Winter Solstice 2014

[Smokecreek1]

When you don't have any weather-any help is welcome up here-back packing/camping in the high desert is fun-really ! Besides the rain keeps the deer out of my front yard where they eat all my flowers ! Hey it's supposed to rain again later this week-ya been here and didn't tell us?

Smoke

 

[craig333]

One of our local weather guys showed something interesting today. Two different forecast models are calling this storm completely differently. One says it will miss Sac. I'll hold off on celebrating some rain until I actually see it.

 

[MarkBC]

High winds in Central Oregon.



Overnight the electricity was knocked out -- presumably by the high winds. I awoke in the wee hours of the morning and got up, noticed that the light switch didn't and could hear the UPSes for my computer-system and entertainment system beeping.
I considered calling the Pacific Power's automated power-outage number, but instead I went back to sleep. I'd forgotten about it when I got up this morning -- until I saw "P F" on the microwave's display.
Not sure how long power was down.

 

[craig333]

I'm hearing thunder outside right now. Maybe this will be a decent storm. Pretty sure I won't be going to the Chili Cookoff.

 

[MarkBC]

A big long blob of wetness on the west coast (mostly northern) this morning:



GOES West Visible View

 

[MarkBC]

High winds in Central Oregon.

weather_20150206-1.jpg ....

I see an update in the Bend Bulletin that one of the city parks along the Deschutes River is closed now due to wind-downed trees:
...
Meanwhile, due to fallen trees, Pioneer Park has been closed until high winds end and Bend Park & Recreation District employees can remove the fallen trees and other debris. Pioneer Park is located at the corner of NW Portland Avenue and NW Wall Street.

The district warns that other parks could close without notice because of wind damage.

-------------------------------------------------------------
A story in today's Bend Bulletin on trees blown down on homes:

Wind gusts rip through Central Oregon
Dozens of trees fall and cause power outages


Excerpt:

...Wind gusts neared 60 mph east of Bend at one point, according to the weather service. Redmond saw gusts reach about 44 mph. Pine Mountain Observatory, southeast of Bend, had wind gusts reach 81 mph.
The strong winds took down dozens of trees and created a busy day for tree service businesses in the area. Fagen Tree Service and Wood Chips had received 60 calls for tree removals by Friday afternoon. “It’s about the busiest we’ve been in 10 years,” said Wade Fagen, an arborist and owner of the company. “This is a pretty big storm and lots of trees are down all over.”
Fagen said Friday was a “triage” approach for his company, focusing on removing trees that had created significant damage to roofs so that a tarp could be placed over any holes to keep out rain
The largest tree Fagen worked on removing Friday was a 4-foot in diameter spruce in Northwest Bend, he said....

 

[MarkBC]

Bad and worse: [← link to Bend Bulletin story]

 

[ski3pin]

I'm just not even going to think about this disastrous weather trend any more. I've given up hope. I was going to pose a photo of my two snowblowers and collection of shovels along with a hand written sign on cardboard, "Looking For Work" I don't even have the ambition to do that. Water is the lifeblood of the environment and as that becomes more of a stark reality and push comes to shove, the things I care about are going to get the short end of the stick.

The peach trees are blossoming out and we will have no water for them this summer. The aspen died last summer.

In the meantime we're going camping........................................

 

[MarkBC]

We're having some winter-seasonable temperatures in Central Oregon for a few days:

No frozen moisture, unfortunately, to accompany those temperatures.

 

[MarkBC]

In central Oregon, after having record high temperatures a couple of weeks ago, yesterday morning hit a record low temperature, as measured at the NWS station at the Redmond airport.
(that's Redmond, Oregon -- not the better-known Microsoft town in Washington)


(thanks to Weather Underground)

What's kinda weird/surprising to me is how quickly I became used to the balmy 60s of last weeks. Our current more-or-less normal temps -- highs around 40, lows around 20 -- seem "brrrrr".

Too bad there's been no snow associated with this cold...but there's a chance of some in the forecast.

 

[Smokecreek1]

Agreed on that-cold and snow are okay (at least sometimes), but these teen and 20 degree morning dog walks are killing me-had to wear my mad bomber fur pile cap today over my watch cap-wind and wear my heavy parka, ---- you sure can have an adventure out there! They say a chance of snow Friday-sure, believe it when I see it, but I'm sure going threw the wood of late!

Smoke

 

[MarkBC]

I heard a strange sound early this morning: water dripping (slowly) in the downspout outside my bedroom.
Unfortunately, things are just barely damp and it's just partly cloudy now.

A few inches of new snow in the Cascades overnight, as reported at Mt Bachelor ski area:

 

[MarkBC]

A new ODOT webcam shows mysterious white dust on 140 at the point it crosses into Nevada:

 

[takesiteasy]

I was on the North Shore of Lake Superior last weekend. Thought I would post a picture in case you guys forget what winter is supposed to look like. Temp was about -10°F and wind was gusting to 50 mph. If it looks like I'm leaning a bit it's because the wind was trying to tip me over.

 

[ski3pin]

White and ice! That looks sooooooooooo good!!!!! Thank you! Thank you!

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Nice picture Al.
Heard on the news the lakes were nearly totally frozen over.
Along with a picture from space.Awesome.

Here we sit with the THREAT of some drips.
Actually had about a minute of rain this morning
over in Monterey. Had to use the wipers.

You guys sure have had one cold winter.
Thanks for the picture.
Frank

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

I had to go back into the "Way-Back Machine" to see what "snow" looked like.
This is at Dorrington March 2011.
That was a great snow year.
Frank

 

[MarkBC]

I was in Portland this weekend, but when I got home to Bend this afternoon there was some weird cold white stuff all over my yard! Almost 2 inches deep. Seems like I've seen this before....

 

[Smokecreek1]

It was a bust here, although they say Tahoe got some! Hey something is better than nothing when your area has only received only17% of what it usually has by this time,, but you can have the cold that came with this weather front! But we did have a sprinkle of that white stuff and lot's of wind.

Smoke

 

[ski3pin]

snow surveys today........................................