― j
The University of Michigan Bentley Library
a rainy night on campus. 1909
Photo credit: Daines & Nickels (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
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*the thunder ice cometh.
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“thou art all ice. thy kindness freezes.”
-william shakespeare
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*Yes, Thunder Ice is a real thing.
Thundersnow is so last year.
This week in the U.S. there have been a few reports of “thunder ice” or “thunder-freezing rain.” It’s basically a thunderstorm during freezing rain or sleet.
“It’s not something we see very often, but it does happen from time to time and that’s what we experienced across the country,” said Chris Bowman, a National Weather Service meteorologist. “It’s fairly unusual,” he said. “You get pretty heavy rainfall rates and obviously with temperatures below freezing it happens.”
How does all of this happen? Convection — upward motion of air — helps produce thunderstorms. But it’s fairly rare to have convection within a winter storm. Thunder and lightning are much more common in warm-season thunderstorms. When there’s strong enough convection, along with plenty of moisture available, a winter storm can produce thundersnow. And when there’s a layer of warm air above a colder surface layer, freezing rain and sleet falls while the thunder is booming – thunder ice.
snow day yesterday at last
a really good day to stay home from school
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Inuit in Canada’s North have their own unique names for the months of the year. Aseena Mablick, an announcer for CBC Nunavut’s Inuktitut-language radio program Tausunni, has been collecting information on the names of the months in Inuktitut for years.
Mablick says one of the reasons she’s sharing this now is to “keep the language.”The names in Inuktitut are interconnected with the environment and wildlife surrounding the Inuit in Canada’s North.”It’s a truthful and honest calendar for people who are living over here, everyday, like us,” she says. “We just follow mother nature’s ways for naming the calendar.”
Each region in Nunavut has its own unique names for the calendar, and Mablick shared with us just two of the regions she’s looked into — Baffin region (also known as the Qikiqtaaluk Region) and Nunavik (northern Quebec).
January In Nunavik, January is “Naliqqaittuq”, literally meaning “nobody’s able to compete with it,” says Mablick. “It has to do with the coldest weather in that month.”
January is called “Qaummagiaq” in the Baffin region. It means “bright day coming back.”
meanwhile in ann arbor…
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credits: cbc news (north), aseena mablick, deadline detroit
after
a lot, a lot, a lot
of rain
the river rose high
up and over
paths washed out
nice to intersect
where the land met the water
with this very happy dad
following his wife and son
in kayaks
making their way
through what was very recently
a grassy playground
on island park
paddling through to the river
“ever think you’d find yourself paddling here?”
“no, but i’m so, so happy that i am!”
—
“celebrate the success of others. high tide floats all ships.”
-susan elizabeth phillips
after experiencing
every kind of spring/fall/winter weather front
in the span of a single whirlwind of a day
there is new light
in the early morning
with
a quiet dusting of snow on the ground
clouds in the sky
streaks of blue
and
a moon hanging high
we’ll try again.
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‘every moment of light and dark is a miracle.’
-walt whitman
(similar to a typical group I saw running into target today)
just a few days to go before christmas
it’s sunny and almost 50 degrees
in the lower peninsula of michigan
out come
the shorts, the sandals, the sunglasses, the smiles
the coats stay behind
close your eyes
feels almost like summer
we are a hardy lot.
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“heat is heat.”
‘Michigan’s weather has best weekend day in six months coming’
(today’s headline- here’s hoping it hits a sweaty 60!)
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“alike and ever alike, we are on all continents in the need of love,
food, clothing, work, speech, worship,
sleep, games, dancing, fun.
from tropics to arctics humanity live with these needs
so alike, so inexorably alike.”
carl sandburg
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credits: republic pictures, mark torregrossa – olive