So much to read...tomorrow morning, when I wake up:
Finally, Block Club Chicago wonders why coyotes seem to be everywhere right now? I have two explanations: first, because it's mating season; and second, because of confirmation bias. We had two coyote sightings in strange places last week, and people are seeing more coyotes in general because they want to get laid. So that leads to more articles on coyotes. QED.
Today marks the middle of winter, when fewer days remain in the (meteorological) season than have passed. Good thing, too: yesterday we had temperatures that looked happy on a graph but felt miserable in real life, and the forecast for Sunday night into Monday will be even worse—as in, a low of -20°C going "up" to -14°C. Fun!.
(Yesterday's graph:)
Elsewhere in the world:
- Israel and Hamas have reached a cease-fire agreement, with the US and Qatar signing off.
- OAFPOTUS Defense Secretary nominee, former Fox News pretty boy, and all-around fundamentalist crackpot Pete Hegseth sat before the US Senate Armed Services committee yesterday, whose Republican members asked him about "your wife that you love" and whose Democratic members asked him about unlawful orders and the numerous allegations of wrongdoing against him. My combat-decorated junior Senator, Tammy Duckworth (D), flatly called him "unqualified." (She was being polite.)
- Jennifer Rubin calls Hegseth "the greatest DEI disaster ever:" "Considering Hegseth, election denier Attorney General Pam Bondi, WWE exec Linda McMahon for secretary of education, and vaccine denier, brain-worm victim Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Health and Human Services, one must conclude Republicans are not sending us their best. (Or, the more alarming alternative…they are sending their best.)" Ruth Marcus also piled on.
- Author John Scalzi shares his thoughts on the allegations against and admissions of author Neil Gaiman published in New York this week.
- Chicago's Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) has proposed $1.5 bn in spending to improve transit for the entire area.
- Chicago lost another coyote yesterday when a plane taking off from O'Hare ran him over. (Neither the FAA nor United Airlines has confirmed that the coyote died, but I think we can make an inference here.)
- Last year was the second-warmest on record in Illinois, continuing a long-term warming trend that began after the coldest winters ever in the early 1980s.
Finally, as of today I've had a private pilot certificate for 25 years. When I last posted about this anniversary, I hoped to resume flying later that spring. Alas, something else was in the air. I still want to fly again, though. All I need is a winning lottery ticket.
A friend pointed out that, as of this morning, we've passed the darkest 36-day period of the year: December 3rd to January 8th. On December 3rd at Inner Drive Technology World HQ, the sun rose at 7:02 and set at 16:20, with 9 hours 18 minutes of daylight. Today it rose at 7:18 and will set at 16:38, for 9 hours 20 minutes of daylight. By the end of January we'll have 10 hours of daylight and the sun will set after 5pm for the first time since November 3rd.
It helps that we've had nothing but sun today. And for now, at least, we can forget about the special weather statement that just came out warning of snow and winds starting later tonight.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the world:
Finally, National Geographic explains how the two cups of tea I drink every day (three in the summer) will help me live to 107 years old.
The planet just had its second-warmest November in recorded history, just a hair under last year's record-warmest:
Last year was the hottest on record due to human-caused climate change coupled with the effects of an El Nino. But after this summer registered as the hottest on record — Phoenix sweltered through 113 consecutive days with a high temperature of at least 37.7°C — scientists were anticipating that 2024 would set a new annual record as well.
In November, global temperatures averaged 14.10°C. Last year's global average temperature was 14.98°C. Through November, this year's average global temperature is 0.14°C above the same period last year.
Barring something truly catastrophic in the next three weeks, 2024 will be the warmest year on record, worldwide. And still, Chicago's weather over the next 72 hours will not feel like warm:
Temps return closer to normal for early December on Tuesday and Wednesday, then the real cold air settles in overnight Wednesday into Thursday morning. By the Thursday morning commute, air temps are projected to be in the single digits [Fahrenheit], with wind chills dipping to around -30°C in some locations.
The forecast this close to Lake Michigan predicts slightly warmer temperatures than inland, if you consider that -14°C is, in fact, slightly warmer than -17°C. And yet the medium-range forecast stubbornly predicts a warm, dry week before Christmas:
Weird weather indeed.
