A little Easter trivia follows...wanted to first follow-up on my ending comment yesterday about a particular tree in bloom...
Spring continues to gently nudge it's way into the landscape. Though cooler yesterday (one of those where you wait for it to warm up and it never really does!), it was still gorgeous. I remarked yesterday that just up the street there is a Tulip Magnolia, and it's deep magenta blooms recently popped out. Think harbinger.
But not of spring, necessarily. In my many moons here on earth and many transitions from winter to spring, when I see the Tulip Magnolias bloom, I know that within a roughly 7 day period, something really stormy and cold hits. On the one hand, wait 7 days and plenty of things can happen...but in my general observations, 4 out of 5 years I've seen 'em get whammied. Last year, as you may remember, the peach crops got nailed by a deep freeze, which killed this tree's blossoms all at once.
I love these flowers, but in the world of blooms they're relatively fragile...and after a big storm or wind event they're prone to be decorating the ground around the trunk. Wednesday's potentially strong storms might do the trick; however, I don't see any crashing cold that would also do the trick. Maybe this will be an 'off' year for my correlation - I'd take that!
Easter weekend has a shot of colder air and potentially sub-freezing temperatures Sunday morning (though barely, at first glance), and I have a feeling it will be on the breezy side. Keeping showers out of Sunday's forecast for now...just a cold sunrise for outdoor services.
Speaking of Easter...early, ain't it? So the question begs to be asked, "How early is Easter this year?"
March 23 is not the earliest Easter can fall on, but it is the second earliest. March 22 takes the 'earliest' honors, but it's pretty rare. Last time it did that was 1818, and it won't happen again until 2285, 277 years from now. Obviously, no one alive today has or will see that (ah, to be Master of the Obvious...).
The last time Easter fell on March 23 was 1913. Only those 95 or older were around for that one. The next time Easter will be on March 23, we'll be dust, folks. 2160 - 152 years away!
For the curious, the latest Easter can occur is April 25, which is less rare than the above. Last time that occurred was in 1943, and the next date for it will be 2038.
So why the variability? Get's a little tricky, so bear with me. Unlike fixed-date 'holidays' like Christmas Day or Halloween, and unlike still-easy-to-figure Thanksgiving which is the fourth Thursday in November, Easter's date is purely tied to things astronomical, and even then there are some hairs to be further split. It centers around the first full moon after the Spring Equinox (known as the Paschal Full Moon), with which Hebrews identified Passover. The only problem is that on our Roman calendars, that moon occurrence can fall over a pretty wide range of dates.
There are a few other little details involving localized calculations from tables, but I'm not going to touch that with a 40-foot pole. The only other question that comes to mind that I have but mused on and not researched...
...have we had any "White" Easters? Hmmmmm...
Spring continues to gently nudge it's way into the landscape. Though cooler yesterday (one of those where you wait for it to warm up and it never really does!), it was still gorgeous. I remarked yesterday that just up the street there is a Tulip Magnolia, and it's deep magenta blooms recently popped out. Think harbinger.
But not of spring, necessarily. In my many moons here on earth and many transitions from winter to spring, when I see the Tulip Magnolias bloom, I know that within a roughly 7 day period, something really stormy and cold hits. On the one hand, wait 7 days and plenty of things can happen...but in my general observations, 4 out of 5 years I've seen 'em get whammied. Last year, as you may remember, the peach crops got nailed by a deep freeze, which killed this tree's blossoms all at once.I love these flowers, but in the world of blooms they're relatively fragile...and after a big storm or wind event they're prone to be decorating the ground around the trunk. Wednesday's potentially strong storms might do the trick; however, I don't see any crashing cold that would also do the trick. Maybe this will be an 'off' year for my correlation - I'd take that!
Easter weekend has a shot of colder air and potentially sub-freezing temperatures Sunday morning (though barely, at first glance), and I have a feeling it will be on the breezy side. Keeping showers out of Sunday's forecast for now...just a cold sunrise for outdoor services.
Speaking of Easter...early, ain't it? So the question begs to be asked, "How early is Easter this year?"
March 23 is not the earliest Easter can fall on, but it is the second earliest. March 22 takes the 'earliest' honors, but it's pretty rare. Last time it did that was 1818, and it won't happen again until 2285, 277 years from now. Obviously, no one alive today has or will see that (ah, to be Master of the Obvious...).
The last time Easter fell on March 23 was 1913. Only those 95 or older were around for that one. The next time Easter will be on March 23, we'll be dust, folks. 2160 - 152 years away!
For the curious, the latest Easter can occur is April 25, which is less rare than the above. Last time that occurred was in 1943, and the next date for it will be 2038.
So why the variability? Get's a little tricky, so bear with me. Unlike fixed-date 'holidays' like Christmas Day or Halloween, and unlike still-easy-to-figure Thanksgiving which is the fourth Thursday in November, Easter's date is purely tied to things astronomical, and even then there are some hairs to be further split. It centers around the first full moon after the Spring Equinox (known as the Paschal Full Moon), with which Hebrews identified Passover. The only problem is that on our Roman calendars, that moon occurrence can fall over a pretty wide range of dates.
There are a few other little details involving localized calculations from tables, but I'm not going to touch that with a 40-foot pole. The only other question that comes to mind that I have but mused on and not researched...
...have we had any "White" Easters? Hmmmmm...
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