a lot but not enough

No not my Christmas gifts, the rain!

December had a ten-day stretch of cool dry weather, which immediately put the month far behind normal. The cold and ice came at Christmas-time to keep things sub-par.

Then we tried to catch up.
We had nearly 2 inches yesterday and have 1.8" today. The forecast was for about 2½ inches in these two days, so we're overperforming. Another dry stretch will close out the month and year once this storm passes completely. That will leave us an inch short, which is pretty surprising considering the number of dry days!

Since we are still about six inches high for Oct-Dec, it is not at all a big thing.. just a thing.

a white Christmas

What a rough forecast week in our region!

I read the forecast pages and especially the discussions (AFDPQR) with interest, as we had plans to do some driving at Christmas. The forecast was firmly split into two camps: those with snow and those with ice and/or cold rain. Since neither is a good choice for travel we considered leaving sooner - but the forecast then crept backward so that Christmas Eve was no better. We finally decided to stay in place.

Even on the morning of Christmas Eve the two forecasts stayed in play! Either a low-pressure center would appear to our north and pull up warm south winds, or it would be to our south and keep the frigid east winds from Walla Walla in place. Suddenly the models really played dirty: we'd have Two lows with the southern one slightly stronger! Could that really be the answer?  Satellite views showed a line of moisture approaching but no spin-up of low pressure anywhere to be found.

By midday a light frozen snow/sleet event began. A bit small for snow but crystalline, falling a bit too fast - and bouncing rather than sticking!  That began to turn things white for a couple of hours but snow finally took over and ended late on the 24th at just over 1½ inches. The temperature never reached 31° by bedtime, so clearly it was on the ground for Christmas! Just to make certain that church services were unlikely a fine mist began to coat the snow with a slick cover.

We stayed inside all day and enjoyed the day as best we could. I believe this was only my second White Christmas in 60 years of life in the lower elevations on the Pacific NW!

Not the Christmas we planned, yet joy and peace in abundance.

solstice

Winter has officially begun..
and an 'interesting' forecast comes with it!

A dry first half of December moistened up impressively this past week. It will not be enough to reach average, especially with more cold weather limiting the moisture to slick but not deep moisture. Driving around Christmas could be a problem.. we shall see soon enough.

first frost at last

After two months of rain (10¼" and nearly 13"), December is going dry for a week or more. As I've mentioned our location is wettest in November - but December should still end up at 9.4 inches, so a dry 7-10 days will need to be made up later.

On the other hand, clearer skies and colder nights will finally arrive. We're still awaiting our first frost, though we've been in the mid-30s several times. One of the next few nights should be frosty. That's pretty late for around here, but clearing (or an early arctic airmass) is needed to get us to freezing. I always thought of Halloween as Portland's first chance of frost, so by that measure we're a month behind.

One catch though: fog. 

We were foggy all day here it seems, with a high of about 40°. South of Longview skies were mostly clear where the Columbia Gorge winds scoured things out. I had hoped we would be above the fog but that didn't work today; however the dry week is young! We're showing just under 35° at 8:20, but I am watching the clouds swiftly breeze across the full-ish moon. The photo here is exposed just right for the moon in cloud, so the top part is in the clear!

If the sky seals up we could skip the frost again tonight. Some time in the next few days though, the north or east wind will dry things out enough - and frost will happen.

November being itself

According to the 30-year normals in the PRISM database, November is our wettest month with over 10½ inches on average. We're doing just fine in that regard, ten days in - and much more is coming soon!

Much of the coming week's precipitation is coming with cool air, therefore snow in the mountains will measure several feet by Thanksgiving. Ski areas will rejoice, and skiers as well.

Since we're over 3½" already and this forecast graphic for the next seven days is for ~six additional inches, it appears that November will be an average damp month at the very least. December and January average over nine inches each so the wet season has just begun.. again.

The yard is quite covered in maple leaves, but the trees are not done dropping their loads. The vine maple is still holding on but the best colors have now passed. The prettiest days of autumn are passed, and the clouds are definitely in charge.

