Autumn leaves, banks of fog, and facts about the moon.
Sunday, November 2, 2025
It’s day 306 of 2025. Forty-Nine days until the Solstice (December 21st) and winter begins. Rain overnight has made for a raw and damp morning, with the occasional bit of precipitation still falling. Not a good day for outdoor activities. Again, I find myself wishing for a fire in the hearth (unfortunately, we can’t burn anything in the fireplace until the chimney is cleaned and who knows when that will be!).
You know it’s truly autumn when dry leaves crunch beneath your feet as you walk down the street. Some of the trees are nearly bare and a chill hangs in the air. It’s actually cool enough to wear that over-sized plaid scarf you love so much. At night the Moon, shrouded in soft misty clouds, peers down at you from between the empty tree branches. Halloween is over and Thanksgiving is coming!
Soon it will be time to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, an annual practice of mine. I know some people call it a Halloween movie and some say its a Christmas movie, but for me its a little bit of both and so it falls in between. Thus I always watch it around this time of year.
Tuesday, November 4, 2025
Last night the moon shone brightly in a clear sky, looking like a bent coin, not quite full. The November full Moon, or Beaver Moon, will reach it’s peak tomorrow on the 5th. According to Space.com, this will be the “largest supermoon of 2025.1“
I learned recently that the dark patches on the Moon’s surface (that make up the “man in the moon” face or “rabbit pounding elixir”) are actually the result of ancient lava flows. Giant craters that partially filled with dark Basalt rock millions of years ago when the Moon was still volcanically active. These areas were misnamed as seas or ‘maria‘ by some of the first observers to record the surface features of the Moon. Today, we know there is no liquid water present but the names remain2.
Fun Facts About the Moon
- As you probably know, the Moon has no rings or moons of it’s own.
- The Moon’s gravitational pull is about one sixth the force of gravity on Earth. So if you weigh 120 lbs. on Earth, then you would only weigh 20 lbs. on the Moon3.
- Due to the weak gravity, the Moon has little to no atmosphere and consequently experiences extreme temperature swings from night to day.
- This is also the reason that the Moon also has no wind and no weather phenomenon.
- In addition, having very little atmosphere means the Moon has no protection from space debris or asteroids. Hence its surface is peppered with impact craters. Over the ages, these impacts have pounded much of the surface rock into a fine dust.
- The Moon is slowly getting farther away from Earth at a rate of about 1.5 inches per year4.
- The Moon does not generate light, it reflects the light of the Sun.
- The Moon’s gravitational field obviously affects the Earth, causing the tides5, among other things. However, when it comes to humans and other life on Earth, this force is so infinitesimally small that it is considered negligible and is not detectable by the human body.
We awoke this morning to a massive bank of fog running from north to south along the entire western edge of the city, with one end crossing over the Ohio River. It seems to follow the train tracks or perhaps Mill Creek. The photo doesn’t quite convey how large it was, in person it seemed much taller, like a giant wall.
I tried to look up what causes this type of fog formation, but it seems it could be the result of multiple factors. Mainly, its temperature difference in combination with moist air. Essentially, fog is condensation that forms around the particles in the air6. Apparently, human activities that generate particulate pollution or impact the atmosphere can significantly affect fog formation. The key factors being urbanization and air pollution, which can make fog more dense and disperse more slowly7.
Friday, November 7, 2025
Finally found a quiet moment to write. Three nights in a row, from the 4th to the 6th, the Moon was very bright and we had to close the window curtain to sleep. It was very beautiful but I am glad it’s waning now and is less intense. The full Moon shining in your face can be rather disruptive to your quality of sleep!
Today started out very overcast and humid, with more fog. Before long I could see a line of rain moving in my direction. It was accompanied by a few loud claps of thunder, of which, my Lola cat did not approve. For some reason she really doesn’t like thunder and always goes to hide, while the other cat isn’t bothered in the slightest. I was surprised to hear thunder in November, but I guess this is Ohio, after all (thunder storms tend to be a good bit stronger here than where I grew up). By the end of the afternoon, the sun had come out again and it shone brightly as it set. Do you enjoy thunder storms or are you like Lola?
– Sarah Addison Allen
“It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.”
Gif courtesy of Pusheen.com
Autumn icons created by Good Ware – Flaticon
- Space.com – https://www.space.com/stargazing/largest-supermoon-of-the-year-rises-tonight-how-to-see-the-november-full-moon-nov-5-2025 ↩︎
- NASA – https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11692
NASA – https://science.nasa.gov/moon/facts/https://science.nasa.gov/moon/facts/ ↩︎ - Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation_of_the_Moon ↩︎
- URSA – https://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/explore/marvelMoon/background/moon-influence/ ↩︎
- NOAA – https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_tides/tides02_cause.html ↩︎
- Weather.gov – https://www.weather.gov/lmk/fog_tutorialhttps://www.weather.gov/lmk/fog_tutorial
National Geographic – https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/Fog/ ↩︎ - NASA – https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19820034008
Carnegie Mellon University – https://www.cheme.engineering.cmu.edu/news/2025/02/10-gordon-visibility-air-quality.html ↩︎