This morning's water vapor satellite image, complete with dry tongue of air from Georgia to Maryland, from the National Weather Service You might think that today's forecast, warm with a chance of a thundershower, is a harbinger of spring. You would be wrong. Mother Nature lives up to her cruel mistress moniker by dangling spring in front of us while all the while holding another cold snap in a gloved hand behind her back.......

Photograph of a snowy bench by the idealist on Flickr Oh, Mother Nature. You bring us a couple inches of snow, make the city pretty for a brief spell, and then you send in the rain and turn up the heat a little, turning everything into slush.......

FESTIVITIES: Forget about that big shiny show-off in Rockefeller Center. Tonight the menorah and Christmas tree in Washington Square Park will be illuminated for all. Come bask in the glow of holiday, people. 6pm // Washington Square Park [W 4th St to Waverly Pl between MacDougal and University] // Free FILM: In a week-long tribute to Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini (pictured), tonight The Film Society of Lincoln Center will be screening Notes for an......

Mother Nature is all treats and no tricks this Halloween. With southerly flow around a high pressure system centered to the east today's high temperature should be nearly ten degrees warmer than normal. The day should be mostly sunny but there may be a few clouds and ghouls this evening. The quest for a record warm October has come down to the last day! Gothamist calculates a monthly average temperature of 63.65 degrees if Central......

Con Ed is laying the blame on Mame Mother Nature for the two power outages this past week. The utility issued a statement saying that the 48-minute blackout on Wednesday - the one that hit the Upper East Side and South Bronx - was caused by a "strong lightning strike." This is what the Con Ed statement said:Information obtained from real-time lightning tracking data show that detection instruments measured a lightning strike of 34,000 amperes......

Wednesday power woes weren't just for parts of the Bronx and Manhattan: Over 4,000 (or 8,000, depending on what you read) Queens residents were without power when last night's storm made its presence known. In fact, two hours after the MTA said LIRR service was a-okay after the Bronx-Manhattan power outage, the rain screwed up Long Island Rail Road track signals, causing hours of delays after service was suspended. In this instance, we feel......

Much to our forecasting chagrin, clouds instead of sunshine have been the rule today. Luckily the clouds are breaking up a bit as tonight is one of Mother Nature's great astronomical spectacles. Yes, this evening is Williamsburghenge, the night when the sun's setting rays are parallel to the streets, well the numbered streets from North 3rd to North 15th, in Williamsburg. Many readers have asked us how astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson calculates the......

Patrick Cullina is the VP of Horticulture and Facilities at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and New York's go-to guy for cherry trees (there are over 200 trees and 42 species at BBG alone!). Anita Jacobs is responsible for all of the programs that go along with the garden, speaking of which... The two-day Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival (New York's Rite of Spring) enters its 26th year at the Garden this weekend. Just after the......

Yesterday's storm brought flooding, closed roadways, delayed mass transit, difficult drives, soaked clothing, upended umbrellas and 7.46 inches of rain to Central Park. There were winds of 48 MPH at Kennedy Airport, as hundreds of flights in the area airports were canceled. And some environmentalists noted the irony of Saturday's Sea of People demonstration while the mayor was issuing emergency flood warnings for downtown Manhattan. Con Edison reported about city 1,700 households were without......

Perhaps Mother Nature wanted to chill out the fiery Valentine's Day passion - or give more people to snuggle up. About one to three inches of freezing rain arrived to the New York City area, making commutes of all kinds difficult. While it's not the apocalypse hyped up meteorologists, it is a disappointment - why couldn't it just be snow? Meteorologist John Cristanello explained to the Daily News that the mix of snow and......

All sorts of stuff happening today. Let's start with a review of our warm and wet November. Last month tied 1994 and 1931 as the fifth warmest November in Central Park since records began in 1869. 7.34 inches of rain in Central Park made last month eighth wettest November. Yesterday was 21.5 degrees warmer than normal. Hell, yesterday's low was ten degrees above the normal high temperature. It was 67 at three this morning. Its......

Mother Nature didn't agree with the scheduled off-days in this year's National League Championship Series. Monday's rainout was the second of the series, and the Mets will stay in St. Louis to play Game 5 against the Cardinals today instead of being back in New York. The more recent postponement removes the imbalance the first created -- the starting pitchers will be working on normal rest instead of three days' worth. Early speculation that......

This might be the most comprehensive sign that owning a car in New York City is an act against Mother Nature. Or building engineering. There's a NY Times story on how cars will finally be dug out after being buried by a dirt landsilde in Washington Heights last year. What's crazy is how many owners have to pay for towing their cars out themselves.Another buried car, a red 1993 Honda Civic, belongs to Sarah......

After showering Central Park with 8.38 inches of rain this month Mother Nature decides to end June on a high note. Yesterday's thunderstorm and intense rain were followed by a gorgeous double-rainbow (the faint second bow is outside the main one, trust us!) that Gothamist saw over Harlem. The swampy weather we've had the past week have been pushed out to sea. Today is going to be nearly perfect. Sunny, dry and warm conditions will......

Thousands of people (WNBC says 500,000!) lined Fifth Avenue and Greenwich Village streets to enjoy this year's Gay Pride Parade, in spite of a bit of rain. In fact, one performer on the "Carnival in Rio" float told the NY Times, "Today is our day. The rain won't stop us. Mother Nature is a drag queen." One of the stars of the parade was Kevin Aviance, the drag queen who was brutally beaten by......