11/18 UPDATE - the six inches did not materialize but we're still on track for a normal month. We received quite a lot of rain at times but not quite at the predicted times. Today was pretty but it goes downhill again tomorrow. Just an ordinary November..

return of the varied thrush

Now that leaves are on the ground that need flipping over, the varied thrush have returned! That didn't take long.. I wonder where they hang out when leaves are staying put on their trees?

chance of ..snow!

We've now dropped into the mid-30s at night, and soon our clocks fall back an hour. No daylight to save any more so why not - I'd still prefer a half-hour step and lock it down. I'm funny like that.

Areas of NW Washington got some snow this morning! Not much in general but the traditional perfect-storm pattern has set up with cold air and a pinch of over-water moisture fetch. /Charts and details here./  Sunday night shows our best chance at 800' in SW Washington, we'll see how that goes.

I've often seen snow around Thanksgiving in my lifetime, but closer to Halloween? Not often.

Windy

Today looked like the best day to burn some yard debris, as the east wind was forecast to appear soon after. However the northeast wind developed quickly and strongly compared to forecasts so we shall wait a bit. Considering how hard it is to get much wind here for anything but east-west flow the chart looks impressive - but the direction generally states it was from the east, so some serious swirling was going on. Not ideal for an outdoor fire, regardless of how wet we've been!

Winds are now forecast to be weak on Saturday.. we shall see about that!

My Wettest Days!

After the past few damp days I decided to wander into the virtual NWS archives in Portland. Sure enough, several days of up to 2½ inches have happened there in my lifetime - but nothing in the 3-5 inch category there.

Considering that Thursday was also a top-ten rainfall day (#9 as of now), that's mighty impressive. A year or two ago I was shocked by 10 inches in a single week (November 2015) - now I can add eight-plus inches in a 4-day span to that list of amazing rainfall.

Several interesting points about atmospheric rivers to be seen. Often times the warm front would dump a bunch, move just north of my location then swing south again - so a gap of a day or two between large numbers. Either that or a double river set up from two different dead typhoons?

The tints provide the hint. October 1994 had three events within six days (blue), and our double whammy came on the 19th and 21st this past week. That one was in fact two separate events, so it happens.

Note also the tan events from 1996, which was an amazingly wet year around here. Toss in Nov 11 '95 if you wish.

Another interesting point is that nearly every one of these is a 'recent' event. The earliest are 1960, 1969 and 1973 - then nothing until 1984.

So whatever it may mean.. here it is!

Not something we see often..

An overnight forecast of 2-3 inches. Wow!

Update.. Saturday total rain 4.8", October total including Sunday's half inch is over 10. Not the 20.2" of last year but still far beyond the 'normal' 5.5 inches!

wet week ahead!

The upcoming week has a full load of rainfall! The image shows the total 7-day amount that's currently forecast, and the moisture plume showing on the IR satellite image confirms that someone is going to get very wet. Even four inches is enough to put us positive for October's total amount, so we needn't fear for our well running dry.

The past few days have been quite nice, with temperatures now reaching the 30s - with just under 11 hours of daylight now, that's no surprise. I rebuilt the wood 'shed' with our largest tarp for a roof/wall and the remaining fiberglass from the previous shed for bonus protection on top. If the wind doesn't get out of hand that should do for a while.

Our wood is going faster than I expected, so a refill in December will need to happen. Hopefully by then our income will be reinforced in one of several ways. We still await word on my wife's Social Security payments that were suspended for reasons not entirely clear, but I'm seeking a part-time job to cover that missing income. We'll get through this spell but retirement will be suspended for a while. It would take a while to qualify for SoSec myself, as I removed myself from the pool very early to enter Federal service. A few years of part-timing will reduce our debts substantially.

*updates - 

• 10/19 so far so 'good', as yesterday ended with about 2¼ inches of rain. The weekend promises as least two more inches, so mark up another month of above-average precipitation - we've sure had a lot of those in Oct-May months!
• 10/20 another half-inch, about three more inches now expected beginning early Saturday.
• 10/21 nearly 5 inches, and 3/4 more Sunday! 

quick change as always

Highs in the mid-60s are now called a warm day, and lows are about to fall into the 30s. Nothing new here, it's called October!

