ARBOR DAY SPECTACULAR

Arbor Day started early for us, just after the first light of day. The day looked fresh and calm, but suddenly we seemed to be quickly immersed in a light... as if we were smack-dab in the middle of a flash bulb. The lights kept coming, on and off for a few minutes.

I went to the door to let my dog out for his morning run, and that poor creature, who HATES rain, was drenched in a sudden outburst. He was shivering and dripping water as he walked into the house.

I glanced toward the big west-facing windows, and the woodland was red, as if reflecting a forest fire; the sycamores were gorgeous!

The rains stopped for a few minutes, and I went to the east windows, and the entire morning was red. Not just the deflected red of a sunrise finding its way through cloud cover; the entire sky was immersed in the glow, as if a red translucent bowl had been lowered over our valley.

I admired it and wondered about it, then the rains began again. The windows shook with thunder, and a spectacular lightning show ensued. Things calmed for a few minutes, and the red drained from the skies, to be replaced by an eerie, sulphurish, glowing green.

A weather bulletin reached my ears from my favorite morning radio station. A rogue storm had "come up on radar out of nowhere," moving from Cuyahoga County, east through Kirtland Hills and into southern Lake County (us!) and Geauga. It was headed northeast at 25 miles per hour, possibly throwing off strong winds and hail along the way. Just before his station was knocked off the air, the radio announcer said he'd been receiving calls about triple rainbows.

Temps, according to my weather station, shot up very quickly from 42 to mid-50s and cooled again as the rains returned.

At our house, we got neither wind nor hail... just a few brief, recurrent power outages which apparently made enough problems at Perry, northeast of here, to close the schools for the day. (Can you hear the squeals of delight from Perry school kids?)

The rogue storm departed as suddenly as it had arrived. All in all, this morning daybreak presented our eyes with a rare and beautiful phenomenon; it was an unusual way to begin our National Arbor Day.

Speaking of Arbor Day, have you hear the recent EPA announcement that CO2 is a serious culprit in global warming. CO2 is also necessary for trees and other plant life, and what kind of world would it be without our trees and other greenery?

Happy Arbor Day from R.A.T.(Rose About Town)