Monsoon Season Early

Supposedly, spring occurred around 04:44 this morning, the 20th of March.

This afternoon, not quite 12 hours later, we had hail and, for about 10 minutes, quite torrential rain and some decent winds.

The image on the right here details speeds in the neighbourhood of 47 knots, enough to make too many of the trees outside my picture window bow in unison at alarming angles (by guess, 20-25 degrees from vertical). Colours for rain in the image run from light greens (light drizzle, perhaps enough to require a windshield wiper every minute or so), through yellows to oranges, reds, and finally purple (if you haven't finished your Ark by now, it's too late). It's very unusual for us to venture into orange, and yet radar is showing a pretty stark line of reds.

I'm impressed. This is Seattle, folks. It doesn't rain here, it leaks. Here it is, less than 20 minutes later, and there is a bit of sunshine and blue skies to my south.

Spring is indeed here. Hail Equinox!