Spring in bloom
What a weird spring we're having. It wasn't that long ago that I was cleaning snow off my car. Then, all of a sudden, the switch flipped and we've had warm--nay, hot--weather. I had to put the air on in my car a few times because it was legitimately hot and/or humid. My temp gauge read 90F at one point! Holy cow. Dad even put the air on in the house because he was too warm. At 10 o'clock the other night, the weather bug on the news said 70F. A week earlier, we hadn't even hit that as a high temp. Just...makes the head spin.
Our sudden warm-to-hot temps did a number on the trees, in a good way. Two days of 80s acted like a warm compress, expressing the blooms from all the flowering trees. No kidding, every tree blossomed yesterday. It's quite the sight, really. Sometimes they're hit or miss, some blooming earlier, some later. This year? Bam! All at once, all together, so that there's suddenly really pretty trees where days earlier you had bare branches. So strange. But everything is so pleasant to view right now. There's a flowering willow tree in Warrenville that I pass on my way to work; it's my favorite blooming tree. I can only see it on the way to work because of how the layout is, but this morning, after watching it for a few weeks, it had its delicate purple blossoms. Sweet. They only last a few days, really, so I'm glad they're finally here.
With the surge in temperatures came a surge of moisture, too. On Monday, it was super windy; I mentioned that in my band post. We were also under a red flag warning as conditions were right for wildfires to happen (!). It was dry, despite the dirty rain from last Friday; the humidity was low, in the 20% range; and the gusts could blow any sort of flame around easily. We were actually told not to start any fires because they could spread quickly. On the news Tuesday, there were a number of fires in the area, including five separate fires, which merged into one large fire, near railroad tracks in the south suburbs. They were caused by sparks flying off trains. Whoa. But then yesterday, rain came through, heavy enough that we were under a flash flood watch this morning. We've also had rain this afternoon as well, but it's spotty and comes in waves. Some of it was hard, even waking some of my acquaintances overnight in the Naperville area, but here it wasn't so bad. There was good-sized hail up near the Wisconsin border and I'm thankful we missed that. The weekend looks good, though, so I'm just waiting to get there.
Our sudden warm-to-hot temps did a number on the trees, in a good way. Two days of 80s acted like a warm compress, expressing the blooms from all the flowering trees. No kidding, every tree blossomed yesterday. It's quite the sight, really. Sometimes they're hit or miss, some blooming earlier, some later. This year? Bam! All at once, all together, so that there's suddenly really pretty trees where days earlier you had bare branches. So strange. But everything is so pleasant to view right now. There's a flowering willow tree in Warrenville that I pass on my way to work; it's my favorite blooming tree. I can only see it on the way to work because of how the layout is, but this morning, after watching it for a few weeks, it had its delicate purple blossoms. Sweet. They only last a few days, really, so I'm glad they're finally here.
With the surge in temperatures came a surge of moisture, too. On Monday, it was super windy; I mentioned that in my band post. We were also under a red flag warning as conditions were right for wildfires to happen (!). It was dry, despite the dirty rain from last Friday; the humidity was low, in the 20% range; and the gusts could blow any sort of flame around easily. We were actually told not to start any fires because they could spread quickly. On the news Tuesday, there were a number of fires in the area, including five separate fires, which merged into one large fire, near railroad tracks in the south suburbs. They were caused by sparks flying off trains. Whoa. But then yesterday, rain came through, heavy enough that we were under a flash flood watch this morning. We've also had rain this afternoon as well, but it's spotty and comes in waves. Some of it was hard, even waking some of my acquaintances overnight in the Naperville area, but here it wasn't so bad. There was good-sized hail up near the Wisconsin border and I'm thankful we missed that. The weekend looks good, though, so I'm just waiting to get there.