Tag Archives: River

The River Steams

We’ve been in the midst of the coldest weather in 15 years this week. This morning, I woke up to a temperature of -23F, with a windchill in the -40s.

It rarely gets this cold, so when it does, you get to see strange things. Like the Fox River, frozen solid, with what appears to be steam rising in big sheets at sunrise.

I wanted to take a picture as I walked to the train this morning but I was running late and also a bit terrified of removing my glove to dig my phone out of my pocket. Luckily, someone downstream apparently had the same thought and sent it in to Tom Skilling’s blog.

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We have river!

I noticed last night that the trees across the street have lost enough of their leaves to afford us the river view I love. Sure, all year you can see the gap in the trees where you know the river is. But from now until April or May, we can actually see the water itself, flowing southwards.

It’s especially neat when it freezes over solid. When it’s really cold, steam rises, making night and early morning extra ethereal.

I shall try to get pictures this year, but the phenomenon is rather fleeting and tough to capture.

In other news, we had our first sticking snow yesterday evening, a whirlwind of flakes that stuck to the grass and rooftops. It was very pretty – but it reaffirms the need to pull out the storm windows, shrink wrap the windows, and batten down the hatches for the rapidly-approaching winter.