What's the weather like where you are?

[Cola82]

Snowed this morning. It was just a light dusting, but it quickly turned into sheets of ice on the road.

We only get a good snow every couple of years here, and last year we barely anything at all, so maybe we're due for a good storm. But hey, this is my first snow after starting my garden! All my nasturtiums bit it about two weeks ago, haha. Aw... good thing I harvested a lot of seed pods.

[digitS']

Single digitS' here.

4°f, 15mph wind, -14° wind chill at 4am.

No real frost seen on the trees and parked cars. That has all sublimated into the dry, cold air. I am happy to learn that it isn't gusting above 20mph as the WS had anticipated.

It should be okay for the horses and cows if they've got a wind break. Not providing one for them would be cruel. Of course, they need a full belly and all that means for staying warm.

You can read the WS forecast discussion for the weekend here in US: (link) Clicking the link at the bottom of that page "Graphics available. . ." will show you the pressures and fronts thru Monday. Moving the cursor over those tabs above the map will let you see what the WS expects to happen.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Several inches of snow piled on top of everything, with ice underneath. 22 deg F.

[DoubleDogFarm]

23F ~ Clear ~ Wind 10mph ~ Humidity 45%

Pressure 30.17 in
Visibility 10.0 miles
Clouds Clear -

Moisture
Humidity 46%
Rainfall 0.00 in
Snow Depth Not available.

Temperature
Windchill 12 °F
Dew Point 5 °F

Wind
Speed / Dir 11.5 mph from North
Wind Gust 11.5 mph

Health
UV 1 out of 16
Pollen .30 out of 12

Air Quality Not available.
Flu Activity Sporadic

[digitS']

. . .

Influence of Venus?

. . .

[DoubleDogFarm]

We had our neighborhood potlatch last night. The house where we gathered the hostess kept giving us temperature reports. I think the last was 14F.
It's currently 27F

Frickin cold
Eric

[Northernfox]

DoubleDog I believe we are colder a community a couple of KM away was colder then both the south and north pole

[Juliuskitty]

The weathermen on all the stations are saying" oh we are the envy of the US right now" but our temperatures are about 8 degrees above normal for this time of year and it has been that way for close to 2 weeks with no end in sight. 83 for the high yesterday, low still high at 71F. This is supposed to be the time when we can cool off for a few months, before it gets too hot to be outdoors again, but it is just not happening this year.
I would gladly take a cold front!

[applestar]

Original forecast was 3-5" of snow quickly turning to sleet and rain... So I took a picture early on...

image.jpg (40.49 KiB) Viewed 1345 times

(Bleep!)
It looks like this now and it's still snowing

[rainbowgardener]

It's very wintery here, 28 deg F right now in the "heat" of the afternoon. Normal for us this time of year would be 45. The snow we got isn't going anywhere, because not warm enough to melt, but you definitely got more than we did, applestar.

Just out of curiosity, what is the structure with the big snow hat?

[applestar]

Our current temp is also officially 28°F. ...and that's the bird feeder.

DH is watching the Eagles vs. Detroit game where they measured snow as deep as 6 in. mid-field in the open stadium at Philadelphia.

[pow wow]

Well we went through a full blowing blizzard. The temp dropped to -28Celcius for the past couple days warmed up to -13C today. Shorts and flip flops. Several years ago I was in Vegas for New Years Eve, hopped into a cab and the driver said I must be Canadian. Yes I replied, and how do you know that. You are not wearing a coat was his reply.

[digitS']

Not that I am exactly there, in Tahiti:



Steve
-2°f morning low

[Juliuskitty]

Tahiti is too hot too. I am pretty sure that cold stuff you all are getting is awful. Sorry you have to endure such extreme weather.

[rainbowgardener]

Spoken like a Floridian! Even though it is 15 degrees colder than normal, where I am at least we are NOT having "extreme weather." We are having ordinary winter weather, just come a bit earlier. A month from now, everything we are having would be absolutely typical. And it is beautiful! You should see my dog play in the snow! He loves it!

Jamie in the snow



These are actually pictures from a previous winter, but it looks just like that again, they are my pics of my yard.

[Juliuskitty]

Yes, haha. You got me. I was born here and the coldest weather I ever lived through for any length of time was a year I lived in Atlanta. It snowed a little but it melted as soon as it hit the ground. Those pictures show how pretty your winter is.

