There’s a rumor that it’s late April, and this is supposed to be Spring … but I just looked out my window and it looks like we’re having a blizzard right now.
It’s not April, it’s Minnesota!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Hmmm… I just looked out my window and it’s sunny and 80 degrees. For a couple months out of the year, before it gets oppressively hot, North Carolina just might be a better place to live than Minnesota.
Greetings from sunny Southern California, where it is presently 81 degrees. I will probably go outside and get some sun at around lunchtime.
Sorry, PZ, I like what you do, but I couldn’t resist.
(I kind of miss the snow.)
Ooh that sucks. Here in Mass we’ve had over a week of sunny warm weather. Not something that usually happens though. And it’s suppose to get colder in the next week-50s and such…
Beautiful day in Boston (60s). Actually, it’s been a gorgeous week. I don’t miss Minnesota at all.
We had that goin’ on here in Western Canada for the last week, including temperatures that were 20-25°C (~35-45 farthings, or whatever antiquated measuring system you Yanks still use) lower than normal for this time of year, and 20 cm of snow (~8 firkins, see above).
I’m no fan of snow (especially in April), but reading about places where it’s 80 degrees in April makes me wilt thinking about what it must be like in July and August.
83 for us in DC. And everything’s blooming. *sigh* A nice time of year to be alive.
Tell that to Portland – we had snow here last Saturday. WTF – it’s April already!
Come on PZ, you just know that the creo morons are telling you that you know who is doing this to you and you know why!
I’m reminded of a Saturday Night Live “Deep Thought”
Child: What is rain?
Adult: Rain is God crying.
Child: Why is God crying?
Adult: Probably because of something YOU DID.
It’s all the rampant godlessness emanating from our state,
I’m convinced of it.
It’s a good thing zeus is dead, or it would be lightning bolts instead of icy god-tears.
phew.
Yes… well… But right NOW it’s beautiful, that’s the point!
PZ, do you want to trade places with me? It’s starting to heat up in here in Hermosillo. We are expected to reach 42 C (107F) today and by next month we will easily clear 45C (113F) everyday. You can imagine how July and August are going to feel like…not to mention the heat index (opposed to chill factor). We are scheduled to reach 50C (122F) a couple of times this year plus a few extra degrees if you are out of the shade. Fortunately it will start to cool down by October.
Isn’t you-know-who supposed to do heat? Unless you mean the Aesir.
We had 79F here in Boston earlier in the week. Must have been the heat given off from all the marathon runners and tourists on Monday.
greetings from saint paul. it is 40° here, so the water falling from the sky right is liquid. maybe it will crystallize tonight.
ah, spring, when a young persons fancy turns to 2nd order phase transitions, preferably of the melting sort.
April in Spring? You northerners are a strange lot. April is in Autumn, don’t you know?
Not to rub it in, but I just finished my last lecture of the semester (a fun one at that – showed an Alton Brown episode, talked about the Maillard reaction, made bread to demonstrate the Maillard reaction, ate said bread)
Moreover, it is about 78 F outside and absolutely beautiful. I have a couple of groups of students coming by yet today to discuss projects, but then I am getting my arse outside to enjoy the day!
I will go home and talk a long walk with my newly pregnant wife and our two little dogs.
Darn life is good!
We’re in the same boat, PZ. It’s been 60 degrees, sunny, melting…for the last three days. This morning? White-out blizzard. 31 degrees. I want to throw myself off a building.
(of course, this is ANCHORAGE we’re talking about, but STILL!)
Spring in New Jersey: three days of 40°F followed by two of 80°F, then back to 40°F. Lather, rinse, repeat until it finally settles on 80°F and up.
Then it’s time for the humidity festival.
Fall is just the opposite.
Uh, welcome to Minnesota?
Lovely day here in Chicago, one of those rare Chicago days in which it’s neither freezing cold nor horrifically humidly hot…but I can sympathize with your plight. April is, after all, the cruelest month.
Out here by the Columbia sewer..er, River it’s sunny today. The snow last week killed most of the cherry crop. Beer lovers take heart the hops are now three feet high and leafing beautifully. (I live 22 miles from Full Sail brewery) My husband makes his own beer. 52 degrees outside.
Here in Scranton its in the mid-70s, blue sky with just a few clouds (and lots of tree pollen). Absolutely beautiful. Of, course, it’s Scranton, PA. I’d rather be in a small Minnesota town watching snow than try to find a way to enjoy a nice day in Scranton. There ain’t no depresssion like a Scranton depression. Or something.
Here in Naples, Italy we had a gorgeous spring day: high of 68F (19C) light winds and a few puffy clouds. Absolutely perfect. My jasmine vine and mandarin orange tree are both in bloom, and the tomatoes are nearly 5″ tall already.