The temperature in my neighborhood fell below freezing around 4am and kept dropping, bottoming out just a few minutes ago at -1.7°C, the coldest it's been since March 18th. So despite valiantly holding onto their leaves later in the year than I can remember, the gingko and maple trees around my house finally surrendered to the inevitable:
All those leaves fell in the last couple of hours. In fact I tried to get a photo of them just pouring off the tree, but that's hard to capture in a still photo.
Cassie found all the new smells irresistable:
The little darling also pulled so often this morning that she almost completely detached her leash from her harness, and so had to walk the rest of the way to school tethered to me through her collar. Neither of us liked that very much, but at least she stopped pulling right away.
Note to self: budget for new harness every 8 months.
We officially set new record high and high-minimum temperatures yesterday, getting to 28°C (82°F) around 4pm and not dipping below 20°C for 24 hours. More autumnal weather seems likely tomorrow, but today we're still having more of a June-like day—except for the 5 fewer hours of daylight.
As for the coyotes, apparently around this time of year, coyote parents kick their pups out of the nest, so we should see more juvenile canis latrans in the area until the young-uns establish their own territories or, ah, fail to do so. We have some in the park 400 meters from my house, and they regularly use the UPRR embankment as a highway, so I'm looking forward to seeing a few.
Forecasters predict a high temperature of 27.2°C (81°F) in Chicago today, 1.6°C (3°F) warmer than the previous record of 25.6° set in 1999. Moreover, the temperature last night only got down to 19°C, just a smidge warmer than the high-minimum temperature record set in 1946, which will likely stand as tonight's low will probably stay above 20°C.
Those are normal temperatures for mid-June.
Even better: those are 1991-2020 normals for mid-June, which are slightly warmer than the normals in use when I was a kid.
On the other hand, we've had a really lovely, warm autumn this year. If we continue to have slightly-warmer summers followed by much-warmer autumns and mild winters, as we've had for a couple years now, I think we might be OK. But wow does it suck for Arizona.
The only reaction to last night's debate that I need to share is Cassie's:
Talk about on-the-nose commentary!
Right. Anyway, in other news since yesterday:
Finally, the New York Times dips into the history of chicken tenders, an American pub staple that (allegedly) turns 50 this year. Love me tenders, love me sauce...
President Jimmy Carter turned 100 today, making him the first former president to do so. James Fallows has a bit of hagiography on his blog today, and the State of Georgia has declared today "Jimmy Carter Day." I hope I make it to 100, too, but I don't expect the State of Illinois to declare that day a public holiday.
In other news:
Finally, yesterday the UK turned off its last operating coal-fired power plant, ending a 142-year run of burning coal to generate power. XKCD points out that in those 142 years, the UK burned the equivalent of about 3 inches of its land surface generating electricity.
And of course, I'll watch the Vice-Presidential Debate tonight at 9pm Eastern, but I don't plan to live-blog. Reactions tomorrow, though.
I can scarcely believe I took these 10 days ago, on Friday the 20th. I already posted about my walk from Borough Market back to King's X; this is where I started:
You can get a lovely snack there for just a few quid. In my case, a container of fresh olives, some bread, and some cheese set me back about £6. Next time, I'll try something from Mei Mei.
Later, I scored one of the rare pork baps at Southampton Arms. Someone else really wanted a bite, too:
Sorry, little guy, I can't give you any of this—oh darn I just dropped a bit of pork on the ground. (Lucky dog.)
Finally, this screen shot shows why I love Europe so much. (It's in French because I switched my phone's language settings to help practice while I was preparing for the trip.) The blue dot in the center-left shows where my train was at 20:06 France time (18:06 UTC) on Saturday the 21st. The stuff in the upper-right corner shows my phone's GPS utility. If you look at the left side of that box, you can see "Vitesse 303;" i.e., a speed of 303 km/h, or 190 mph. And that isn't even the train's top normal operating speed.
If we elect people in this country who actually care about climate change, we could have trains like that here, too. But given the proportion of the electorate who plan to vote for the convicted-felon rapist demented geriatric XPOTUS in five weeks, I am not optimistic.