Heat, fire, thunder – and now the moon turns red
How fitting to end yet another apocalyptic week of weather with the rise of the “blood moon”.
We have experienced wildfires, violent thunderstorms, recordbreaking heat fierce enough to buckle train tracks, and then – to cap it all – the moon went red. Strange times indeed.
The blood moon is so called because of its deep ruddy colouring caused by sunlight being filtered through the Earth’s atmosphere. Last night’s event was the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century.
The moon was expected to be rendered an even deeper shade of red as a result of dust thrown into the atmosphere by recent volcanic eruptions in Hawaii and Guatemala.
I write “expected” having gone to press before the moon reached its peak and knowing one should never attempt to second-guess events above our heads: be they lunar or otherwise.
The moon in July carries particular significance for me. Today I will be joining hundreds of other cyclists on a 120-mile night ride between London Fields and Dunwich on the Suffolk coast. The so-called Dunwich Dynamo has been going for more than 25 years and always takes place on the Saturday nearest to the full moon in July.
As a boy, my brother, mum and I used to come and pick up my dad from this end point. I remember stepping carefully among a snoring sea of Lycra in order to find him on the shingle.
Now the mantle has been passed on and my parents haul me off the beach.
I have ridden through rainstorms and starry nights – and once it was so cold that a friend and I arrived at 6am and had to take shelter behind a wheely bin.
But never a heatwave like this. In truth, I’m quite looking forward to a sleepless night on my bike. Better than thrashing around in my bed and howling at the moon: “When will this infernal heatwave ever end?”