We’re expected to have more of the same weather over the weekend. You can very nearly watch the plants grow here this time of year.
Sunny, 87F and high humidity… Forget spring, it’s summer in western KY!
Ha Ha! 70 degrees and sunny here in typically frigid Burlington, VT!
…of course, Ben Stein’s in town, so it’s not perfect…
75F here in Western NY. I actually didn’t expect it to be this nice this early. I grew up in the North Country (that is, St. Lawrence County), so even though I moved south over a decade ago I still always expect winter to last well into May.
44 degrees and sunny over here in Atlantic Canada! Good spring weather.
MrQhuest
Just think of how much colder it would be if we were fighting global warming! Thank you, obstructionist GOP.
80F here in Austin, but it feels like 90 because it’s so humid today. Thunderstorms and possible tornadoes forecast for this evening.
We’ve already had multiple days over 90F this month. For most of the country, this would qualify as summer. Spring happens for about two weeks in February.
In May, we start the 5th (and longest) Texas season, Hell, which runs from May until October.
It’s been unseasonably warm here in Toronto for over a week now, sunny and 20-25C (I got a bit of a sunburn at the baseball game last weekend). Cool and drizzly today, though.
Global warming denialists in 4…3…2…
Well, Spring has finally arrived here in Denmark. I’ve been able to wear just my Summercoat for a whole two days now.
If it’s any consolation the Danish poet Henrik Nordbrandt had a little quip about out weather:
Hm…as a life-long FLorida resident, you make me worry about my decision to move to Minnesota, which I plan to do as soon as possible.
We’ve angered our Sun god, defier of entropy, creator of life on Earth. We must show our respect — I suggest ice cold Coronas with lime starting at about 5:00 pm until the Sun gives us a sign.
And just last week I was grilling burgers in 70 degree weather.
I love living here. If I still lived in western New York I’d be enduring typical spring temperatures – under a cloudy sky. A cloudy, rainy spring would give way to a cloudy, rainy summer, followed by a cloudy, rainy autumn, then a cold, cloudy, rainy winter. And the cloudy, rainy cycle would begin anew.
ahhh…poor thing, central VA, its 85 degree’s and feels amazing! sometimes the weather is the only good part about living in the south!
Yeah, it’s around 80 here in Daytona Beach, you wouldn’t wanna live here.
*sniffle*
So would this be a bad time to mention that I’m moving to California today?
@#32 Ray C.:
While I am anything but a global warming denialist, it does upset me when people use isolated weather anomalies as “proof” of global warming. These kinds of anomalies have been happening for a long time, and have good, non-global warming related meteorological explanations. There is evidence for global warming — overwhelming amounts of it — but it’s not the superficial “oh, look at this weird weather we had today” crap peddled to much of the public. I think this misinformation contributes to the problem of denialism.
Here the sun came out today. Second time this year. The coming three months of Seattle summer though are worth the nine months of grey.
Ken
… 20-25°C (~35-45 farthings, or whatever antiquated measuring system you Yanks still use)
Degrees Celsius? At least our system uses actual base-12 degrees and not your faux decimal degrees.
It’s not April, it’s Minnesota!
Preparations here are well underway for this year’s celebration of Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht), which occurs on the night of April 30th. Historically the Walpurgisnacht is derived from Pagan spring customs. In the Norse tradition, Walpurgisnacht commemorates the time when Odin died to retrieve the knowledge of the runes, and the night is said to be a time of weakness between the living and the dead.
Bonfires are built to keep away the dead and chaotic spirits that are said to walk among the living. This is followed by the return of light and the sun as celebrated during May Day.
In the folklore of my homeland (Deutsche), witches meet on Brocken Mountain to make merry and express joyful satisfaction and behave riotously with the gods. Huge Beltane fires are lit and it is customary to “prank” citizens gardens and/or possessions or spraying graffiti.
Walpurgisnacht is believed to be the most important date in Satanism, and allegedly was deliberately chosen by Hitler and Goebbels to commit suicide to symbolize their submission to the “powers of darkness”.
To Brocken’s tip the witches stream,
The stubble’s yellow, the seed is green.
There the crowd of us will meet.
Lord Urian has the highest seat.
So they go, over stone and sticks,
The stinking goat, the farting witch.
“Witches” in “Faust Part I” by Goethe (scenes XVI to XXV)
Order the soldier to the fight,
Lead the maiden to the dance,
Then everything’s done right.
Even now, thinks, quick as light,
It’s Classical Walpurgis Night:
That’s the best, if he were sent
To his own true element!
