Weird Illinois Weather

January 12th, 2008

Between January 3rd and January 7th the temperature rose from a low of -5ºF to around 60ºF. The afternoon of January 7th an unusual storm, for that time of year, struck. A tornado touched down around fifteen miles from where I live. This tornado’s path stretched for thirteen miles.

The National Weather Service has a very interesting map and some pictures. You can see them on their page about this tornado.

Ice Encrusted Trees

December 11th, 2007

We had an ice storm a little bit ago and another one today. The result of the ice storms is easy to see:

 

 

 

 

When the wind blows, the ice can be heard cracking:

Ice Encrusted Tree Sounds

Fully Grown Ant Lion

September 4th, 2007

I mentioned in A Lion in a Quart Jar, that an ant lion is the larvae of a damselfly-like insect. You can see what an adult ant lion looks like in this picture:

Ant Lion

And this picture:

Ant Lion

My ant lion destroyed its funnel and didn’t build a new one. After a while, the ant lion emerged as an adult ant lion.

Cool Clover

August 23rd, 2007

We have a lot of clover in our yard and I like to look for special ones. I’ve found several four-leaf clovers and even a few five-leaf clovers, but today I found a six-leaf clover. Here’s a picture of it:
clover.jpg

Maybe some day someone might find a seven-leaf clover!

Colossal Fungi

August 15th, 2007

You might not think that these fungi are colossal, however they are quite large.

First mushroom

This mushroom is a little bit away from the other one:

Second mushroom

For all I know those two mushrooms could be part of the same fungus.

Both mushrooms