By Sue KILPATRICK

“The Summer night is like a perfection of thought.”
— Wallace Stevens

The best time of day during the summer is the evening. A lingering presence of a sunset in the western sky blends into a darker indigo sky. The heat of the day subsides giving us a few perfect hours to enjoy. In our ever changing world a summer evening in the Foothills can be reassuring. Last night as we took Abby on her walk we were greeted by our neighbors – dads and kids on bikes, moms visiting with iced tea in hand, dog walkers (like us), joggers, and those (like us) whose kids are grown up. Life is good! As we returned with  a tired pup a sad coyote crossed our street and the crickets  began their nightly serenade.
It has been said that crickets are the poor man’s thermometer. You can actually calculate the temperature by their “chirp rate.” To do this, count the number of chirps within 15 seconds and add 40.
There is also a formula developed by a physics’ teacher in 1897 – Dolbear’s Law – T=50+[(N-40/4]. If I attempted this equation, I would probably find out the number of legs on the cricket instead of the temperature! Thankfully, the great Italian mathematician and philosopher Galileo invented the thermometer in 1593.
The weather this week and into the next will remain unseasonably cool. Low pressure systems off the coast, unusual for this time year, have kept the temperatures down. For the most part our temperatures will be in the 80s during the day and low-to-mid 60s at night. This weekend may bring a slight change with a mix of sun and clouds and a possible high of 90 degrees. Then by the first of the week we’ll return to mild temperatures. It is the opinion of several meteorologists that our lower than average summer temperatures are due to the lingering effects of  El Nino. This may seem abnormal, but El Nino has been coming and going for thousands of years. As was once written in Ecclesiastes and later (a slightly different version) by William Shakespeare – “There is no new thing under the sun…”

Sue Kilpatrick is a longtime CV resident and amateur weather watcher. Reach her at suelkilpatrick@gmail.com.

  Crescenta, weather