Roving UHub photographer Pete Hutchinski reports he was down on Friend Street, looking to pick up some lock cylinders at Benton Locksmiths, when he spotted this sign atop a traffic barrel. "I thought everything would have melted by now!" he muses.
Weather
People with phones set up for emergency messages were warned this afternoon to leave the Esplanade as a line of thunderstorms approached south of Boston. State Police stopped letting people onto the Esplanade to reduce the number of people they might have to move out in a hurry had the heavy rain and lightning reached the Charles, which it didn't. Read more.
Eileen Murphy and friend stopped to take in the hydrangeas on an otherwise gloomy, drizzly kind of day in South Boston.
It's been warm the last couple of days, but the digital thermometer outside Harry's on Centre Street across from the reclaimed part of West Roxbury yesterday made us wonder if we'd somehow been teleported to Texas. Then it flashed a time of 10:35, when it was really closer to 6:30 p.m., so we realized, phew, we could still get chicken enchiladas in mole sauce at Yucatan Tacos across the street and the signboard was just malfunctioning.
The Charles River Conservancy has announced its canceled tomorrow's City Splash swim event at the Esplanade due to forecast "heavy rain and potential thunderstorms" that would make swimming unsafe.
The group had set Sunday as its rain date, but it's been forced to cancel that as well, because all the rain Saturday could mean unsafe levels of potentially harmful microorganisms via pipes that still drain into the river.
Hugmajesty captured some of the lightning over Allston this evening. Read more.
Linda Rodi couldn't help but notice the rainbow over Belmont from her back porch this afternoon.
Marc Hurwitz spotted a rainbow over Dedham Center: Read more.
Matt Frank captured a helicopter flying through an orange sunset today caused by forest fires in Quebec.
The state Department of Environmental Protection has issued an air-quality alert for Massachusetts, which runs through midnight, due to smoke from wildfires in Quebec and Ontario. Read more.
Brenda looked towards Boston from Fisherman's Beach in Swampscott about 5:20 p.m.
The National Weather Service office in Norton reports that smoke from raging fires north of Halifax has been blown down here. And unlike with the Alberta smoke, which stayed high up in the atmosphere: Read more.
Roving UHub photographer Melissa Hirshson captured a rainbow late this afternoon outside the Waltham BJ's. Read more.
More smoke from wildfires on the Canadian plains gave us another hazy sunrise this morning, as Brooks Payne shows us.
Kichinichini took in the hazy sun from the River Street bridge in Hyde Park's Cleary Square: Read more.
Mary Ellen shows how somebody had the sunset well in hand yesterday at Millennium Park in West Roxbury.
The Natiional Weather Service reports the haze is from forest fires a bit west of Worcester - in Alberta. At 8:36 this morning, the GOES-East satellite captured the smoke stream: Read more.
Dave Epstein explains why the winter just past means fewer than normal forsythia blooms this spring: The plants got mistaken into thinking spring was coming early, then a cold snap in February killed most of the would-be flowers. The plants themselves, he adds, will be OK.
Looks like we have competition for fretting about whether or not we're really world class. The Chicago Sun-Times reports one city alderman (like one of our city councilors, only with more ald) is backing a pilot proposal to have city crews plow certain sidewalks rather than relying on recalcitrant property owners because that's just what a world-class city would do. Like Boston. Read more.
The National Weather Service posted this map of snowfall totals in southern New England.
The analysis uses interpolation methods, so it may not perfectly reflect your back yard. Still, clearly shows the huge differences in short distances.