Climate change has actually brought colder weather to the Midwest. The winters of 2014 and 2015 were characterized by long periods of below-0°-F temps and a few major blizzards. I was still working in a school at that time and we had many “snow” days (actually extreme cold days)! The reason given for these periods of extreme cold was the “Arctic vortex” (also known as “polar vortex”). What that means is that a trough (remember isobars on weather reports?) of cold weather has moved down from the Arctic over the Midwest. This phenomenon is due to the weakening of the normal Arctic weather systems, that generally circle the poles, because of warming temperatures in the Arctic, a sure sign of climate change.  Here’s a map that shows this.

This map is actually from a day in January of this year, because it is happening again! In fact, I have calculated that there have been only 6 1/2 months between the last snowfall of last winter (April 14, 2019) and the first one of this winter (Oct. 31, 2019)! It is rare to have snow in Chicagoland as late as April and as early as October. We have already broken low temperature records this autumn!

Lens-Artists’ Photo Challenge #73 is COLD. Very appropriate! Here is a gallery of photos from 2019’s coldest & snowiest months (so far – it’s not December yet!). The latest and earliest snowfalls are shown with an exact date.

January

Late afternoon in the parking lot at Prairie Lakes, Des Plaines’ park district fitness center

This is a device that was part of our Xfinity security system at our house in Des Plaines. It gave us a lot of weather information.

February

Ice circles that accumulated in the holes of the mat (where we wiped our shoes & boots off) outside our back door.

March

A tree is reflected in the melting ice that covered this plant pot in back of our house.

April 14, 2019

I left church on April 14 to find my car covered with snow that had fallen in the two hours I was there!

October 31, 2019

The view from our front door – look closely at the maple tree’s orange canopy to see the snow coming down!

Walking to the main building for dinner at sunset

November

We had a major snowfall (about 6 inches) on Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11. I took this photo from inside a friend’s 4th floor apartment.

Some of the ducks were swimming in frigid water while others stood on the receding layer of ice on the pond. This photo was taken on Nov. 19.