The plan was to go to Messenger Woods Nature Preserve again, but a slew of tornado and thunderstorm watches and warnings put me off. I stayed home, which let me witness this.
Tag Archives: weather
Promontory Point, May 20, 2020
Sky over Lake Michigan
I’m reminded of a few evenings on Lake Superior when the sky and water blended into an otherworldly blur.
Full rainbow
The world could use a bit of luck. Or hope.
Lake Michigan moods
I’ve retired my old Lake Michigan moods post and am replacing it with this slightly newer model that may be updated from time to time. These photos were taken by an assortment of iPhones, iPads, and cameras over the years, not always at a high resolution. In some cases I haven’t found the originals. They’re mostly from my living room window, with a few from my office window and even fewer taken at other places, like Michigan City, Indiana.
They illustrate the many moods of the only Great Lake that runs north-south, with Indiana and Michigan to the east and Illinois and Wisconsin to the west. The clouds range from bright and fluffy to dark and menacing with everything in between, including odd mixtures of types. There are fog monsters and rainbows. There’s lightning caught with a webcam. There’s sea smoke that rises on the coldest days (“Lake Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams,” writes the legendary Gordon Lightfoot). There are ice and snow. There are blues, purples, pinks, greens, oranges, and nearly every color of the rainbow — and I’m not even focusing on sunrise photos (that’ll be another set).
There’s calm. And sometimes there’s calm followed by terror, like the June 30, 2011, hail of hail that devastated the Garfield Conservatory and left me a gelatinous mess.
Chicago by Dalí, or the Persistence of Rain
A year ago today after I had dinner at Pleasant House, the skies opened up. For a moment it looked like a scene from the Avengers in colo(u)r, or maybe a Dalí? The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari?
Spring in the Midwest, May 27
Morning
Early evening
Glorious spring
If only the world could stay as glorious as some fleeting moments.
Morning
Afternoon
The rain in May
. . . falls mainly on the plains. Or something like that. Sky over Lake Michigan after a late afternoon/early evening rain.
Spring in the Midwest
All you can do is predict a Midwest spring will be unpredictable. Get your bike ready but keep your scarf and mittens handy.
April 14, 2019
All-day blizzard conditions.
April 21, 2019 (Easter Sunday)
A week later, a great egret keeping an eye out for fish dinner at Washington Park lagoon.