September Almanac A Time of Change
By Clinton S. Powell, Naturalist

The National Weather Serive tries to forecast the first freeze.

September is an interval of time where changes — big changes — begin. Summer fades, but not without a daily reminder of hot mountain heat, as you will see later.

September heat won’t bake an apple pie, but you might feel like you’re in the crust. One September morning will sneak in quietly with a cool breeze and the thought of firewood is once again of concern. The next morning, you feel like three dogs have slept on top of you.

Those are our feelings. But are they valid? Basically they are, but more important is an unseen, almost unheard change of events.

The change is familiar to every mother. The young daughter cries for attention — now. Her demands do not respond to the time or the rising sun; she feels something and that something must be attended to now, not later. This urgency might not be one of life or death, or it actually could be. Distress comes in many voices, many choices. Nature knows the now.

The coming season commonly known as autumn is rapidly approaching that same situation. Survival is the key to all living things. However, we can’t look into the eye of a Canada goose and determine when it will rise up from the lake and fly thousands of miles south. The leaf of a California black oak tree might look green one day, yellow the next and the day after that, it has fallen to the earth.

I believe we will never understand these silent signals At least, that’s my hope.

We have so many clocks, calendars, calculations and charts that display what has happened in the past. Fortunately, we cannot say what natural event will occur today, tomorrow or might not occur at all. Being creatures of habit, we look to the clock rather than feeling the season, and it’s ever-so-slowly, but very-so-swiftly changing.

When will the first frost occur, the first Pacific storm, the first fire in our wood stove? We have references, but I do not know the actual moments these events will occur.

The National Weather Service, a dedicated group of people hopping around the natural events of temperature and rainfall has a solid basis for its predictions. Remember, these are predictions. Fortunately this is not a boring collection of an actual time, down to the minute, when the first freeze occurs, when snow will occur, when the tomatoes, basil and cucumbers will die. We don’t know when to wear a flannel shirt, a T-shirt or bring along a jacket. But we must be prepared. Always prepared.

A prime reason for the dates of frost or warm autumn days comes from the south, not the north. In Southern California, we have storms from the Great Basin, the Pacific and the southern storms from Mexico referred to as chubascos. These southern storms still are referred to as monsoons. I understand a monsoon in India, but not in Indio.

These three weather systems are a forecaster’s nightmare. August and September are the prime months for these swirling southern storms to sweep up and drench us in warm, cold, windy or mild tropical storms.

Referring to the National Weather Service, despite the Autumnal Equinox on Thursday the 22nd, September is almost always hot. The average high temperature is 70 to 75 degrees. Sure, many days will be cloudy and cool; the other extreme is the heat. Every year in September, days of 90 degrees or higher will rip into us. In 1965 and three other years a freeze occured in the first week of September. Either live with it, or leave.

Sunrise on Sept. 1 is 7:11 a.m., sunset 6:21 p.m.; Sept. 30, sunrise is 6:36 a.m., sunset 6:32 p.m. These times might not seem drastic, but they can be if you are not prepared. Somewhere in autumn, and I can never remember when, Daylight Saving Times either begins or ends. This time change always messes me up. In Arizona, where my sister lives, they don’t fool with the clock. It’s the same with Hawaii, where my daughter lives — the clock is left alone. It takes me two to three months to call them on time.

We, as keepers of time, have lost the true sense of time. Warblers, wrens, geese, mallards, oak leaves, even the last song of the mockingbird — they alone know that the true time only comes with the heart.