We picked up a SportTrac-load of firewood (perhaps 1/2 cord) for the season, and I've finally learned how to heat the house with it: big fire by 8am that becomes coals by noon. The house stays toasty warm until bedtime and the furnace isn't needed (at least not yet).

The firewood is already nicely seasoned and nearly all cut to size - the big axe may not get much use this year!

dry and hot and dry and - oh wait

After a dreadfully dry and decently warm summer, autumn arrived early. We received just under four inches of rain in 3½ days up on the hill-top! Thankfully the home was pretty well prepared: roof was cleaned, gutters emptied and spout-directors reattached before the deluge began. Three straight days of 1+ inches is rather rare around here, most especially in mid-September! A few dry days with morning fog are up next, then we'll see what comes after.

The Eagle Creek fire that has hit many Portland-area residents so hard was weakened considerably by the rainfall, though it's still less than 2/3 contained at this time. Somewhat calm and residual moisture should help to keep it mellow as fire crews get into the hot spots and finish this off. I believe Interstate 84 is still closed for east-bound travel as the danger of slides and large rockfalls will take some serious study to control!

autumn awaits

We dropped below 50° last night, first of many as we shift to cooler weather. Nights have been clear as well as cool; the Milky Way is back after several bouts of smoke in recent weeks.

The most painful of the smoke sources came from the Eagle Creek fire, which east winds swept rapidly down-river. The Willamette valley was smokey for days, and even here we received a dusting of ash and the smell of smoke. The worst day of the bunch was in early September - 95 degrees, smoke and ash, and a funeral to attend.

captured from OregonLive website

The fire did not entirely wipe out the area marked in red, but much of the area suffered damage. Right along the creeks are likely rather lush in many spots, and the Multnomah Falls lodge was saved (as of today - the fire is still burning!). Sparks send the fire west during the strong east winds in early September, then the wind shifted and more recently the eastern edge has pushed eastward. Areas from Shepperds Dell to Herman Creek have been affected - and even a spot fire in Washington caught fire from the hard-blown embers! The Oregon side is too rugged to be a fair fight against fires, as the wind and near-vertical terrain does not allow for reasonable fire lines or any sense of control below the 4000-foot ridgetops. Interstate 84 has been closed for about a week, and the eastbound lanes won't be safe without checking a lot of charred slopes for imminent failure.

looking south from Longview as the east wind blows smoke out of the Gorge

This weekend we expect an inch or so of rain, which will help a great deal if winds don't swirl and lightning doesn't appear to restart the chaos. Hopefully the moisture will be pervasive and persistent, and nature can begin the healing process. Landslides will be the next worry once the fire is out, as the underbrush and roots will no longer hold back any strong runoff. Difficult times.

a surreal 2017 continues

It's been an exceptional year in many ways. Not always good, but definitely riding the tails of the distribution curve!

• Winter was amazing for its stretches of cold and snow, topped off by the 13 inches on Superbowl Sunday.
• Spring was absurdly grey and damp - from 1Jul 2016 to 30Jun 2017 we had over 98 inches of rain!
• Summer had its heat spells, no surprise there. What was decidedly uncommon was the amount of smoke west of the Cascades. A month or more ago it was fires from Canada whose smoke came south, then the past week smoke from southern Oregon came north. 
• The past three days have seen the Gorge go up in flames, whipped to a frenzy by powerful east winds from Cascade Locks to Corbett. Portland (and even Longview) received a dusting of ash from the fires to our east. So many good memories of Gorge hikes are still intact, but they definitely won't look the same next time.
• The sun disappeared for about 2 minutes.. but we knew that was coming at least!
• In-laws in law John and Theo were taken from us in a brief heart-beat; their funeral was today as the ash drifted slowly to earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The late afternoon at our home brought the first sign of several hoped-for change in the weather: the west wind arrived and knocked temperatures down 8 degrees in a half-hour, and before sunset temperatures fell into the 60s. Hooray! Next up, a chance of showers - though lightning could accompany them from the remnants of Lidia, which would be very bad. If the wind reverses in the Gorge the fire should fall back to already-charred areas and hopefully become more manageable. As with everything in life: we shall see.

fire and shadow

Yes, a nest of Balrogs has taken over the Pacific NW region.