“Faust Part II” by Goethe (Act II, Scenes 1-4)
Katrina @ #24 –
It’s official. I hate you. Same goes for all the Aussies who comment here regularly. Every time you start singing of your edenic lands, it sends me scurrying over to H-Net and the Chronicle to look for jobs there in my field, of which there are never any. Keep it to yourselves, already :).
Well, PZ, what did you expect from a posting like that?
Since this is a pretty random post, I thought I’d leave this random comment. I just wanted that I’ve been reading this blog for a few weeks (after a link from the richarddawkins.net due to the expelled from Expelled fiasco) and it has quickly become my favorite blog by far. I was always looking for a good “atheist blog”, but atheism for the sake of atheism is a rather boring subject. Now a great science blog with a prominent atheist author at the helm… this is what I was *really* looking for all along!
THIS IS MADNESS!
NO!
THIS IS MINNESODAAAAAAAA!
Someone had to say it.
It’s a nice blizzard here, too. I’m glad I’m not the only one. Last time there was a blizzard here, it seemed to be restricted to only this city.
One of the most disappointing things is that this will only reinforce global warming denial among my conservative christian friends here.
Please join me in a bad weather hymn to the Flying Spaghetti Monster:
There once was a storm in Dakota
That snowed on folks in Minnesota
It so bothered them
They prayed, “Oh, FSM!
Do you have a catastrophe quota?”
Amen.
Is it ever April in Minnesota?
It’s 82 degrees here in West Virginia (not Virginia, but next to Virginia just in case anyone doesn’t know)
Just to flesh out the global weather report: 76 degrees and partly cloudy in Milwaukee, WI. Cooler by the lake. Light southwest wind. Remarkably few rabbit nibblings on tulip sproutings this year. Humid already. Expect a mosquito surplus this summer, but not as bad as other places. When I asked my friend in La Manzanilla, Mexico: “How many mosquitos are there in La Manz in the summer?” He replied: “All of them.”
It’s a weekend for naked slush angels.
Yes, that’s a good argument Sarcastro, and I’ll be sure to send any ancient duodecimal-using Babylonians your way when they find modern base-10 science confusing.
What’s that again about holding on to relics from the Bronze Age?
Ugh. Our weather forecast predicts up to 8 inches of wet, nasty snow tonight — visibility is down to about a block. And we’ve got a job candidate on campus today!
While I miss the snow, and I miss my lovely North Carolina, I’m here at work looking at the santa monica beach right now. not the best place for someone as pale as I am, but it’s a nice view :)
And five of our heifers are probably gonna calve tonight in 8 inches of wet, nasty snow in Todd County, Minnesota! Have mercy, Fates!
Move to Florida, we need you to balance out all of the fundies!
A balmy 10C at 10-30pm BST (British Summer Time) in Cardiff, Wales.
Tomorrow promises 20C. It’s April for goodness sake!
We have a saying where I come from (North East England) – ‘Ne’er cast a clout ’til May is oot.’
Translation – don’t take any clothes off until the end of May.
Keep your vest on!
Sorry, I’ve taken mine off – much too hot!
So, if you’re feeling Minnesota, are you, by chance, looking California at least?
80 lawnmowing, black dog irradiating degrees here in southwestern Ohio.
yeah yeah yeah, pretty much everywhere you go the people like to claim that their area has the weirdest weather. It’s crazy all over.
And we’ve got a job candidate on campus today!
Well, you’ve got a couple of spare rooms, right?
You could exchange one of them and a couple of squid burgers for a walk-shoveling and a car-cleaning!
It’s been raining and cold all day here in St Cloud MN;
right now it’s 37F and I’m off to play in the local disc golf league–PZ’s snowstorm should be here by the time we’re done.
PZ needs to hear Lewis Black’s take on minnesota.
Poll update:
92.02% NO intelligent design.
Everybody knows that Green Bay is not in December.
Global warming is unfalsifiable, making it pseudoscience. Gavin Schmidt of RealClimate infamy has practically admitted this. http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2008/04/are-climate-mod.html
I think today was the warmest day so far this year, at c.20℃, albeit the Mistral was blowing a bit today. The beaches and restaurants are still a bit empty, but there’s clearly an increase in yatchy types et al. And yes, July-August (at least) is not so pleasant! ;-(
–report from the South of France.
Slim #8 – Do you mean Portland, Oregon? I’ll have to change my Depends if there’s another atheist in the state!
Zach #18… The snow is fine. It’s those 60-degree days that lured us into complacency.
Gee, where are the global warming deniers to capitalize on the Minnesota snow in April?
It’s sunny and warm here in Canada.
Well just thought I would rub it in a little.
Anthropogenic GW is flasifiable. If Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and known natural forcings (e.g. TSI) stay constant, but the long term global temperature trend drops (say over 30 years) then woops we got it wrong.
So it is not psuedo science.
