The sun passed directly overhead the equator just past 4am Chicago time, marking what many people call the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. And because it's March in Chicago, this is what Cassie and I squished through on her way to dog school this morning:
And this was the view from my train into the Loop half an hour later:
Of course, this being March, I can see from my office window that the sun is about to come out and melt every last snowflake from the ground before I pick Cassie up from dog school:
Let me zoom in and enhance, because it may not be clear what's going on here:
The area east (to the right) of the blue line is cloudy; to the west it's completely clear. The white stuff you see between the black lines is snow, which will almost entirely melt because of the clear skies and warming temperatures. It should get up to 4°C today and 13°C tomorrow--more than enough heat to let us forget this unfortunate precipitation ever happened. In fact, the temperature didn't even fall below freezing at Inner Drive Technology WHQ overnight, halting its descent at 0.1°C and holding steady under the clouds.
Ah, spring!