It’s been an odd winter all around I guess, and maybe every winter is odd. I mean weather-wise. On the mild stretch of Pacific coast where I live, the rains came pretty much on schedule in the fall. At the end of November we had a very wet, very warm storm. The storms continued in December, though the weather cooled off. By Christmas, some locations had nearly double their average rainfall amounts for the date.
January arrived, and we moved into what’s normally our rainiest time of year. But this time around, the storms started detouring north of California. Two or three little systems have brushed past. Until this week, the weather’s been cold (by our standards) and clear. The past few days have been warm (by anyone’s winter standards–temperatures in the upper 60s and 70s) and clear.
Overnight, the wind came up from the east and northeast. That means it’s been flowing over the ranges of coast hills and mountains down to the bays and oceans. When that happens, the wind warms up (the apparent explanation: the air compresses and warms as it descends the faces of the hills Letting the dog out at 5:30 this morning, I stepped out into the backyard and felt how balmy the breeze felt, then went to check our thermometer. Sixty-one degrees.
Now the daylight is coming up. We’ve got an asteroid making a close pass later today. A meteorite came down someplace in Russia. Looks like a warm day ahead.