by low and frantic ahead of the storm, like small critters running from a wildfire.

    Tuesday, April 26, 2011 – 10:31 AM

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