[rainbowgardener]

OK ... now we are pushing towards extreme weather. About 4 more inches of snow fell over night. We have lots of road closings due to accidents. I'm supposed to be at work already, but my car is sitting at the bottom of our long steep driveway full of snow. Sigh... if I didn't have to get to work, this could still be fun, but trying to shovel out and get to work is not feeling like fun. We must be closing in towards our record amount of total snow for december (11.6 inches) and we aren't even half way through the month. It is still very beautiful, winter wonderland, out there, but I would rather be looking at it through the window.

[digitS']

Here we have the contrasts, RainbowGardener.

There has been some sunny days lately and I can look out the window at a green lawn. The snow has fairly well sublimated into the dry air.

I go outside and beyond that picture window, the grass looks like it has been hit by a blow torch! I hope that the soil moisture is okay because the soil must be frozen well over 12" by now. It seems like we are going about 30 days between getting any kind of moisture at all - this "Fall."

The afternoon thermometer may just reach 32°f tomorrow. There is the chance of snow thru the remainder of the week. We could use some of your record snowfall here in parts of the Inter-Mountain West.

Steve
where some of the ski areas opened with great fanfare in november, only to fall strangely silent since.

[rainbowgardener]

I hope scientists somewhere are working on efficient, economical ways to move water around. Part of what this climate change stuff means is that places that are dry are getting drier, with terrible droughts, and places that are wet are getting wetter and subject to flooding. We have already had the situation where areas of the midwest are getting wiped out by floods at the same time as areas of the non-coastal west are suffering from droughts. Surely there are ways to move water from flooding areas to drought areas? The Romans did it.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Average rainfall for 98250 from

1995 - 2004 28.71"
2005 - 2012 28.48"

2014 we are at 24.76 Jan - Nov. December will most likely bring us up to average.

Eric

[rainbowgardener]

Interesting. Where did you find that info?

[DoubleDogFarm]

Interesting. Where did you find that info?

Town of Friday Harbor - Trout Lake Water Treatment Facility https://www.fridayharbor.org/Utilities/rainfall.htm

I will check later to see if the records go back further.

Eric

[imafan26]

For a lot of you it seems, the cold and freezing weather is not that unusual or even that bad just a little unseasonably early.

You probably have well insulated homes and some way to heat it to stay comfy. It is very different here.

Winter clothes a sweater and and umbrella. Heat is free year round. Houses have wide overhangs but get this I have home insurance that covers snow damage. I have a lot of jealousie windows which I have heard from my handyman is something of a local choice, it is actually rare to find this kind of window anywhere else. Jealousie's are almost impossible to completely seal off. The wind and rain can still come through it. On the plus side it provides 100 % ventillation which is a lot better than the 50% that sliding windows provide. Since heat is generally free at about 80 degrees most of the time, it helps to have leaks and shady eaves. However, when it gets down to the 50's at night, it seems relatively pretty darn cold. I can't imagine what it would feel like below freezing.

If we had any of the kind of weather that you normally have with snow and ice it would be pretty bad. Actually it can be dangerous to go out when it rains harder than a drizzle. People here really don't know how to drive in the rain.

[rainbowgardener]

Yeah, people here really don't know how to drive in the snow, which most years is a rare-ish event for us.

I grew up in SoCal where it never snowed, but we had school closing days for the rain. Back then in the 50's the streets in SoCal did not have storm drains (since there was zero rain at least four months of the year and not so much the rest of the time). So when we did get a big rain storm, the streets would immediately flood and people would be canoe-ing to work.

Our early and rather severe winter weather is continuing. It is currently 12 deg F out there, will be going down to 7 deg tonight. In the whole forecast between now and next Weds, the HIGH barely ever gets above freezing. Brrr. That is as noted, pretty typical mid Jan weather for us, but very early to be having it now.

[digitS']

I hope scientists somewhere are working on efficient, economical ways to move water around. . .

What is typical of the western US is a dry growing season. Most agricultural areas are dependent on irrigation. Obviously, the entire West isn't irrigated but where most of the food can be grown, is.

Most states have state climate offices and the information to be found there is a little less to sort thru than with the National Weather Service. Unfortunately, that may mean the information available isn't for the place where we live . . . Eric's home in Friday Harbor probably won't be well represented. My growing conditions are fairly close to Spokane Int Airport so I can reference that.

Snow-melt is an important deal around here since so much farmland is without irrigation. The 3 months of Summer has an average of 2.48" of rain. It hasn't been trending too much off that mark the last few years. Of course the Summer rainfall doesn't tell the full story nor does the story in the interior up here on the ID/WA border tell the story of what is happening in the Southwest.

