If April showers are required (and they really are) for May flowers, the blooms in May could be somewhat sub-par. Our below average rain (and no snow) so far in 2023 has not lowered groundwater levels yet, but if rainfall doesn’t get back closer to normal it will soon. The lush green wall I see looking into the forest is the direct result of thousands of trees slurping up that groundwater, charging ahead with leaf growth and adding another year’s layer of wood.
The last few evenings of April and the first few in May will be brightened by a waxing moon, peaking with the Full Flower Moon on the 5th. Mars and Venus will sneak closer and closer, still in the southwest at dark, spending most of May around the stars Castor and Pollux, the twins brothers of Gemini. A thin crescent moon adds to that grouping from the 21st through the 24th. The sun moves out of Aries and into Taurus on May 15th.
While there are fine views in the evening skies of May, it is the sun that rules the month. May Day has 13 hours 45 minutes of sunshine; by the 31st that has grown to 14 hours 34 minutes. Throw in twilight on either end and your time options for an adventure out on our tilted planet have also grown. That sun angle is steep though, remember the sunscreen and protection from bugs, always looking to add you to their menu, will also add safety and quality to any outing.
Since I mentioned La Niña in my February column and its effects on world and local weather, I thought I should update things. Seems, after 5 years of mostly steady, easterly breezes, the Trade Winds have died down and all the warm water they push across the Pacific is sloshing back; El Niño has returned.
The sudden appearance of all that warm water, with its negative affect on local fisheries, was first noticed back in the 1600’s. Since it first appeared around Christmastime, is was given the name El Niño, meaning the child in Spanish but when capitalized referring to the Christ Child. With centuries of records and increasingly more and better data, we know when El Niño arrives and what it might do…yet…
Difficulties arise from the fact that Earth, just like all the other planets, is a chaotic, turbulent world where everything is a new variation on a recurring theme, just never quite the same as before and the world’s oceans are even warmer now than in 2018.
Past El Niños brought drought and wildfires to Indonesia, big rains to dry regions of western South America with drought in the Amazon basin. They usual stir-up huge snows in the western United States with milder and wetter weather around here. El Niños tend to create strong winds aloft that interfere with Atlantic hurricane formation.
In the present, even ahead of this new El Niño cycle, the west coast and northern US have had near record snowfall; at the moment creating massive flooding issues as that snow melts. We will find out if the extra heat stored in Atlantic waters can spin up storms despite the El Niño wind shear far above; hurricane season officially begins June 1st.
Long term weather forecasters, like baseball players, are considered stars if they get it right 1/3 of the time. Riding around on this spinning, blue marble of chaos, we are all in a position to observe what happens; Earth offers a new view every day. Get out for a look around but be ready to adapt, extreme seems the new normal and having a plan B or even C, seems a good idea.
Randy Holladay
oldrockguy@gmail.com
LOTTA LADY SLIPPERS
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