The first half of November ended on Saturday, on a day of dry gray overcast, a day that seemed at times to scowl with chill menace but in fact offered a pleasant and conciliatory smile.
In a month or two, days with the outward appearance of Saturday might accompany the cold blasts of winter. And indeed hints of a late autumnal cooldown did occasionally enter the nostrils.
But if Saturday did not seem outwardly, visually or in all ways inviting, it turned out to be deceptively comfortable.
It seemed acceptably warm for mid-November with a high temperature that in Washington just missed 60, and was recorded as 59.
Apparently some extra stir in the molecules of the air boosted Saturday’s temperatures one degree above the normal high in the city on the 15th of November.
That normal figure is 58 degrees.
Saturday seemed subdued in its lack of sunshine and solar exuberance. But it was also a day that seemed lacking in drama in the sense of the typical conflict between darkness and daylight.
The morning’s low temperature in Washington fell only 10 degrees below the afternoon’s high, meaning that many hours were quite similar in warmth to each other, whether they came early or late.
However, the morning low was notably warmer than normal, seven degrees above the normal low for the date of 42.
A keen meteorological memory might have recalled a day of temperatures such as Saturday’s. Exactly one year ago, both the high and the low differed from Saturday by only two degrees. The high was 57 compared with Saturday’s 59 and the low was 47, compared with Saturday’s 49.
The north or northeast wind also seemed well-disciplined and muted in its effects. The strongest sustained wind was measured at 9 mph, with the strongest gust, as of 5 p.m., checking in at no more than 11. The average wind speed was 3 mph.
Tree color appears to be fading from its peak.
Leaves are dropping from trees. But it did not seem that their loss owed much to the shaking caused by Saturday’s relatively weak winds.
Nevertheless, in a place where transparency is often called for or discussed, the signs of a sort of increasing transparency could be seen Saturday in the outdoors.
Many trees recently carried so dense a crown of leaves as to block from view anything above them. But on Saturday, even if color continued to show, leaves had begun to dwindle in number. Twigs, if not entire branches, seemed tattered, and sometimes bare.
From behind the trees, in their growing transparency, hints of a cold weather landscape, unseen in summer, have begun to emerge.
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