seasons

The season cycled over the weekend - officially it is not quite spring, but in fact, spring now has a toe hold. Even if it goes back to chilly or even snows, the ground is too warm for it to last, by the end of an unusually warm week the grass will be green and the soil dried enough to move forward. That doesn't mean my (optimistic) plantings of peas and bok choy, spinach and sweet peas may not stagnate or my fruit tree blooms get caught by frost (we can't even say a late frost, it is two months to my last frost date, and anything can happen in upstate NY and usually does), that the boys in…

So, it snowed here (in Louisiana). Sure, it wasn't a lot, but it was still a big deal. The following day, there was still some snow on the house roofs. I took some pictures. Here is a shot looking at the North side of a house. And here is a view of the South side of the same roof. What is so cool about that? All the houses were the same way. North side of roof = snow. South side = no snow. At first, I was going to use these pictures to talk about flux. Basically, since the Sun is lower in the South sky the southern side of the roof gets more solar energy flux. Then I realized my…

I love this question: Why is it warmer in the summer than in the winter (for the Northern hemisphere)? Go ahead and ask your friends. I suppose they will give one of the following likely answers: The tilt of the Earth The tilt of the Earth makes us closer to the Sun We are closer to the Sun Really, that should be at least 85% of the answers. To really answer the question, think of the following key points: When it is warm in the Northern Hemisphere, it is cold in the Southern Hemisphere The Earth's orbit around the Sun is very close to being circular The seasons depend on the time of…