Counting crows

Here is a video from the Danville (Ill.) News-Gazette regarding the annual winter crow invasion there, as previously referenced on this blog. Anyone who's visited Vermilion County in winter months has seen huge flocks of crows. Hat tip: Illinois Birders Exchanging Thoughts.

Wintry micromanagement

Today our lakeshore microclimate was on display. I departed the Southwest Side to mostly cloudy skies. In the distance, Loop skyscrapers were engulfed in a snow shower as seen from I-55 near Kedzie. Flurries fell on the commute home along the lakefront. Winds right now are from the north-northeast and lake-effect snow drawn from Lake Michigan waters is grazing the Illinois shore of the lake. Using Weather Underground's new Wunder Map feature, I see that northwest suburban Arlington Heights, several miles inland, has overcast skies right now.

These little disturbances lead to peculiar circumstances. A couple weeks back, a radio report specifically mentioned that a snow squall was approaching Montrose Point. Sure enough there were a few flurries in the air here that morning but nowhere else in Chicago.

Microclimate, though, is a bankrupt term. Isn't everywhere a microclimate with its unique geographic and meteorologic features?

Hello starling

In a reprehensible act of stupidity and ignorance, a pro golfer purposely killed a red-shouldered hawk.

In good news (I think), pollution helps birds sing better.

Fickle melt

A serious thaw is under way--it's 55 degrees right now. The ice shelf in the middle of our alley has actually melted after persisting for about a month. Most of the snow, except for the biggest piles and the Lakeside-Clarendon Glacier, has melted. What a thaw this is. There are flash flood watches from here to Iroquois. It was 73 in Macomb, western Illinois, today. Still, it will be subfreezing again tomorrow.

Uptown icefall

The Lakeside-Clarendon Glacier.

Beautiful Ohio

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama campaigned this week in the curiously named Hanging Rock, Ohio. The name suggests the massive limestone overhangs that dominate southeastern Ohio. Sure enough, I looked up Hanging Rock and it is in southeastern Ohio along the Ohio River. It's about 20 miles from Huntington, W. Va.

This is a land of rugged Appalachian foothills that is riven by the Ohio River. This area was missed by the Wisconsinan glaciation and so retains a feel more like that of West Virginia than the rest of Ohio. The Wayne National Forest includes three units here with many recreation opportunities at places like Wildcat Hollow. Elevation changes between hollow floors and hilltops range from 200 to 400 feet. None of the hills tops 1,100 feet in southeastern Ohio. This is a great place to visit during any season.

Ice sheets

Today is the first day of meteorological spring, and the starlings and sparrows in the alley seem to be calling extra exuberantly. There is a bit of melting going on (current temp: 32.5) with a more sharp thaw coming tomorrow.

Some of the ice masses that line our streets and sidewalks have taken on a glacier-like quality. The foot-thick ice crust that rings the vacant building to our east is threatening to subsume the corner of West Lakeside Place and North Clarendon Avenue. It'll be interesting to see if the meltwaters (which should come by July) create any kames, drumlins or other formations.