The weather, New Year's Eve.

 

In a journal

it is important 

in a few words 

to describe the weather, 

or character of the day,

 as it affects our feelings.

February 5, 1855 

December 31, 2017

[Walden] pond has frozen over since I was there last . . . The thermometer was down to eight below zero this morning. December 31, 1850

The third warm day; now overcast and beginning to drizzle  . . . Though the sun surely is not a-going to shine, there is a latent light in the mist, t, as if there were more electricity than usual in the air. There are warm, foggy days in winter which excite us.  December 31, 1851

It is a sort of frozen rain this afternoon, which does not wet one, but makes the still bare ground slippery with a coating of ice, and stiffens your umbrella so that it cannot be shut. December 31, 1852

Four more inches of snow fell last night, making in all now two feet on a level. Walden froze completely over last night. It is, however, all snow ice, as it froze while it was snowing hard, and it looks like frozen yeast somewhat. I wade about in the woods through the snow, which certainly averages considerably more than two feet deep where I go. December 31, 1853

A beautiful, clear, not very cold day. The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue . . . How glorious the perfect stillness and peace of the winter landscape! December 31, 1854

The trees, shrubs, etc., etc., are covered with a fine leaf frost, as if they had their morning robes on, seen against the sun. There has been a mist in the night. Now, at 8.30 A. M., I see, collected over the low grounds behind Mr. Cheney’s, a dense fog (over a foot of snow), which looks dusty like smoke by contrast with the snow. This accounts for the frost on the twigs. It consists of minute leaves, the longest an eighth of an inch, all around the twigs, but longest commonly on one side, in one instance the southwest side. December 31, 1855

After some rain yesterday and in the night, there was a little more snow, and the ground is still covered. I am surprised to find Walden still closed since Sunday night, notwithstanding the warm weather since it skimmed over, and that Goose Pond bears, though covered with slosh; but ice under water is slow to thaw. It does not break up so soon as you would expect . . . Warm as it is, underneath all this slosh the ice seems as solid as ever. December 31, 1857

Thermometer at 7.45 a. m., -1°. . . The wind is southwesterly, i. e. considerably south of west . . . There has evidently been a slight fog generally in the night, and the trees are white with it. The crystals are directed southwesterly, or toward the wind. I think that these crystals are particularly large and numerous, and the trees (willows) particularly white, next to the open water spaces, where the vapor even now is abundantly rising. December 31, 1859

December 31, 2014

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

December 31

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The weather, New Year's Eve

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022 

https://tinyurl.com/HDTwx