No? Guess it's another 'heat snap' then. 

Add heat, season with wildfire smoke and simmer. Live with it until you snap.

fires in north-central BC + NNW winds = yuk (yellow tint mine)

This heat was well advertised and anticipated. Models were forecasting 110°, which has never happened this side of a Medford-TheDalles line! The PDX weather folk explained how the 850hPa temperatures occasionally go wild in the models despite other pressure levels appearing typical for a midsummer blast. In this case the 28° Celsius at 850 hasn't happened (yet?) but the arrival of smoke from British Columbia has likely capped the intensity of the insolation.

Salem did measure 25°C (5am reading, yellow highlight) so we are capable of record-setting temperatures, and the Portland airport has set two new daily records. If the smoke clears a bit perhaps the elusive 108° could be achieved.. but forecasts are trending down as the smoke settles in for a few days.

Here on the hill-top we have hit the mid-90s the past two days, not comfortable but not 103 either! The smoky blanket could make tonight pretty miserable though. Portland's thermal blanket kept summertime lows in the mid-upper 60s at times, and we have not missed those nights in the least. However, last night dropped only to 68.7° - warmer than KPDX! - and we may see worse tonight. By late Friday the marine push should arrive, but it is expected to be a weak one that knocks us to the lower 80s by Monday. No rain or serious clouds expected, though an outside chance of thunder as the heat breaks over the weekend.
We shall see..

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

3Aug: PDX stopped at 105° as of 7PM. We again bottomed out around 67°, warmer than Portland - I guess we are closer to 850MB than they are! According to this site, not much though - and another site suggests we're at 985hPa. Fun facts!

another heat snap

Two days of 100° in Portland, we did slightly better in that regard. However, Saturday's high of 97 happened after 7pm! That was a very warm night, and we chose it to cook hotdogs over a small pit-fire. We went to bed after 1AM, my third straight night of poor sleep-times. Sunday got just past 90 before the west winds won out, and by nightfall it was below sixty degrees - amazing how well that works once it kicks in!

Now we're expecting a week of AM clouds and highs in the 70s. That's ideal for yard tasks like finishing the garden area, checking our roof for issues after that long winter, and other outdoor chores. Or just sitting on the deck, listening to the thrush and watching the Monarchs flutter by..

not so hot

Our first heat waves are in the books, and they were pleasantly brief and ended with strong west winds that kept the house cool. As noted before the first one ended with thunder and a lot of rain; nothing so dramatic this time.

Today was an excellent day: we awoke to morning clouds that burned away just before 10AM. Most of the day from noon to 6PM was low 70s but a quick half-hour pushed the high to 79°. A couple of hours later the west wind came in a rush, and at 7:45 we are in the mid-50s!

An excellent day to get work done, relax, and work a little more. A few well-placed fans and the house cools quickly. The next several days will be in the 60s so that was just enough fun for now.

I've pressure-washed our deck - again - so if tomorrow is the last Warm Day we can get it stained. I washed it thoroughly last fall but timing was off for a staining, so it endured the harshest winter I'd ever seen!

The day was also excellent thanks to my encounter with three deer in our yard. They were distracted by a neighbor's chain saw so I got to the edge of the deck just before they romped over to the edge of our yard nearest to the deck, about 20 feet away. I clucked softly and they looked me over, but preferred my sound to the ones next door. I took a 1-minute video and here's a snip from it. The one on the right is still watching for the chain-saw!

Thrush Day '17

We have not heard the call of a Swainson's Thrush yet, but one has been seen a few times today as it visited our holly-tree. The talented little bird hovers briefly as it snatches berries from the branch before darting in for a perch.