One thing, with only 2½" of Summer rain to play around with, there isn't much to spare. A dry Summer like 2003, which had the least rain during a 120 years of records, meant that the ⅔" of rain was just too little to amount to anything. Without irrigation, growing conditions slide easily to the unproductive margins.

Steve
blessed to be living on a very fine aquifer

[applestar]

11°F outside

[DoubleDogFarm]

44F and raining weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!



Eric

[digitS']

This is what the West has not had much of this year. Precipitation:



Yellow indicates 90% to 100% of normal and, fortunately, that is the situation here. My old home town of Medford in that "rainy" state of Oregon, has had right at 8.97" of precipitation this year. The record is 10.43" and normal for Medford is 18.31". As you can see, not every corner of Oregon is awash in rain every year.

Altho' that looks fairly bad for Medford, as you can see from the map, some areas of California are much further below normal for annual rainfall.

Steve

[Susan W]

Ahh, the rainfall. Normal to date (which is close to annual) about 51" We've had about 57" to date. It's a good thing we are not in a cold area and have some of this amount be snow!

[Northernfox]

-40 one week ago and now we are +3c (36f ish ?)

I hate winter...

[rainbowgardener]

I hate winter...

Me too! I am tired of winter already and it hasn't even officially started yet! But winter weather started very early this year and we have had snow on the ground most of Dec. Not that it was snowing all that time, but after the last snow it was so cold for so long, the snow didn't go anywhere. Then we did get more snow yesterday. Warm-up supposedly coming, but it keeps getting postponed.

[Northernfox]

+3 yesterday now we are -28 c

[DoubleDogFarm]

+3 yesterday now we are -28 c

-18.4F is much warmer

Ok Stephen, How did you end up in a place like that?

Eric

[Northernfox]

I moved south to live here. I came to Alberta to come to university and met my wife here. unfortunately we are sitting where we can from time to time get warm pacific air and the next day cold Arctic air. my winter is conflicted Eric

[valley]

Well, Winters we are in the mountains, we are pro skiers, our ranch is at 6800ft. I'm at home, the children are schooled at home. Wifey is on the mountain teachiing or training.
We can get 30' of snow in winter. It pack so we don't have that much standing.

We are at the lower spread now, we have snow on the ground but very little. We had some -8 to -10 here last week. Now it's up to 20degrees. We'll be migrating to the mountains tomorrow, animals and all. We would be up there now but had to take time to supervise the drilling of one of our wells before leaving.

It's snowing in the mountains as we speak, we'll be up in it in the morrow, God willing. We have about 5 cords of wood so the house will be toasty as we settle in for winter.

Time for dinner. bye

[Northernfox]

oh man I cant wait to have my new years fire. pretty well the only time I have a fire so ill enjoy it!

SL

[valley]

We're in the mountains! Snowing lightly, clearing. Nice fire going the fan just kicked on spreading that wood heat.

I'm back, I cleaned the Diplomat II, it's a pour through coffee maker, takes a while to heat up, but delivers a very good cup a.
I grind the coffee fine as flower to brew in all the goodness.
Back again, water at just the right temperature is teburulating through, carrying the rich flavour.

This machine must have Australian spelling, it underlines words and I have to ask Nicole the spelling.

We just said grace and wifey brought me a bowl of Boston Baked.

Well it is nice to be back, I like the desert, you can see more sky than here in the valley but this feels like Hooommmme.

Soon it will be time for a large brandy. Have a good night and a good rest of the week.

Richard

[rainbowgardener]

teburulating

I'm pretty good on vocabulary and I never heard that one!

[digitS']

I want you to keep those wood fires up there!

I've lived in this valley with a couple 100k other people for nearly 50 years. I can remember driving thru the populated areas at this time of year and crying . . . for miles! Heating with wood was very common then. The air was wretched. Even with more people, our air is generally cleaner now.

There is a big splash coming off Vancouver Island this morning. It doesn't look like much moisture but maybe there's more behind it. The WS says 2" to 5" of snow over the next 24 hours. More than that to the south but I don't know if it is far enough south to make much difference for those living where it has been such a dry year.

It will be good to have some insulation on the ground. Our early snow was promptly rained off. Later snow was so light that it sublimated in sub-zero weather and disappeared!

Steve

[imafan26]

For all of you who do have snow, you will have a white Christmas

For those of us that don't we will probably have a wet Christmas. It has rained, sometimes briefly nearly every Christmas for me.

For all of us, it will be a time to gather close to family, keep warm, and have fun, lots of food and fond memories.