So, they’re saying that this may equal or exceed the Blizzard of ’78. But I’m a skeptic. I mean, it could, but how many of these young whippersnappers pontificating on this topic were actually *alive* during the Blizzard of ’78? Well, I was here, and I’m not saying this one won’t make it, but I am saying it still has a couple of feet to go.
Regardless, it sure is pretty.
The astute reader may have noticed that yesterday’s post included sunsets from November 11, 12, and 14, but not November 13. While it’s not exactly accurate to say that there was no sunset on November 13, it’s entirely true that the sunset was not visible from my house here on Block Island. Instead, we had a day of glorious wind and clouds and even an occasional bit of rain as a cold front moved through. The swiftly moving and changing clouds danced with the light on ocean and lighthouse and winter landscape to create breathtaking vistas, all clouds and cold, as the day went on. And so… just to prove that I don’t post only sunsets, I present… November 13, 2012 on Block Island!
With a hey, ho, the wind and the rain…
The storm moved onto the island a little before noon today. It’s blowing and pouring, battering at windows and roof. The US Weather Service is predicting sixty-mile-per-hour gusts. All the ferries today are canceled. We are snug inside and enjoying the show. But it does seem appropriate to post last night’s breathtaking sunset, unsettled and intimating a change in the weather.
5:40 pm
5:50pm
October 16, 2011. Sometime between when we left the house and when we lined up at the ferry terminal, this unlikely cloud formation appeared in the sky, lit from below by the setting sun. It seemed to forebode a serious change in the weather, but instead vanished within minutes, leaving no trace.
Yesterday afternoon the rain clouds rolled in. The wind picked up; the air smelled like the ocean. Thunder growled a warning. And then the rain broke loose. I closed the windows and kept working. After a while, the sky grew lighter, and when I looked up the sun was shining again, long, late afternoon golden light slanting through the pouring rain.
Wait a minute.
Late afternoon sunlight…in the pouring rain…
There must be a rainbow! A perfect end to this beautiful (Jewish) New Year’s day.
As if the rainbow weren’t enough, the sun put on a show too.
Dan and I have been here on Block Island since Thursday, and just as the United States Weather Service forecasted, it’s been cloudy and occasionally foggy and rainy. It’s been beautiful, and I’m not complaining. It’s always beautiful here on the island. But the last thing we expected was any kind of color at sunset. So, imagine our surprise when…
This is a gift. This is why we’re here on the island.
This is why we human beings are here on this Earth. The planet is beautiful, and we are here for only a short time. Appreciate it. Take care of it.
This is a first: A post about Block Island while I am still on the island. And pictures of the sky and almost-sunset within twenty-four hours of when they were taken.
Yesterday we took advantage of the clear weather to plant a number* of new Rosa rugosas and weed the garden out front. But at about 5:30 I had to take a break in order to photograph the sky. The prediction was for rain starting at about 5am, and the sky was beginning to cloud up with an effect that looked like some kind of aery ocean.
Below it, the ocean and the pond were lit up like some kind of watery sunfire.
Later that evening, the clouds thickened. There was only one narrow sliver of sunset, and that, only for a few moments.
Today, as promised, it’s been raining. All day. Good for the Rosa rugosa.
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* eight
It seemed buddha’s lap would soon reappear amid the melting snow, but today we got another four inches or so of new snow. And Buddha got a new white coat and hat.
I thought you might enjoy this photo of a genuine sundog (parhelion) sighting on the island. It’s unusual because the clouds look more like some hybrid of stratus clouds than like the cirrus clouds that usually produce sundogs. But there must have been ice crystals in these clouds, whatever they were, for the sundogs to form.
More than two hundred trees toppled in Newton, according to yesterday’s Newton Tab, where the storm made the front page. (This will tell you something about the excitement level of events in my home town.)
When it began, we were exactly where any garden-loving New Englander would be on a Sunday in June: out working in the yard. But we had a particular excuse. We’d spent the earlier part of the weekend on Block Island and had a lot of catching up to do before Dan flew into his midweek work travel schedule.
I can’t say there was no warning about this storm. Of course there was. The weather was unsettled. This is *New England* we’re talking about here, right? So we ignored the darkening sky, the rising wind. We did note the near-constant background growling of thunder, a more common phenomenon in the midwest than here. We also noted the occasional loud crash and tried our best to hurry putting cages onto the tomato plants in the side yard.
But when the rain came, it came all at once, the air turning suddenly into an environment more suitable for fish than for people. We dropped the tomato cages and fled. Into the screen porch, the nearest door. Soaked. Oblivious of boundaries, wind blew rain right through the screens. We shed muddy gardening shoes and escaped indoors.
Half an hour later, the storm was gone. So was our power.
This turns out to be a big event in our neighborhood, right up there with the annual clean-up party at the community garden. “Is your power out, too?” a neighbor emails our neighborhood mailing list. I receive it on my Blackberry. Yes, we’re all without power. A neighbor reports a tree down on the road leading into the neighborhood. Struck by lightning. Dan and I venture outside to investigate.Many of our neighbors do the same.
This is what it looks like:
Strangely, no one seems upset. The atmosphere is almost festive. As dusk falls, no street lights glare into the peaceful evening. Soft candlelight in the windows reveals who is at home. We grill fish and broccolini and warm up leftover mashed potatoes on the grill. A feast.
We decide to walk into Newton Centre to get ice cream for dessert. We meet a neighbor at the community garden, who tells us that the electric company has come by. Temporarily, they’ve fixed the problem. We look around at the darkened street and raise a skeptical eyebrow. “Well, not fixed, exactly,” he says. “But they put up that yellow crime-scene tape on both ends of the road where the tree is down.” As if otherwise people would drive right through and not notice.
“Did they say when they were going to fix it?”
“Not right away,” says our neighbor. “They have to work on all the fires first. There are six or eight of those. They don’t know how long it will take. And there are eight trees down just in this immediate area.”
On the way home from Newton Centre, we see one of those other downed trees. The electric company has started work, and a police car, lights flashing, blocks the road while the work is going on. And guess what’s on the screen of the inboard laptop computer in the police car! Solitaire! I swear this is true. Er… that is, Officer, someone must have hacked my blog and put that in. I never saw anything like that. Not me.
“If no one has any electricity,” a neighbor who is away from town emails, “how is everyone managing to send around all these emails?” Just the way you sent yours, of course, I want to reply, but someone else gets to it first. On our cell phones. Computer? What computer?
Still enjoying the festive spirit of an evening with no electricity (and trying not to worry too much about what will happen to the contents of the refrigerator if this turns into a week with no electricity), we go home and to bed.
The lights come blindingly on all over the house at exactly 4:13am.
Thank you, NStar, for working through the night while we slept.