Mar 4 2025 - More Spring Less Snow

 

The is no snow around the tree trunk out in front of the office window.  Doesn't that speak to how a tree keeps the ground slightly warmer.  I am told by Google that trees don't directly generate heat to warm the ground, but they indirectly help to keep the ground warmer by providing a protective canopy that reduces wind chill and allows sunlight to reach the soil.   And then another answer tells me that going deeper underground will be warmer than the surface.  That seems to me to be how deep the frost penetrates.  If you can get below the frost line, the ground, of course, isn't frozen.  What are the temperatures below ground?  If you go 10 feet down, it is between 50 and 60F or 10 - 16C.  If you ask the question for 20 feet and 100 feet, the same answer, so the soil temperature is quite constant.   You have to get way down - 400 feet - and the temperature rises due to radioactive elements deep in the earth slowly disintegrating and producing heat.   Let's go big: At 24 miles below the earth's surface, the temperature averages 1,800 degrees F. The centre of the earth (about 4,000 miles down) is closer to 8,000 degrees F. I'll go looking for Snow Drops soon, but don't see anything so far.  This picture is from last Spring.

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From Summer to Winter

The last day of August seems as significant as the last day of the year.  In fact, there is a place on Earth where the temperatures today can be as cold as Christmas right now. Where is it?  Oymyakon, Russia.  I looked it up and today it is actually 19 degrees Celsius.  So where is the coldest place right now? I found a chart of the hottest and coldest.  There is a place in the Antartica that is currently -110.6 degrees Fahrenheit. At the other end of the scale, the hottest place is Basrah-Hussen in Iraq at 119.3 degrees Fahrenheit.  I found these at the eldoradoweather.com site.  Antarctica isn't a place to most of us.  One can only imagine scientists living there.  The only visitors we can imagine are tourists.  That pretty well describes Antarctica.  It doesn't have a spring or fall - just summer and winter. It has no commercial industries, no towns or cities and no permanent residents.  There are numerous scientific bases - 65 in total. You can read about it here in Cool Antarctica.  So whoever is there now may be able to say that summer is turning to winter.   At the opposite end of the weather spectrum, things are quite different.  People live in Basra-Hussen in Iraq.  It is an ancient city.  It is one of the ports from which Sinbad the Sailor journeyed.  During the summer months, it is consistently one of the hottest cities on the planet, where temperatures regularly exceed 50 degrees Celsius or 122 degrees Fahrenheit.  Add to that high humidity sometimes exceeding 90% because of tis proximity to the marshy Persian Gulf.   So I guess heat wins over cold in human habitation. A few pictures from Grimsby Beach's Painted Ladies today.  There's whimsy and fun on the Lake - no worries about the hottest or coldest there.

Convert to Canadian!

I found this yesterday as I was researching British and American sports humour. We Canadians look so tough that it makes me want to 'convert' everyone to being Canadian.  Enjoy this comparative story. Canadian Hockey Conversion Table 50° Fahrenheit (10° C)  New Yorkers try to turn on the heat  Canadians plant gardens 40° Fahrenheit (4.4° C)  Californians shiver uncontrollably  Canadians sunbathe 35° Fahrenheit (1.6° C)  Italian Cars won't start  Canadians drive with the windows down 32° Fahrenheit (0 ° C)  Distilled water freezes  Canadian water gets thicker 0° Fahrenheit (-17.9° C)  New York City landlords finally turn on the heat  Canadians have the last cookout of the season -40° Fahrenheit (-40° C)  Hollywood disintegrates  Canadians rent some videos -60° Fahrenheit (-51° C)  Mt. St. Helens freezes  Canadian Girl Guides sell cookies door-to-door -10° Fahrenheit (-73° C)  Santa Claus abandons the North Pole  Canadians pull down their ear flaps -173° Fahrenheit (-114° C)  Ethyl alcohol freezes  Canadians get frustrated when they can't thaw the keg -460° Fahrenheit (-273° C)  Absolute zero; all atomic motion stops  Canadians start saying "cold, eh?" -500° Fahrenheit (-295°C)  Hell freezes over  The Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup source: http://www.jokes4us.com/sportsjokes/hockeyjokes.html Our pictures today glow with the Topaz Filter Restyle intensifying the sunset colours of Florida's Lido Beach.