From www.allaboutbirds.org

Last year the thrush was first heard on 5/18, so it's right on time this year! Given the cold and wet seasons we've had, the thrush's timely arrival is very impressive; I had expected a delay. So much for that!

Update, 5.17
Sitting outside at 8pm, listening to the b'wit? and whi-burrr thrush chants. No spiraling song at this point, but warmer weather is coming; perhaps sunshine will do the trick.

May 18th is yet again our date for the first full thrush-call! Curiously enough, that's the only time I've heard the spiral call (as of 6 June)..

Final update - for the past two weeks the spiraling call has dominated our air-waves. Well, other than that turkey now caged at the top of our hill..

Spring, apparently

We've reached 65 degrees at last. In fact we hit 70 in a tropical airmass followed by several bouts of thunder - and it's 55 again. More nice weather is coming soon, and many plants have responded. Snow season was amazing..but it is now time to move on.

more wet days

We finally hit 65° on the hill-top (Portland too) on Friday - but heavy showers today render it a near-mythical memory already. I had figured that next week would produce another above-normal month here - but I did not see with the science-geek eyes of uWa professor Cliff Mass. His link below notes a pending atmospheric river with several unusual features, coming soon to a coastline near us: it's wide, moving fast and of Filipino origins. This is not a typical time of year for such things anyway, so it's both impressive & depressing to see more grey and wet days ahead.

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-late-april-precipitation-pattern-i.html

first mowing of '17

A single beautiful day broke through the clouds today, and we reached 65° for the first time. Portland had not hit 65 before today either, which broke a long-standing record for the latest to reach that temperature! I did not get a chance to relax thoroughly in it, but I did get to sit on our large, loud mower and get the level areas mowed. The tires slipped when attempting a hill but I managed it once I learned to lean over the slipping wheel. It's no surprise I would slip, as over half the lawn is in fact moss.. but in the end the place looks much better.

I hate using my cell-phone camera, but it did a decent job of the late-day sun on our local volcano. No blooms on this particular rhododendron, but others are beginning to blush.

And now, back into the showers. April will probably reach its normal amount of rain, like every month except January.

regaining contact

Our cell phones have been almost useless this past year. Our home is quite remote, so it's no great surprise - yet the degraded signal is a problem.  Both calls and texts have been missed, and some text replies arrive a day too late to be of much value.

We recently picked up a signal booster, in our case a WeBoost 3G device for residential use. First tests were not great, but eventually I rigged up a test-spot with a consistently decent signal. Today I crawled under the house and rerouted a coaxial cable that once went to a satellite dish. I pulled it to the other side of the house where cell towers are most prevalent, and mounted the antenna high on the side of our home. Once the inside antenna was set up, both our signals​ was pretty much at maximum strength!

So we have improved from a home where two indoor spots gave us occasional signals to excellent reception in several rooms and our deck as well. Much better!

damp days

Numerous sites around us have already reached their water-year totals for 2017. Put another way, if it stops raining now we would still be above normal in September! Our site agrees with this as we are 3" above our computed Oct-Sep average right now, and another inch should fall through tomorrow. Quite amazing, and difficult to bear - even for the Pacific NW this has been an exceptionally cloudy stretch of months.

If you're seeking geekier details with charts and stats, the CliffMass blog is where you should be!

Our season has turned, however, with crocus daffodils and our first hummingbird sighting. The days are longer, though still wet and grey. You can watch it rain longer with the extra daylight though, and no doubt the rain-drops are a bit warmer.

 This too shall pass!

4/20 update:
from fox12 weather 'blog,  speaking for Portland:
"WE’VE NEVER GONE THIS FAR INTO THE SPRING SEASON WITHOUT HITTING 65 DEGREES."
Ouch/brr..

memories of March

We have now gone a few weeks with no snow; however next week's forecast is now hinting at a little bit more, later in the week. Of course it would be forecast for the day of an appointment that has been cancelled twice by snow.. we shall see about that! They are only expecting 1" but that's what 'they' always say at first.

