Weather

Friday

Ed Zotti

The challenge of dining al fresco in Chicago

The food and drink editor was taken with my idea for a piece on the challenges of outdoor dining in the big city, specifically Chicago, the big city where I live. “Do you know when you might be able to file?” she asked. “Ma’am,” I replied, “this morning it was 23 degrees Fahrenheit. One of the challenges of outdoor dining in Chicago is avoiding frostbite. How far can you push it out?” The number of outdoor diners in Chicago killed by shrapnel is remarkably low I would have preferred the Fourth of July. She gave me till the end of April. Fine, I said. Even in Chicago, two straight months of inhospitable weather would be unusual, setting aside that 43-day stretch when the mercury never got above freezing. (No joke. December 28, 1976 to February 8, 1977. Look it up.

Wednesday

Lara Brown

Tsunami hits Hawaii and US mainland

Tsunami alerts were triggered this morning across the Pacific after an earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. The quake, one of the most powerful ever recorded with a magnitude of 8.8, prompted evacuations from Hawaii, California, Japan and Russia. Initial waves, however, have so far proved less destructive than originally feared.Waves up to 4ft high were recorded in Oahu and Maui. Flights to and from Maui were canceled and commercial harbors closed as a precaution. "God willing, these waves will not hurt us," said Hawaii’s Governor Josh Green. "But you have to assume they will be life-threatening." Hawaii’s tsunami alert was later downgraded to an advisory, with officials warning of unusually strong currents and urging residents to avoid the coast.

Earthquake tsunami

Thursday

Priscilla M. Jensen

Memories of childhood snow days

I must have seen it in a movie, one of the old black and white ones: jovial carolers coming into the manor, brushing the snow off their shoulders and stamping their feet. Or rosy-cheeked sledders whacking their boots against the doorstep as the fluffy stuff obligingly disperses. That’s not the way it works in north Georgia, where I remember about four or five childhood snows. Soggy, 35-degree snows. Snows that bring down pine trees onto every powerline in ten counties. Snows that nevertheless thrill the hearts of schoolchildren, who almost instantly find that they’re not equipped for their Alpine fantasies. That was not mitten country, or sweater country, or even often warm hat country.

snow

Monday

Matt McDonald

Slowly roasting in heatwave Britain

Manchester, England Making plans for a European city break this summer? Seeking somewhere with centuries of history and culture, fine wine and, above all, sweltering temperatures? There’ll always be Rome, Barcelona, Athens — but chances are you haven’t considered Manchester, the northern English industrial powerhouse that inspired Karl Marx to write The Communist Manifesto and gave the world the Smiths, Joy Division and Oasis (you know, the ones who wrote “Wonderwall”).

heatwave britain

Thursday

Calla Jones Corner

I’m back for the Almanac

Growing up in Weston, Connecticut I remember well a little pamphlet that hung over the shelf in the garden shed, attached to a nail by a string threaded through its conveniently predrilled hole. The pamphlet was well-worn and covered with my father’s dirty fingerprints as he often consulted it. A new one replaced the old one every year. The cover always had a cameo of Benjamin Franklin, its first publisher. The title was The Old Farmer’s Almanac, and my father swore by it. As did several million other Americans, who wanted to be guided in the ways of gardening, know what to expect weather-wise for the year and find out about new seeds and ways to get better harvests of existing crops.

almanac