Weather | The Beauty Around Us

The First Snow of the 2020-2021 Winter Season

Yes, I am blogging again.

It has been a little more than a year since my last “The Beauty Around Us”blog post. Have I lost my blogging friends? I hope not!

I want to share with you a couple pictures that I just took of the snow that fell overnight at my home in NW Pennsylvania.

We had new front porch steps and a handrail installed late summer.

The bird feeder is a bit top heavy.

Don’t you just love the first snowfall of the season? I do!

Full Snow Moon Followed by a Snowy Day

Various Native American tribes had various names for the different moons of the year, tied to natural phenomena that reliably occurred alongside them. February is a snowy month in the northern and eastern US; hence the full “snow” moon.

The moon rise last night happened at 6:06 pm, but it didn’t rise above the hill that blocked its view until 6:50 pm. The moon had been full 7 hours previously, so the moon that rose wasn’t completely full.

The Almost-Full Snow Moon

Four minutes later the moon had risen a little higher in the sky.

The Almost-Full Snow Moon

It was a bit chilly last evening, waiting for the moon to rise over the hill so I could see it! I had enough of the cold, so I didn’t wait for the moon to rise above the tree!

The snow moon was followed by a snowy day.

Snowy day

Currently there is a winter weather advisory in effect until 6:00 am tomorrow morning. Mixed precipitation is expected. Total snow and sleet accumulations of 1 to 3 inches and ice accumulations of up to one tenth of an inch are expected. Snow fell during the late morning and is expected to continue through mid afternoon. The snow is expected to change to sleet by late afternoon, then over to lighter freezing rain this evening.

In Like a Lion and Out Like a …

March came in like a lion, and it is leaving like a lion.

The only good thing about snow this late in March is that it doesn’t stay around for long!

Spring Thaw

We have had 5 days of Spring thaw, counting today. The grass is beginning to reappear in our back yard, albeit a small patch.

Behind the picnic pavilion, I can even make out the top of our fire pit.

If the weather forecast holds true, much of this snow should be gone by Saturday night. Rain is forecast for Friday night and all day Saturday.

Frigid Temperature

It is really, really cold. The thermometer display shown above was as of 7:49 this morning. I cannot remember ever seeing a temperature this low in the almost 17 years that I have lived in Warren, PA. I can only imagine how cold it felt at this temperature (or even colder), when my husband left for work this morning. I ran an errand at around 9:30 am. By then it had warmed up to -8 degrees. The cold went right through me, in places my new Winter coat did not cover. I am glad that I didn’t have to be out for very long!

There is a positive note to this frigid weather. The bright sunshine of yesterday and today is good for the soul!

Stay warm my friends!

High Waters

Two days after we returned home from our North Carolina vacation, a lot of rain fell resulting in widespread flooding in Warren County, PA — the county in which I live. The photographs that I am sharing in this blog post were taken on May 21 and May 22.

I live two houses from a “t” intersection. These two photographs were taken across the street that intersects the street on which I live. The flooded waterway is the Conewango Creek.

Because of the amount of rainfall, there was too much water in the Allegheny Reservoir. On May 22 it was reported that Kinzua Dam was discharging water at the rate of 16,900 cubic feet per second.

There was a LOT of water being discharged at Kinzua Dam!

The Allegheny River in downtown Warren was also flooded.

The helipad at Warren General Hospital was partially under water.

The geese kept to higher ground.

Crescent Park Geese

I have lived in Warren since June 1998. The flood waters were higher than I ever remember seeing, while living here.

In Between the Storms

Several storms rolled through Warren, PA yesterday evening. I spent much of the time outside, sitting on our picnic pavilion, while the storms rolled through. Our picnic pavilion has a metal roof. I enjoyed listening to the sound of the rain falling, although it hitting on the metal roof was almost deafening! I enjoyed the cool, refreshing breeze that came as a result of the storms too.

I took a few photographs in between the storms.

Our next-door neighbor’s Rhododendron bush.

I like how the picnic pavilion openings provide framing for the sky.

The image below is a fusion of three photographs. I placed my camera on one of the pavilion’s banisters. Using manual settings, I took one image correctly exposed. The second image was taken with an exposure value of +2; and the third image was taken with an exposure value of -2. I used f/22 for all three images and an ISO of 200 (the lowest ISO that my Olympus OM-D E-M5 is capable of. I used a program called Photomatix to fuse the three images together. I used Nik Color Efex Pro 4‘s detail extractor and tonal contrast filters to enhance the fused image.

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