Too much of a good thing?

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This summer’s weather has been crazy.   All of June was very dry in my part of the county (western NC), barely any rain at all.   April and May were dry as well, which is unusual since normally these are two of the wettest months (November and early December are generally  wetter though–or they seem to be).

My grass was turning brown and my flowers were dying.   It’s been nice not having to mow the yard every weekend (or really, at all!) but the prospect of drought and possible wildfires was not a pleasant one.   Like people all over this region, I prayed for rain.  But day after day passed with not a drop.

I suppose God got irritated with all the constant rain requests, because for the past three days we’ve been hit every evening with not just rain–but downpours of almost Biblical proportions, complete with thunder, lightning, hail, and very high winds.   Last night and the night before,  we had severe thunderstorm warnings and these storms were a little scary!   Last night’s storm produced flooding rain and the wind was gusting at 65mph, enough to blow the lightweight furniture off my porch and knock over a few of my potted plants.    My cats came running inside when they heard the clap of thunder, cowering and their poor fur standing on end.

Tonight is predicted to be much the same.  Right now, it’s calm but we’re under a severe storm watch and storms are popping up on the radar all over the region.   And it doesn’t look like this pattern is going to end anytime soon. Check out this week’s forecast.

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Has anyone noticed the trees are already changing color?

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It’s still only August, but it seems like autumn has arrived early. I first noticed about 2 weeks ago that many of the trees in this area (western NC, US) are already changing to their fall colors. Normally this doesn’t start to happen in this part of the country until mid-late September, so this is about a month ahead of time.

It’s been swelteringly hot (and only in the past week have I noticed it’s getting a bit cool at night and in the early morning), so I don’t think the temperature has anything to do with what’s happening to the trees. Someone told me this can happen when the weather is very dry too, because without enough water, the trees can’t produce chlorophyll, which is what makes them green. We’ve had little rain this summer, so perhaps this is the reason.