When I went out to get the paper this morning, it was 63F (17C). It felt noticeably warm even with the gusty breeze. But a few minutes ago when I was out washing the cat boxes, it felt as though a chill had set on. The wind that brought the clearing weather also brought the cold. The sky is now scattered cumulus clouds. The bright blue is lovely against the yellow leaves that remain.
Yesterday was November weather. It was overcast, cool-to-cold, drizzle or fog, gray, dark. These are necessary and sufficient for November. Today, much needed rain, maybe as much as 1/2 inch. Necessary but probably not sufficient. It was enough to bring a bunch more of the leaves down. If it is dry this week, I will be able to rake as I am on vacation taking care of the cats while my wife is away.
It rained overnight here. This is remarkable in that this is the third week in a row that we have had rain. Not a lot this time but some. Before the drought began, we would get a decent rain every 6 days or so. This summer, it did not rain but once or twice from 1 June to 30 September. Maybe three times.
As I went out to get the paper yesterday, the rain had stopped. The nuthatches were in the leaves of the mimosa tree, scooping beak-fulls of water from the fronds of the leaves and shaking the leaves to catch the water on their feathers.
Yesterday I picked up the Wall Street Journal and looked at the weather map. I saw that there was a cold front with thunderstorms along it due. I put on my hat to leave for work and noted that there was rain just beginning. As my son and I got into the car, the rain began. Ten minutes later as we were moving along the freeway, the rain was very hard and steady. The sky was dark enough that the dashboard lights were quite visible. I noted at this point that moving the bulbs around on the back of the dashboard module had moved the dead bulb to the over-65 side of the speedometer and the formerly dark side now had light. Sometimes you get lucky.
Yesterday was the South Carolina Republican Primary. Since this area is pretty much Republican, that was the hot topic. So much so that the Public Radio Network preempted Piano Jazz to cover it. For some reason South Carolina Public Radio (scern obsolete link) has been renamed South Carolina ETV Radio. Even though there were no results at 8:00 PM, the announcer remarked, they did have coverage. Better that they had waited until they did have results and use the points provided in the programming to interrupt or preempt.
The election may be hot but the weather is cold, even for January. We have had a bit of snow twice now. And a cold rain a couple of days. This is a good thing as we are way behind on rain since last year.
Last night we had a rare South Carolina snow. It was the buzz at work and I mentioned it to my wife when I got home. She said “Even the birds that don’t get along were feeding together so we’re going to get something”. It snowed a couple of inches overnight. School was canceled. The roads were wet and a bit slippery on the way to work. I left at the regular time and got to work 10 minutes earlier than usual because the traffic was light.