I recall several late-season snows in Portland that painted the West Hills white - and since we live at 750' those would now be us. Even mid-March photos from my office showed snows just a few hundred feet above my fifth-floor perch! It's therefore prudent to be prepared for a last, brief burst of white in the coming few weeks.

We now have modern cleats for all four wheels of the SportTrac. That will not keep us from slipping sideways off our own driveway, but it's handy once off the steepest part. The Fiat has also shown its worth this cold season, enduring many trips that it should not have been forced to take.

Some day soon we can begin planting our garden, basking on the porch, and looking at the winter of 2016/17 as a distant memory. 
Not yet.

a stunning turnaround

After a white season like we've had, it was quite surprising to see how quickly the year's largest snowfall disappeared. Five days ago we had 13 inches on the ground - and on the trees, which broke many of them and tilted others beyond recovery! Today we are down to small piles wherever I shoveled it into mounds. It was pretty nearly gone by Thursday morning but now it's barely a memory.

All vehicles are back on top of the hill where they presumably belong. Plenty of firewood is now available for the coming seasons.. assuming I can get our chain-saw to work again. Plenty of scars will remain to remind us of this winter.

why do I ache so?

Let me count the ways! 

1. Shoveling a long path downhill, to remove icy slush (heavier than snow)
2. Carrying bundles of firewood uphill from the point the Fiat gets stuck - that location is just below where the Explorer is stuck from trying to go down the un-shoveled path!
3. Chain-saw and hand-saw removal of several trees, the big one 8 inches in diameter! (I had help)
4. Walking back and forth to the mailbox, once on snowshoes.. yes it's uphill both ways, in the snow!
5. Removing snow from the cracked porch awning that I built four short months ago, and
6. Trimming and fitting a long stick to support the cracked section!

No doubt I've missed a few points here. Yes I should hurt - I don't believe I have ever shoveled thirteen inches of snow at a time, not to mention how long a walkway I carved from the Big Garage past the house and down to the cars. Oh yes: I also shoveled around our mail-boxes, as the local plow made them almost completely inaccessible for little mail-trucks (I suspect they had to back up to reach them).

Task #3: missed the car, but not by much! The pine in back is a lost cause.

I found a few extra g-free ales in my garage refrigerator.. those won't last long!

adventure and excitement!

Awoke Saturday morning to a radical forecast change: Snow Returns!
Not merely snow - bunches of it. First forecasts were 3-5" then 5-8", then a generic "more than six" from the NWS, assuming it would start around midday Sunday. Weather Underground went 8-12" before Saturday was over.

Well, it started around 8am not noon - and it kept going. The temperature was just above freezing, the best way to get copious amounts since it's the best for moisture content. It snowed about 9" by bedtime, and as the showers failed on Monday morning we had Thirteen Inches on the ground!

That makes three 6" totals and a 13" total this season. Amazing.

Then the fun began!
I noted that a few cottonwood saplings on our slope were none too happy with their heavy snow burden, and began leaning over our driveway. One rested gently on our front porch awning that I had put up a few short (green) months ago, so I shook it until it became more upright. Not truly upright though, it's still at about 30° from vertical even snow-free as I type this. Two others were across the driveway and were not interested in being vertical again. No matter, as our two cars were down the driveway. The Explorer was 2/3 down but off the asphalt, its weighty momentum pulling it down and off the slick driveway before six inches had fallen. I then drove the Fiat gently downhill past it, parking it under the wavy pine at the bottom of our property where it could easily reach the plowed roads if necessary. The pine keeps snow off the car.. well mostly. Unless it snows a Lot..

Then I went down the hill for a visit.
Oops - a large cottonwood had fallen across our access road, so neither car was going anywhere. Not simply that of course: it had fallen directly into the pine and in front of the Fiat; most of the wavy-pine branches hed been stripped off the tree and onto the car!
Time to get busy.