PS Lovely still blue autumn day in Wellington NZ. I am looking out over the Wellington harbour at the yachts toward the Rimataka ranges in the distance. Winter is around the corner but unlike MN it never snows here it just blows a gale.
It was nice, when Jim went out for the paper this morning it was still (!) about 70 degrees.
We had to leave for something at 11:30 a.m and the temps were dropping. When I went out tonight at about 6 it was about 50 or so. The sky was clearing and Yahoo Weather says we can expect 40 tonight.
As for snow, my porch and front yard look like it, but it’s only cherry blossoms. If it doesn’t do a hard freeze again, we’ll have a bunch of good pie cherries.
We are in The Middle, Kansas City, MO
Here in Dead Moines, Iowa it is 37F and wind blowing a regular hurricane blast, straight down from good ol’ Minnesota! We’re under a flood warning because of torrential rain the last couple of days, but it’s been pretty warm, 60s and 70s, until today. Temperature dropped steadily all day. With this wind and cold we’ll probably have some damage to all the flowering plum and crab apple that’s just starting to bloom. Drat you, Minnesota, keep your evil wind up North! (shakes fist). We’re supposed to drive to Mason City tomorrow for a film event, headwind all the way and there’ll probably be snow if we’re not lucky.
So, if you’re feeling Minnesota, are you, by chance, looking California at least?
Jebus, I was just thinking about that song earlier, and Holy Water (Big lies most likely to be believed). Yesterday, I was thinking about The Ugly Truth and Hands All Over, then I heard a clip of Hands All Over on NPR, of all places, IIRC. Haven’t listened to or thought of those albums in so long. What is it, Soundgarden synchronicity week? Maybe I’ll start believing in woo if this keeps up! (not really …)
This is really fun PZ. Could we have a regular Friday weather report from any one that cares to chime in?
I noted that one poster reported that calves would be born in the snow.
We are about to get our first batch of pullets for 2008. Our hops and blue berries are fine, but the cherries froze, and my own pea crop – 100 square feet of them got ate by something over one night.
Supposed to be sunny and warm 26 April 2008 – for the first Saturday market here in Fundieville.
Oh the Annestorian summer it is seven months in length
The rivers lose their water and the fighters lose their strength
With Fainting at the melees and swooning at the wars
We long for cool November
And the Rising of the Star
(Verse added to ‘The Rising of the Star’ by Vlad Stark Raven
Annestoria (Lone Star) is the Society for Creative Anachronism Kingdon of Texas and Oklahoma. Except for extream west Tx
It’s the same here in Fargo. We had just enough Spring to melt the last of the stubborn snow and now it’s back to winter blizzard conditions again. Personally, I love the snow but, strangely, no one around here seems to agree with me. At least the weather here is interesting. I’m looking forward to twister season next.
I’m temporarily in Revelstoke, B.C., which is entirely surrounded by mountains except for a couple of passes. It’s an inland rain forest, humid in summer. They had at least 12 feet (3.5 m) of snow this year. There’s still snow in drifts here and there, waterfalls coming off the mountain, and stretches of road marked “Avalanche Area: do not stop.” The mountains are amazing and beautiful – sometimes like solid clouds, sometimes hidden in fog, sometimes monumental and brooding.
As a former resident of Oregon, PZ, you should be able to understand how truly absurd our weather is right now. I live in good ol’ Springfield, and I woke up on Saturday to see snow- not just snow, but snow, on the ground, an inch or two deep. I figured hey- Siberian storm and all that what, isolated incident… but no. Sunday morning, the story was the same.
If there was a god, I think, the universe would make more sense than this.
Why do biology departments always hire so late? In the chemistry department, we always feel we are behind schedule if we aren’t interviewing in October! All the good candidates are on the hook somewhere else by December. If we can get the first offer to them, we feel have an advantage (we had two offers out this year before Jan 1).
You’d think some ambitious biology departments would be on the phone a lot earlier and get the process going at least back in January. Of course, you need the Dean to step up and allow things to proceed, but they will do that if you insist upon it.
I forgot to add, isn’t there enough going on in the spring anyway? Man, I can barely keep my head below water these days (which is your goal, if you are a fish)
It would appear that your snow storm came over here to Wisconsin, though it either only grazed me or had mostly petered out. Wednesday and/or Thursday it was a nice 76F, hadn’t had snow on the ground for, I dunno, weeks perhaps, and I open the door to go to work this morning and am greeted by about 1/2″ of snow! It continued to snow for most of the day, but it’s been somewhere around 33F for most of the day, so it didn’t stay.
Spring? Been there, done that. Last Saturday I took a 50 mile bicycle ride, this Saturday I shovelled 7 inches (17.8 cm) of snow from my sidewalk.