A Warm Octobre
This morning I saw someone walking in shorts and a t-shirt and I saw more people in t-shirts. Switzerland is currently 8°c warmer than it should be at this time of year, and drier. The sun is shining and it rarely rains. The weather is stable and sunny, every single day, for weeks or even months at a time. We had a few minutes of rain recently but no more than that.
The Swiss Weather service wrote a blog post about how hot and sunny Septembre was.
The Mont Blanc lost two meters in height and glaciers have shrunk at record levels due to the heat on one side, and the complete lack of precipitation on the other. I saw a few articles this morning about how drought is affecting hydroelectric dams. Without rainfall there is no water to pump through those generators.
I think I cycled by a water wheel that I had not seen turning for months. I cycled by, and one day I noticed that the wheel was turning. It had rained recently so the waterwheel finally had water to generate hydro-electric power. As soon as it rains that wheel can spin, and power is generated.
The wheel is in a rational place. It’s in a valley, where the sun doesn’t shine for as many hours a day, so it makes sense to let water and gravity do some work.
And Finally
As I walked I looked at some trees and you clearly see the line on trees between where the sap has stopped flowing, and where it is still flowing. It’s as if there was a water level. In effect there is. I had not noticed this before.