Tag: Weather
Snow Day 2015
The midwest got clobbered on Super Sunday (also known as Feb 1st) with about 17″ of snow in one of the largest one day snow falls in our history. James and Dad both shoveled snow multiple times while waiting for the game to come on. We were notified that Jame’s school was closed around 5pm so we had no problem letting James stay up for the entire game, although he was disappointed in the outcome.
We started shoveling snow a little after 7am Monday and were surprised to see the streets already plowed. By noon most of the streets were clear and it was business as usual. Hopefully James will not have too many more snow days this year, but it was ground hog day and the ground hog saw its shadow so it certainly does look like six more weeks of winter.
First Snow of 2015
The first snowfall of the year came during the Lions playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys. Unfortunately the Lions lost despite leading until about 2 minutes to go, but we finally got to see how our snowmen display looks before being put away for the season. James helped with the snow and shoveled about half of the sidewalk while Dad took these pictures. It’s suppose to snow a few more times this week but hopefully they will be light like it was today (everyone still remembers the harshness of last winter). While it wasn’t a white Christmas we can’t say we didn’t get any snow this Holiday season.
Unfortunately it was the Lions out of the playoffs that signified the end of the Christmas/New Year Holiday (24-20), its back to school for James and back to work for everyone else.
Lunar Eclipse 2014
The family enjoyed the lunar eclipse which was very well publicized and easy to see due to the nice clear weather in October. It was visible from North America, parts of Australia, China and Japan. Parts of South Asia, and Eastern Europe saw a partial eclipse.
Taking pictures of this was not easy as you can tell, but we tried. James also has a telescope that came in handy during this time period, but does not have the capability of allowing us to photograph the images.
All in all a very fun experience that the whole family enjoyed. Anything having to do with the moon in October has to be enjoyed by this family.
Great Flood of 2014
James kept telling us a big storm was coming and boy was he right. After one of the most brutal winters in history no one expected to see a summer storm which would dump the most water on us in one 24 hour period in the last 100 years (1925 is the record).
The rain started late morning and continued for about 8-10 hours straight. Twice dad had to go out and clear gutters on the house during the down pour.
When it was all over, over 4000 cars were stuck in flood waters and billions of dollars in flood damage occurred. Fortunately for us, we did ok, although the water got almost up to the sidewalk on our street before subsiding. A day or two later the Governor flew over the area and declared us a disaster area. While we did ok, many of our neighbors lost much in the flood as many basements (and some houses) were under several feet of water. We hope the insurance companies do their best to help our neighbors in their time of need.
Full Rainbow Over The House
James wants to be a weather man when he gets older so naturally he is fascinated with weather, both good and bad weather. Jame’s favorite weather is a rainbow and it is rare that he see’s a full rainbow (a rainbow that goes 180 degrees across the horizon, most only go 90 degrees) and its even rarer that he see’s a full rainbow right smack dab over his own house.
James was “johnny on the spot” as soon as he spotted it hovering over the garage in the back yard. According to our calculations there should be a pot of gold on Pardee and/or Vassar as that appeared to be where the rainbow started and ended.
Chasing a Rainbow at a Softball Game 2014
James and Dad went to the park (despite a slight rain) to watch some of Dad’s friends play softball at Levigood (spelling??? The park outside Divine Child high school) park in Dearborn Heights. James spent most of the time playing in the park nearby, but was on hand when the game went into extra innings. The game went into extra inning and (unfortunately) Dad’s friends lost in the extra innings. All the same it was a fun visit for both James and Dad, who used to play softball not that long ago.
On the way home we were treated to a rainbow hovering over Dearborn Heights. James decided he wanted to chase it down so we continued past Dearborn Heights into Taylor but the rainbow continued to elude us, going more and more South the close we came to it. Although we came close, we never did catch up to the rainbow.
Finally the rainbow disappeared altogether and James and Dad returned home from a fun afternoon in “the heights”.
Continue reading “Chasing a Rainbow at a Softball Game 2014”
Finally, The Official End Of Winter 2014
The winter of 2014 was record setting not only for snow fall but also for the extreme cold brought about by the new buzz word – Polar Vortex. This has to be as close to living inside a freezer as possible. From a driving perspective we have seen every type of driving hazard (white out, snow, sleet, freezing rain, etc) sometimes on the same day, we have gone weeks without dipping above freezing (temperature in the 30’s is a heat wave) and for the first time in my life I noticed frost on the inside windows one extremely cold day in January.
I think everyone is disappointed with the intensity of this winter and trying to make the best of it. Warm days are ahead and I don’t think you will hear any complaints from the people of Michigan once the hot weather hits.
I am posting these pictures so that I never complain about the heat or humidity during the summer months again.
End of Summer 2013
This summer started off hot then cooled down, but James did take advantage of both the hot days and the cool days in various ways. For the real hot days he had his slip and slide going in the back yard, cooler days he would work on his chalk projects.
After the Fourth of July it seemed the weather really became mild with average temperatures in the mid 70 – mid 80. This was unusual to be this cool in July and August but opened the door for many outdoor adventures where you did not have to avoid the sunlight.
Highlights of this year for James would have to include the slip and slide days of June, Mackinaw, VIP camp, and all the fireworks on the Fourth of July (we trusted James to light a few this year).
James will begin 5th grade tomorrow and we are all looking forward to that. Mrs Jent will be his teacher again this year and we are all happy about that.
Last Spring when summer started for James he brought home a sunflower from school that he planted, shown here is James and the sunflower and how well he took care of it.
Late Spring Snow Fall 2011
When you live in Michigan which is surrounded by the great lakes you can get snow almost anytime except summer. This is one of the reasons you can’t really do much gardening in April and according to the farmers almanac, you are not out of the woods regarding snow until Memorial Day (and I remember some close calls regarding snow even on Memorial Day).
James took a break from his Easter activities and shoveled the snow which was nice, especially on Easter weekend. This little blast kind of took us by surprise and the snow just does not work with the Easter decorations.
However the people in the neighborhood who still have Christmas decorations are saying a big and collective “told you so” to the rest of us.
A Fun Snow Day 2011
A blistering cold Michigan Saturday did not stop James from having some winter time fun. He built a snow fort, then had a blast demolishing it. He made snow angels and snow balls, but had difficulty getting the snow to stick for a genuine snowman. He was visited by Swiper (the squirrel that can be seen in the neighbors tree, James named him after Swiper the Fox from the Dora cartoon series because he looks alot like the fox (he’s a big squirrel). It appears that we were the only two human beings outside this day, I don’t know if that’s a statement about us or about the neighborhood but eventually we just said no more being a prisoner of a Michigan winter.