EARTH DAY EVENT: Earth Day isn't just for hippies. This weekend celebrate our planet at Earth Day NY. Exhibitors will educate you on how to treat Mother Nature a bit more kindly and show you how to find the nature right here in New York City. All Weekend // Friday noon to 7pm, Saturday 11am to 5pm // Grand Central // Free EVENT: Hosted by sneaker aficionado Bobbito Garcia, the Global Artists Coalition and Converse......

International cinema circles may be buzzing today about the announced line-up of films at this year's Cannes Film Festival but for those of us who won't be walking the Croisette in May, there's still plenty to be excited about movie-wise. Here's a few suggestions for your moviegoing this weekend. Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid and Hugh Grant yuck it up in Chris Weitz's new satire American Dreamz about an American Idol type competition and the bonehead......

We could not help but notice today that other Gothamist contributors are getting impatient with the weather. Our patience is running a bit thin as well. While temperatures may rise a smidgen closer to normal the next few days, Mother Nature is apparently in no hurry to grace us with spring-like weather just yet. We may see a few showers through the weekend, but they are likely to be insignificant if they occur. The extended......

DCist helps us make more sense of the world this week. Posts like this concert review are the reason for Scott Stapp. DCist also enumerates the reasons for playing ultimate frisbee, Condi’s tight buns, their love of a local convenience store, and their jealousy of a person in Seattle calling the city. LAist documented graf artist Banksy’s most recent visit to LA in one two three posts. They also found the best possible use......

It's drip drip drip in the city these days, and the mountains of snow are melting, thanks to Mother Nature's sunny disposition - and the Department of Sanitation's cool snow melters. These orange monsters melt up snow and then inject a more liquidy mixture directly into the sewers - we know this from yesterday's NY Times article. Next up: The DoS figures out how to suck all the slush from street corners! Weather-related ails......

Mother Nature, you did it! You made sure that there was enough snow to make meteorlogists - and local news crews - in the region thrilled beyond belief by dumping over 2 feet of snow in New York City - and more in outlying areas - which makes this a brand new record. Sure, Gothamist was laughing at newscasts touting the "Blizzard of 2006" as having the second highest snowfall, but when we took......

Time unveiled its Person of Year, which is actually People of the Year, not a Force of the Year as many had suspected, with Good Samartians Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono being the people in question. You can't actually read why they're so great online - okay, you can read it, you Time subscribers - so we'll just speculate that Time was upset that an early pick of "Mother Nature" was leaked. And besides,......

Last night's/this morning's snow left another dusting that makes everything so pretty to look at but another story to trudge through. Considering how much forecasters were worrying us, the snow is actually anti-climactic here in the city, with an inch or so, which is easy for the city's 350 salt spreaders, 1,400 plows and 2,000 workers (stats from Newsday). The Mayor was freaked out enough to urge commuters to take subways and buses into the......

Wednesday: ten degrees above average. Thursday: six degrees below average. Fall weather has arrived. This morning's low temperature almost got down to the freezing mark. It should be below freezing tonight. The growing season is officially over. It will remain chilly tomorrow before warming up slightly on Sunday. Autumn weather, however, may be short-lived. No, it's not going to get warmer. Winter may say hello next week. Early indications are that a nor'easter may develop......

Mother Nature is giving us a big warm treat today. Our Halloween temperatures will reach the upper-60s to possibly even the mid-70s. Still warm, but with a few clouds and a breeze tomorrow. At the moment it looks to Gothamist like tomorrow's clouds and wind will be the most exciting weather of the week. Sunny skies and slightly above normal temperatures should be the rule. It's a bit too soon to make an accurate forecast......

Cubicle victims without windows near you who brought your own lunch or ate whatever your office offered: Take a walk outisde. It's beautiful, 70 degrees and sunny - it's almost like Mother Nature felt really bad about last week and decided that we need a pick-me-up. Thursday and Friday are also looking to be pretty lovely (we'll take partly cloudy!), so ride your bikes and have an al fresco dinner before the weekend, which is......

Mother Nature must have realized she ignored us during the summer, as yesterday's rainfall broke records and caused lots of problems. Over 3.5" inches of rain fell yesterday, and with rain on deck for today and tomorrow, it's possible October's rainfall will exceed the 10.53" that fell in July, August and September combined. The NY Times spoke to an AccuWeather meteorologist, who said with the winds coming, it'll be "our first really good northeaster." Well,......

With the harrowing (and crazy - you've seen the looting video) news footage of Katrina's wake in Louisianna and Mississippi and Louisiana governor's announcement that everyone must leave New Orleans, New Yorkers have been working to help out the affected, whether by heading down there or helping raise money. Matt at Dorking Out had some suggestions about the best way to rebuild New Orleans, as in a floating megacity and references how on the Simpsons,......

We must admit, Gothamist is bored with the summer weather. Hazy, hot and humid, hazy, hot and humid. C'mon Mother Nature, can't we get a little variety around here? We don't want summer to end, we just want a daylong rain or a short cold spell as a change of pace. This weekend, sigh, will be hazy, hot and humid. Today will be our 18th day this summer with temperatures above 90 and tomorrow should......

Excellent! Apparently it's normal to be in a foul mood over this descpicably humid weather! The NY Times calls it the "Grumpy Factor" - New Yorkers have been acting like wittle babies because it's so hot and sticky. A doctor tells the Daily News it's a "thermo inversion": "With little breeze, the polluted air sits stagnant, irritating eyes and making air passages more sensitive to pollen." Hmm, is that enough of a reason to call......