Larry Weber makes many interesting year-end observations when looking back over 2019. Here are a few: January was colder than normal, including twice when temps dropped below -40. We set a February record for snowfall. March and April didn't see a lot of snow, but May did and set another record. July was one of the hottest Julys on record. September was the wettest month of the year. On the whole 2019 has been wetter and warmer than normal; instead of our average 85 inches of annual snowfall, we

Punctuation matters. Even the Universe says so. Larry Weber lets word nerds know when they can see the "celestial semicolon" this weekend, and Bob King even provided an illustration. In other news, Larry speculated that, if it gets too warm next week for reindeer to fly safely, Christmas might need to be cancelled.

Some people say winter officially starts with the December 21st solstice. The National Weather Service says it's December 1st. Larry Weber says it's when rivers freeze, but he also says, "Who cares? Just get out and enjoy it!"

The abrupt changes of November, the beginning of our darkest month, and - oh, yeah! - it snowed! Photo Caption: The crystals that float down through the air unite with others, fusing to form units that cling together and take on new shapes. "A snow-covered branch becomes a single section of snow. After a while, gravity may cause this snow to sag off the branch, and observers call the pattern a 'snow rope' or 'snow snake." ~ Larry Weber

The National Weather Service isn't given to hyperbole. So if they say ( as they did this [11/29] morning at 3:26am ) " If the forecast is correct, this could be a top 10 two-day snowfall event for the region ," well ... Larry says we should probably listen to them.

Grey November is upon us. After the cold spell earlier this month ten degrees lower than normal, temps in the Northland have now risen back to typical November levels. The last thirty days have yielded less than one inch of snow.

Many times in 2019, the first half and second halves of the month bore little resemblance to each other. Perhaps November is headed in that direction also.

While the human world debates the merits (or lack thereof) of the time change, the natural world in our neck of the woods is dealing with an earlier-than-usual freeze-up. Luckily, many birds (unlike loons) can take off from an ice-covered pond when they mistake it for open water, but as Larry Weber reports, that doesn't mean they like it.

Aut-win proceeds apace, that time between the leaf drop and the first lasting snow cover. Thanks to the end of Daylight Saving Time, we'll get a 25-hour day on Sunday. What do you play to do with your extra hour? Watch the hawk migration continue at Hawk Ridge ?

Larry Weber's been talking about "leaf drop," a natural occurence that usually falls (pun intended) between October 15 and 20th. But he never said anything about "leaf hurricane." All about aut-win, anticipating the changing of the clocks, the skinny on migration and the strange beauty of "escaped" asparagus on this edition of Backyard Almanac.