Marching on

Warmest and coldest
February days

February was not a warm month. Sure it sorta started that way - but the table shows just how long that lasted! About 16½ inches of snow fell here on the hill-top; curiously that's the lowest February total of the last three years. Amazing to me, as I've never thought of February as a snow month. Even Portland got its share, though not nearly as much  - but Eugene definitely had 16" or more, mostly on a single memorable day.

And so on to March. A few snow showers are loitering even now, but making it stick is hard. Our two-inch snowfall yesterday/7th nearly melted away before another half inch arrived this morning as reinforcement. It too has faded - and forecasts are improving. Other than a bit of rain/snow early next week we should be dry.

By next week we may even be done with freezing temperatures! Chilly fingers crossed..

yep it snowed in February

As I type we're at 11 inches and counting. We are right on the forecast margin here, as Longview is wet and most radar echoes are alternately painted white or green at our location. This is part of a warm front that may lift far enough north to switch us to rain - or maybe not. Then it swings back down again as snow. That part is pretty likely.

This cool retirement home is a fun place in winter, but I did accept a part-time job down below; it's awkward to call out as unavailable/snowed in.  Had the Fiat not been stuck on our driveway perhaps the Explorer would be tractioned up and ready to take me down the hill. Ah well - one does what one must.

An interesting side note:

February is the big-snow month here, at least since we got here. I'm much more accustomed to December as the big-snow month, as it was in 1968 and 2008 - but the top snow measurements here have been the past three Febs! Most of these values are consecutive-day measurements which makes it look more impressive - but every day with 5" or more has been in month #2.

Curious.

freaky February

After a rather dry and very mild early winter, this El Niño is turning the tables.

The eastern USA got hammered with a storm as brutal as any in 20 years, with subzero readings and nasty wind chills all over the region. That mutated into a spectacular warmup that moved the bitter air to the Yukon - and that air has decided to come south.

This past week we had 1/2 inch of snow, and it hasn't gone anywhere except under direct sunlight. And the forecast has wavered a few times, but today it looks like this -

The weather service forecast at top would give us a range of 2-5 inches through the weekend, and clearly WxUnderground goes a bit above and beyond. At this point that extra half-cord of wood I bought seems like a genius move, but two weeks ago it seemed merely an exercise in giving me exercise as I stacked it wherever I could find a spot. 

We'll see how this works out a week from now. It's a real departure from the El Niño blueprint, which tends to start as a normal winter before going mild and dry later on.

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.

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.

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! 

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.

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.

cold-weather projects

Cold air and possible snow has been forecast for the coming week. It was nailed down quite early at W.Underground, only varying a bit as the temperature change of 1-2° can turn rain to snow and back again. Sunday night and Wednesday are the targets still, but 3-5" of snow has become closer to 2" max - time will tell how it plays out. Just seeing flakes would be fun, but travel would be a problem with more on the roads.

I now have the parts to fix our Explorer Sport-trac 4WD but time is now really short - and I have a sore back and a cold, wet driveway. The Fiat has very little clearance for even contemplating tire chains, so it's the Ford or nothing is the snow flies. We're pretty much prepared to camp for a few days, but the lack of truck has led to a lack of firewood. Once the timing-chain rattle is fixed (hopefully that's what the problem is since that's what I am fixing!) a few more options will be available to us.

Another new project has appeared on our stove-top. Water is coming down the vent! Apparently this weekend will take me up on the roof to see what can be done about that; hopefully a quick dab of caulk will be sufficient rather than a poor wrapping of tarp. We had big plans for both a new roof and a heat pump for 2016, but those are now next year's projects once the refinance has refilled our home-improvement account.

'Tis the season!