I went to the garage and got out the new chain saw, filling it for the first time with gas and oil. Once convinced that it worked I chopped away the two saplings that rested in our upper driveway, then went down the hill. I swapped out my soaked gloves for dry ones then visited the big tree and Fiat. Once I lit into the 8-inch diameter tree I did fine, but the chain saw kept stalling. Finally it came to a stop at an awful moment and the bar became stuck as the tree flexed. Back up the hill for a hand-saw, then down via saucer to the bottom. After a few moments I bravely gave up & asked for a neighbor's help. He contacted a family member with a Big chain saw while I went back to work.

In the end I managed to use the hand-saw to cut the tree apart and retrieve the power saw - but the chain no longer felt like moving. Just then the man with the real saw showed up, and he carefully chopped branches away from the car. Thanks to its 12-inch coating of snow it seems to have received no dents or scratches; thank goodness that pine tree was such a soft and wavy one!

That was so much fun that I trudged up the hill, grabbed a beer and visited the hot tub for a while.
Enough fun, please?

After a few weeks of worry a friend pointed out the many ways that chainsaws protect their owners, and I was able to push the hand guard forward and thereby disengage the auto-shutoff control. The saw took down several more branches around the driveway and chopped up more of the big tree that beat up the pine. The pine's fate is still uncertain.

fade to green

Other than a bit in the most secluded of spots, the snow is gone. Temps in the 40s are the norm again! That was quite the experience, nice to know new things can still happen as I approach my sixtieth birthday. And of course - our 4wd cruck is now ready to leave the shop, now that 4wd and high clearance is not needed. We still have February to get through, of course - but two major snowy spells in one season is really asking for a lot around here! One could consider the white days as two or even three spells, as they were separated by nearly a month and we hit 6" on the deck three separate times. Perhaps we'll go with snow in three different months as the unmet yardstick on this?

an end in sight?

The never-ending winter continues - for one more night?

Our most-recent six-inch 'base' came on 9-10 January, and it shows the same staying power as the other storms of this fall/winter season. We are now down to just below 5 inches - but prospects are looking greener in a few days. A warm storm with tropical memories will arrive tomorrow, adding some ice then rinsing with 2" or more of rain and 8000-foot snow levels!

Forecasts had continued to insist that warm air would roll ahead of the storm and bring an easy transition, promising 40-degree days and nights just around freezing. After three days of failing to perform the Winter Storm Warnings are up: Portland could get 1/3" of ice tomorrow, more on the east side.

I am not surprised but disappointed by this winter's model performance, with nights of cold rain when snow was predicted then 4" of snow the following night. Ah well, when one or two degrees makes such a large difference such things will happen. Strangely though, I cannot recall them happening very often in my lifetime of Portland winters - this has been a rare one!

wonderland

What a white season! It's not like anything I've lived through, though most of the northern climes would shrug this sort of thing off.

As a life-long Portland resident I can recall two big white seasons, exactly forty years apart. In 1968-89 we had over a foot of snow on the ground for several days, and in 2008-09 we did it again. We even had snow on my birthday in 69 (more of a 'white rain') and '09 (flakes in showers, but turning all white overnight!). In both cases a dreary few days quickly removed all traces.

I'd never seen a snowpack simply waste away from slow heating and light rain - it was always a quick shift to upper-40 temps and a quick rinse.

I can say that no longer! Our home in the hills has been pretty nearly white every day since early December, and forecasts of warmer weather have not proven reliable at all. We've reached that 'magic number' perhaps three times in the past 30 days - and I have records to show that!

Our six inches dropped to about 3½", with tree debris slowly accumulating over time. The juncos were quite happy to find the snacks on a white background, and the cats enjoyed watching the birds. A few 15° nights finally warmed up to 30, and yesterday the trees lost their white coating under a gentle breeze.  The past week's snow-melt finally tallied up in our rain gage, to the tune of about an inch (recent snows plus the Sunday drizzle).

And today? It's snowing again. We are back over four inches of 'base' (yes, time to talk like a ski area!) and the trees are white again. Amazing.