Monday, April 20, 2009

from winter to summer

It was 90 degrees today. What ever happented to spring? I live in Northern California, near the Bay Area (San Francisco area) and I remember even a few years ago, having a least two months of spring-like weather. Cool mornings, warm (like 65 degress, ar a little warmer afternoons with some nice cool fog in the evenings. But the last few years it seems that we have been going from winter straight to summer with heat waves. Sometimes they only lasted a week, or a couple days, and I know that other places have it worse, but I'm not used to this. Our weather used to be rather mild. We would have some frosty mornings, a fair amount of rain, a mild spring, then a summer with a few heat waves, leading to an "Indian" summer. Our summers used to be rather mild, staying around 85 degrees, except for the heat waves - we had at least two a month. But in the last two years, 2007 and 2008 we had very warm weather in February, leading into March. It would rarely cool down very much after that. Roses and geraniums started blooming early. I wonder if this is just a cyclical thing, you know like a 50 year weather cycle (or something like that) or if it's all part of this global warming. I do know that the more concrete, sidewalks, cars, metal and buildings you have in an area, the hotter the climate. It's common sense, or simple physics. The sun beats down on these things and they hold, retain, and emanate the heat, helping to warm up your neighborhood. I notice when I'm on one of my rare walks that when I walk past a house that has a lot of trees and plants - a lot of plants, like climbing ivy and overgrown type gardens - that if feels like it's a least 5 degrees cooler. When it's around 90 degrees or more, 5 degrees makes a big difference. We're all going to have to adapt (pretty fast) and have a mini evolution process if this weather change continues. It would help if more trees and plants were planted. Our area used to be known for the amount of trees per square mile, but I've notices a lot of trees being torn down in favor of high-density three story apartment buildings - huge complexes that have little vegetation. Luther Burbank is probably turning in his grave right now. He lived in this city for quite a while and conducted many plant experiments; he thought this area was a wonderful place to live, in part due to the weather and in part due to all the vegetation.

We have 2 more days of hot weather, then it's suppose to cool down. I hope our summer isn't too bad. I don't remember seeing much fog this year, and I really miss it. We used to have quite a bit of fog.

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