McHenry County Blog

Crystal Lake's Gate 7 Beach at the Gate 9 end on the morning of March 20, 2010.

The ice disappeared from Crystal Lake on Friday, March 19th.

March 15th, same location. The ice on Crystal Lake was rotten.

Click to enlarge.

It was about 4 AM when I awoke and asked my wife,

“What’s that?”

Sleepily she said something like, “What do you mean?”

“It felt like the house jumped,” I replied and got up to see if it was a snowplow that had just passed by.

Lakewood’s main drag was quiet, but the driveway, lit by the chimney star that stays on until the snow disappears, was illuminated.

There was another bright light across the street from our tree house above the swimming pool.

All of a sudden it went out.

When my son awoke, he heard that we had had an earthquake.

I guess the light that went out must have been a motion sensitive spotlight.

Closer to the Pingree Grove epicenter, one family near the Huntley High School, about 14 miles from the epicenter of the 3.8 magnitude quake, said that his bed was vibrating across the floor.

Again, click to enlarge.

Another said,

“It was like thunder, but much more disturbing than thunder.”

You can find more information about the quake here in the DeKalb Register.

If you would like to give the US Geologic Service information about what you saw and felt, you can do so at this web page. There are over 14,000 responses so far.

One interesting tid-bit that the paper did not mention in the context I shall is that the earthquake was caused by global warming.

Paul Stoddard, an associate professor in department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences at Northern Illinois University, points out in the story that the quake was caused by

“glacial rebound.”

From Wikipedia page on "post-glacial rebound"

The thousand feet of ice is long gone, of course.

Global warming.

Not man made, of course.

10,000 years in the making.

Type “global warming” into MicroSoft’s new Bing search engine and one of McHenry County Blog’s “Messages of the Day” is on the second row of images.  It is from March 30, 2009.

It didn’t make the images under “global warming.”

On the way to pick up my son from a sleepover for church, we drove past this

sign near South Elementary School in Crystal Lake.

You will note my just-back-from-a-spring-break-in-Florida son is still wearing shorts.

Some years people have been water skiing by now, so I thought the sign deserved to be memorialized.

When I ran for McHenry County Treasurer in 1966, I remember the last snow came on May 5th. In 1993, there was frost under the leaves in mid-May.

Hiding behind a pile of snow is one of many yard signs posted illegally in Congresswoman Melissa Bean’s district prior to the November election.

It ways,

There’s more, including a web site, but it’s hidden behind a pile of snow.

Hiding behind a pile of snow is one of many yard signs posted illegally in Congresswoman Melissa Bean’s district prior to the November election.

It ways,

There’s more, including a web site, but it’s hidden behind a pile of snow.

If you ever wondered how ridiculous some newspaper stories are, please take a look at the headline of this Associated Press story by Seth Borenstein. It ran on page two of Elgin’s Courier News on Thursday.

If you ever wondered how ridiculous some newspaper stories are, please take a look at the headline of this Associated Press story by Seth Borenstein. It ran on page two of Elgin’s Courier News on Thursday.

“Blame global warming,” the story says.

I wonder what we blame for today’s snow.

You’ve heard of the folks who live inside Washington’s Beltway, of course.

There are apparently reporters who can’t read weather forecasts.

Ours for Good Friday was S-N-O-W.

There are no flowers, except for artificial ones and the ones for sale at exorbitant prices grown in other climes, and the one in today’s “Message of the Day.”

The cherry trees are blooming in Washington earlier than usual.

Where’s the “rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey would put it?

As I write this on Thursday, the forecast for McHenry County says, “Total snowfall accumulation of up to 8 inches is expected…”

I heard that forecast yesterday before this D.C. story was sent out.

I have added the pictures from our dining room at noon Friday. The letters have been there since we began hoping spring might arrive.

The dark mark in the upper right hand corner of the top image, by the way, is Keely Cat’s tail. He’s a curious cat.

And, yes, those are snowflakes in the next picture. They showed up when I used the flash.

If you ever wondered how ridiculous some newspaper stories are, please take a look at the headline of this Associated Press story by Seth Borenstein. It ran on page two of Elgin’s Courier News on Thursday.

If you ever wondered how ridiculous some newspaper stories are, please take a look at the headline of this Associated Press story by Seth Borenstein. It ran on page two of Elgin’s Courier News on Thursday.

“Blame global warming,” the story says.

I wonder what we blame for today’s snow.

You’ve heard of the folks who live inside Washington’s Beltway, of course.

There are apparently reporters who can’t read weather forecasts.

Ours for Good Friday was S-N-O-W.

There are no flowers, except for artificial ones and the ones for sale at exorbitant prices grown in other climes, and the one in today’s “Message of the Day.”

The cherry trees are blooming in Washington earlier than usual.

Where’s the “rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey would put it?

As I write this on Thursday, the forecast for McHenry County says, “Total snowfall accumulation of up to 8 inches is expected…”

I heard that forecast yesterday before this D.C. story was sent out.

I have added the pictures from our dining room at noon Friday. The letters have been there since we began hoping spring might arrive.

The dark mark in the upper right hand corner of the top image, by the way, is Keely Cat’s tail. He’s a curious cat.

And, yes, those are snowflakes in the next picture. They showed up when I used the flash.