The Snowflake Chronicles

The Winter Sky

12 Sultan 163 B.E. - Tuesday, January 30, 2007

I’ve noticed the sky lately. It’s cloudy most of the time. It’s been cloudy a lot lately. This is what I’ve come to think of as a winter sky. Along with the sky the temperature is chilly and sometimes even cold. There’s also been a lot of wind so included in this is the wind chill. No snow in the Las Vegas valley, just cold and wind; the weather person today said it’s supposed to get warmer. That would be nice for a change. I think I can stand the warm weather better than the cold.

I remember the winter sky in Oklahoma. It was cloudy as well, but it also snowed. A cloudy sky goes better with snow or rain than with nothing but chilly temperatures. Then there were the clear winter nights, when I could look up and see the winter constellations sparking. In Las Vegas, you can’t see the night sky, too much light pollution. I miss the winter constellations; in fact, I miss the winter stars more than I do the summer stars. Maybe it’s because I was born in December. According to my birth certificate, I was born after sunset on December 24.

I was born far enough after sunset that the stars were out sparkling. Maybe that’s why I miss seeing the winter stars. If I want to look at the night sky without interference from light pollution, I have to go out of Las Vegas. Every year I have to go farther out of Las Vegas than the year before to see the stars. The more they build in the city, then the farther I have to go to see the stars. In a few years, the entire valley will be asphalt and casinos, light pollution and no stars (all though I’m not sure I actually believe this).

Winter without seeing the seasonal constellations … strange; winter just isn’t the same without the stars. That’s one of the problems of with living in a city, no night stars. Sometimes I can see the brightest stars, but that’s not very often and it’s getting rarer all the time. Besides seeing one or two bright stars is not seeing the entire constellation.

The sky is still cloudy and its still chilly not cold, but there is no wind chill. The weather person just said there was rain around us, not in Las Vegas but in the surrounding mountains somewhere. I’ll have to check the weather report I get at one of my e-mail accounts. Even with the clouds I doubt that it will rain, we haven’t had rain in a while. Of course, when it does rain in Las Vegas the only time it officially rains is when it rains at McCarran Airport. It could flood the rest of the city out and if it didn’t rain at McCarran it wouldn’t be official.