February 2026
February 2nd
We report under lively skies: the atmospheric pressure forecast maps looked strange this morning. There were high-pressure areas stuck between low-pressure areas, and the patterns of diverging winds that emerged made little sense to us. The resulting weather is adequately odd.
February 1st
We report: our expert has been complaining of a pebble in their shoe for a bit; they take a moment to sort it out when the rain lets up. As we look up, the clouds are moving at the same pace as our breathing, travelling from one end of the sky to the other in great strides.
February 4th
We report about a few minutes at the end of the afternoon that we almost missed. There is the smallest window of time when sunset light hits a rooftop window just right, and on the best of days, it catches our eye. This is one of these days. Something lifts off our chest.
February 3rd
We report: it is not very late yet, but the cloud cover is such that it is already completely dark. The snow is falling in slow motion, the path of each flake impossible to predict, and we do try. We find in the snowfall the sound of the ocean at night, immense and quiet.
February 5th
We report: it is morning, as close to sunny as this day will get. There is a ring around the sun, frozen into the clouds. We have opened the window, and invited the wind inside; it is chilly, and we are shivering a little, but the air feels drier than it has been in months.
February 7th
We report: there are a few more birds hanging around at nightfall lately, and it was almost not cold on our way home. We know better than to think this will stick for very long, seeing as it is still early February, and we do not want to leave February unappreciated.
February 6th
We report in the midst of a hail shower: the hailstones are large, and fast, and we are having trouble hearing our expert over how loud they are. It is a while before the sound of thunder registers beneath it all, and we get away from the trees. The storm is coming our way.
February 11th
We report: it is late at night, and the wind is just now waking up. We jumped awake to the crash of a dustbin falling to its side, and when we went to see what happened, the street was eerily quiet, as though the gale was feeling guilty about it. It picked right up a bit later.
February 8th
We report: one in a few sunsets, the clouds will turn particularly pink for a few minutes after the sun has gone down. We remember that our expert told us this was caused by Rayleigh scattering, but we do not feel like thinking about Rayleigh scattering at the moment.
February 9th
We report: mid-afternoon, we are now allowed to witness some of the goings-on of the higher parts of the sky. The cirrus are practicing the slowest of dances, unlike the greyer, wetter, faster clouds that we know intimately these days. The sunshine is a little dizzying.
February 21st
We report: we are counting flowers on our walks. There are dozens of daffodils and primroses, escaping gardens and climbing roundabouts. This afternoon, while the sun is out, the yellow specks in the landscape are the brightest, happiest things we have seen in a while.
February 10th
We report during an interlude, as the sky is making quick and important changes to its configuration. There used to be large mammatus there, those round clouds that sometimes accompany storm cells. The wind is now shaking them loose to make room for something new.
February 12th
We report on the shore after a busy weather day: there is a truce, somewhat. Though we can see cumulonimbus and other likely rainy episodes float on the horizon, they pass us by in the driest way they are able to. Our expert is looking for stones to skim, and failing to find any.
February 13th
We report: the very beginnings of spring are appearing to us more clearly than ever today. It is extremely premature, but we cannot help it; every year, around mid-February, the wind starts carrying a different smell. Our expert says they cannot tell whether that is true.
February 14th
We report upon finding the sun in the rain: it makes no rainbow behind our back, but we forgive it easily for that. Later, when it is gone, we miss it, and even later, when it comes back, we are grateful. All throughout, it keeps on raining all the kinds of rain we know.
February 15th
We report: it was dark when we started walking. We cannot help but imagine the places we were as still hidden in the night, with the street lamps still on. Here, in this slice of time, the sun is about to rise, unobscured in its ascent for the first time in many days.
February 16th
We report in the dusty, dusty evening. The way this day is waning is through a succession of layers of night. All of them are thin enough that there never is an exact moment when we can declare the conclusion of the day. Once we make it back home, the dust finally settles.
February 17th
We report: late afternoon, the wind is dishevelling the clouds. This is one hour of sunshine in the rainiest winter we have ever encountered, which makes it very precious, even as the humidity is still permeating the air. Even our expert does not say a word about upcoming rain.
February 18th
We report on the foreshore, while a spring tide is rising. It is just after the new moon, and because we saw how low the sea retreated, we know we should not linger too long on the shoals if we do not want to get stuck there. We pull our expert from the low tide pools.
February 19th
We report: by the road, in the headlights, the birch trees stretch up into the sky like frozen lightning bolts. Not much wind tonight, but it is enough to tear some whines and groans from those skinny branches. We think we see a straggler from the Alpha Centaurid meteor shower.
February 20th
We report at the end of a day spent formulating thoughts, and organising them, and losing the train of them: we are now appreciating the luxury of letting them all go. The sunset, at the moment, requires no additional thinking from us. Our mind gets filled with orange light.
February 22nd
We report: this time, we were there as the mammatus were forming, instead of catching them as they were melting back into the sky. It was a single ripple that first caught our eye, and then we watched the clouds carve themselves into the pattern. We started feeling really small.
February 23rd
We report: it is difficult to get rid of the damp these days, the way it has penetrated everything and everywhere around us. Our expert’s shoes hardly ever get to dry in between days of trodding through puddles and wet grass. It is not quite raining yet, this morning.
February 24th
We report: we have been walking up the hill, and every time we think the sun has finally set, the steps we take towards the top reveal a little bit more light. We have to imagine that at some point, however, whether we get there or not, the sun will fully disappear.
February 25th
We report on a sunny morning: it is almost like the past weeks of continuous rain never even happened. It is surprisingly easy to forget, for a moment, that we have seen all these streets turn into rivers, and all these drains overflow. The sun is still a little low in the sky.
February 26th
We report: we have noticed over the course of our life that rainbows are excellent bookmarks, in the sense that a day featuring a rainbow will stay engraved in our memory for much longer. A day featuring a double rainbow will be remembered for twice as long; twice the bookmarks.
February 27th
We report as we close our eyes: on nights when we have trouble falling asleep, we send our mind to wander amongst the stars. In this state of half-wakefulness, the darkness is more comforting than it is cold, and we find paths to galaxies in places no one will ever reach.
February 28th
We report: the sun is rising earlier still, but we do not feel as exhausted in the morning light as we did a few weeks ago. There are minuscule leaves sprouting from a branch outside of the kitchen window, and we watch them unfurl with disproportionate intensity.