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The first official Deer Canyon Folks Weather Report Mug. Buy it here!
Weather Report:
Sunny & Breezy
with a chance of Longhorns!
The second official Deer Canyon Folks Weather Report Mug. Buy it here!
Weather Report:
Partly Cloudy
with Imminent Sunsets!
At 7 am today: 7° and 5 mph winds (which doesn’t sound like much until you go out in the 7° weather).
Now: all the way up to 11° and 5 mph winds. And of course the wind gusts are higher. (Check Mesowest link above for the nearby hourly details.)
Very bright today! all that sun on the snow. A fitting end to a year that saw snow out the wazoo.
Yes, we woke up with a dusting of snow on the ground, but last night & overnight the big star was the wind!! Very serious wind; I was so glad to have a snug and strong house that would not be blown over!
Then the snow started for real this morning around 11 am, and now we have maybe 3 inches on the ground and we’re socked in with clouds and it is snowing harder. Actually it sounds like hail, but it looks like snow. And no: I’m not going out there to find out what it really is! I’ll just call it snow-hail.
This is the wettest “dry” winter we’ve had since moving here. That is not a complaint; the only truly dry winter so far (2005-2006) was so dry I hope that never happens again.
Oh hey, now there’s some rain on the roof. It still looks like snow, though. I’m going to hit “publish” before the precipitation changes again.
The storm that clobbered southern California arrived here right on schedule (seriously; the forecasts said it would arrive here at 10 am, and at 10 am we could see rain on the east slope of the Manzanos). So, we’re having rain. For a forecasted drought winter we are doing well on precipitation this month, so let’s just keep our fingers crossed.
Of course, we’d prefer not to get 18" in one storm! Eighteen inches in a year would be nice, though.
Update: one rain gauge had 1/2 inch; the other had 0.4", so what do you say we split the difference and claim 0.45" of rain from that one?
It was just a lovely day out today, not particularly breezy, but sunny and warm. Our snow here is long gone, although there was a bit to look at on the Manzanos this morning.
Yesterday morning, by the way, the “pink moment” was really something to behold. For the first day of winter, there were thin clouds spread from the peaks of the Manzanos across the valley. At maximum rosy sunrise time, not just the snowy mountains but the entire sky went pink. It was grand.
Been a touch under the weather, so I didn’t stay up for the eclipse Monday night/Tuesday morning. But I would just like to point out that although it was the first lunar eclipse coinciding with a winter solstice since 1638, that did not make it the “darkest night in nearly half a millenium,” as some comments I read around the internet had it. A lunar eclipse lasts just a few hours, there were many more of moonlight yesterday morning. The darkest night would coincide with a new moon. I think we had one of those in 2006. (Yeah, I get a touch pedantic when I'm not well!)
Maybe 3.5 or 4 inches of it. And it has stayed quite cool today and so far it doesn’t seem to be melting off. Low clouds all day too, but no snowing to speak of; what’s on the ground came down last evening and overnight. Maybe it’s the fault of the snow that my sentence structure is all inside out in this post; or maybe not.
It hasn’t smelled like this since July: wet! It has been misting for an hour or two already, and there’s a very gentle drizzle involved. We haven’t had this kind of moisture in months. Even though the temperature is only 37° right now, the air is so soft and (I’m going to say it again; can you tell that I’m excited?) moist. It’s a wonderful gift!
It has been so dry here for the last few months that we have been having daily red flag warnings this week: dry, windy creating “ideal” fire hazard conditions. Not today! Today we soak up anything Nature sends our way.
Tonight it allegedly will be turning to snow, and we’ll finally be like the rest of the country.
Today: in the low 60s, sunny, a touch breezy. It is a truly glorious day. Unlike most of the country, we are having warm and dry (it’s the La Niña thing).
Last year, on the other hand...
That would be tonight’s starry sky, all in sharp relief.
Chilly, too: 27° and not even 10 pm yet.
Warm: into the high 60s. Still. Perfect weather for getting out & about. It’s clouding up a bit now and there’s a rumor of rain soon, so we’ll be watching for that.
Meanwhile, I am very pleased to announce the creation of “official” Deer Canyon Folks Weather Reports mugs. Two, to be precise:
So we had a dusting of snow on Thanksgiving, and cold and windy conditions over the weekend, with another dusting of snow on Sunday (I think; maybe Saturday). Monday continued to be quite brisk — 20s, after overnight lows in the teens.
Then it started warming up a bit. And today we reached the 60s. And no breeze!
Oh, I’m pretty confident that the mystery birds we’ve been seeing recently — there are two of them regularly visiting the birdbath — are sage thrashers. Some of the bird identification guides picture them with more buffy underneath than these two birds show, and some of the guides maintain they won’t winter around here. But other than that, sage thrasher fits best with what we’re seeing now that they are coming regularly and we can observe them often.
I’m confident enough that I added them to my life list. And, hey, it’s supposed to be a warm winter — maybe they know that too!
© 2011 Alan & Kathleen Clute
