Maybe I should consider..

..renaming this blog as the Weather blog. It's got the winter rants, the fall haze, and even a lightning storm.

The woods beside Lake Mendota

It's Spring's turn now. It's interesting to see how the tough snow gives in to the touch of the Sun's heat. Some of the snow mix up with grime as if to escape a watery death. And then there's the snow which just sits in humongous mountains. Strength in unity. The nastiest ones are the slimy layers of sleet on the sidewalk. In two weeks time I'm going to be loving the familiar feel of concrete against my boots.

On the way to school, I saw this small puddle in the middle of all the whiteness.

Wild cherries thawing

Music Hall clock tower's hundred and twenty seventh winter is over.

Nature cools her heels..(and mine too)

A lone park bench at Eagle Heights awaits a visitor.. this will be a long wait.

It's freakishly cold nowadays. I never said a word while Nature was showing us the low 10's....not even when it snowed for a whole day. Nature did it when she turned it down below 0 F. Before you go away and fire Google up to convert that...that's -17 C.

It's -22F now.

I don't even have the courage to convert. Like when I stopped converting dollars. But now everything looks a bit different. Life feels different. There's a certain urgency to your every movement. You don't want to get to that bus stop too early and God forbid certainly not a second late. You make sure that your appointment is still on. You double check if your gloves are in your jacket pocket where you last left it. You triple check. Now there's a new purpose to life, one that's so primitive and yet so fervent. To get to your desk with blood still intact in the liquid realm. To be able to savor the generous embrace of artificial heat; yet another child of survival instinct. To be able to go through your entire day in the safe arms of concrete and wood, knowing too well, that you will have to soon give yourself up to the killer outside.

You step outside again to behold a blinding world in the nightly calm. Ready to forgive its fugitive and welcome you back. For tomorrow's another day, and you maybe a sure prey.

Eww. Don't even comment on this one. I wrote this because my feet froze in my snow boots today. It took me an hour to thaw.

Fall for Philly..

The fall colors are rioting everywhere now. Red and orange are ruling the roost. The squirrels usually curious and friendly, are now busily piling up acorns and nuts for winter.

The days are cool and almost misty despite the bright sun. Strong gusts help the temperature dip steadily. Starting from when I landed here in summer, I have felt Nature showing me the magic she can work in a gentle lady like manner.

Soon I will be out of Fall and all ready to welcome winterrrrr....

A hot night with thunderbolt madness.

Phew.. the summer is raging here in Bengalooru, and the showers are showing mercy every once in a couple of days. The temperature has been hovering around the 35 degree mark, and it's very very humid. Monday night was so hot, I was sitting half naked in my room with the fan running at the maximum speed the motor could manage, the windows and doors were open, but I was dripping buckets.

Yesternight was something different though. The air cooled down at around 8pm, and much expected showers burst down. By 9 the winds were packing a mean punch, flinging windows shut, and reportedly "knocked down several trees in Bangalore".
The dark sky showed unusually persistent lightning, with high frequency in some areas, and brilliant episodes at others.

I managed to capture a few streaks with a Finepix E550. Manual settings with aperture at F2.8 (biggest available on this), and shutter speed at half a second. I chose continuous shoot mode with last 4 pictures to be saved.

A lone streak

Some intense action

The leader of this bolt is the last place you would want to be.

Today's paper reported that a tree in Rajajinagar (nearby) broke into fire after a solid strike.. hehe Amma Nature sure knows how to balance hot and cool!