Springtime For Pittsburgh

I am officially back in Pittsburgh after my sojourn in Texas. This morning I woke up to a temperature of exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit and a dense freezing fog enveloping (or as Shaker Puellasolis says in comments, swaddling) the city. The view of downtown from one of my living room windows usually looks like this:


Downtown Pittsburgh skyline. Notice Philip Johnson's PPG Place on the left and the U.S. Steel Tower toward the right.

Here is the view from the same window at 8 AM this morning:




(The two pictures are not framed exactly the same--if they were, the fog picture would be just a white rectangle. But the white area is where the skyscrapers usually appear.) This photo also features one of the enigmatic cement owls that perch on various buildings around my neighborhood--there is one on my roof as well.

I love fog. Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I regularly found my street disappearing before me in both directions. Anyone else out there who has experienced the mystery of crossing the Golden Gate Bridge with a visibility of about three feet likely knows what I'm talking about. Fog is often portrayed as creepy, but it gives me a comfortable, homey feeling. The difference, of course, is that in Northern CA the fog burns off to leave clear, still, warm afternoons; here, it will burn off to leave...mostly cloudy skies. Ah, Spring!

My thoughts are with those today who are fighting far more hostile weather in the Red River area, the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle region, and Southeast Louisiana; the folks still digging out from under the blizzard in Denver; and those in line for tornadoes in the Southeast today.