Home again! And during the two weeks I was away it’s gone from the end of winter, with snow patches still in the yard, to summer. The trees aren’t fully leafed out and it’s dry – extreme fire danger. But the daytime temperatures are now in the 80’s. I doubt that the few drops of rain we had last night will help much.
The sun rose this morning at 3:26 am and will set at 12:15 tomorrow morning. That’s a total of 3 hours and 8 minutes with the sun below the horizon, and I know from the ride back from the airport near solar midnight Saturday that the sky will remain peach pink all night. Sunrise and sunset blend into each other this far north as midsummer approaches. The day is still increasing in length by about 6 minutes a day, but that will taper off soon.
The delphiniums and columbines are growing like mad, and the white violets are already blooming. The spirea has leafed out and is even showing flower buds, with the roses a little behind. The lilac and the Amur Maple are barely opening their leaf buds. And incredibly, I haven’t seen a mosquito yet. Maybe it’s too dry for them?
(The metal bars in the photo? I haven’t gotten around to removing the cage that keeps the moose out in the winter.)
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I live in the Philippines – a tropical country. It was nice to read about how your day went in far-off Alaska, about cages to keep the moose out during winter, and how the sun stays up for a long time… it was a very pleasant, nice read for me. Good luck with the blogathon!
Thanks. Alaska weather is a regular Monday feature, just because it is so strange to many people.
I spent 4 weeks away when I visited my grand kids in Texas, but unlike yourself on my return little had changed. Could have been because I left in December and returned in January *_* Nice posting, thanks.
Rate of change varies a lot with time of year.
Late-night rains and early morning rains may simply be the last precipitation of a passing weather front. However, since fronts pass at night as often as they do in the day, morning rain is no predictor of a dry afternoon. However, this lore can describe non-frontal weather. Given sufficient surface heating, a late-day rainstorm may continue to develop into the night, produce early precipitation, then dissipate by late morning. This, though, is the exception rather than the rule. Only 40% of rain is produced by convective events—60% is the result of a frontal passage.
Depends on what part of the world you live in.