How's the weather

[Redoverfarm]

I don't know if this would be a good subject matter but it would interest me in knowing what the weather is like throughout the US.  Maybe how it has affected your individual projects.  As for me I think we came out pretty easy on this last storm as compared to some others north and west of me.  Got about 1/2 of ice on Friday night and then Saturday afternoon it started snowing and overnight I guess the total snowfall was 3-4".  The boy is enjoying his duties as there is no school and the 4 wheeler/Blade is getting it's workout this morning.

As for my building project it has almost slowed to a stop. I am in the chinking stage and with the dips in temp I am afraid to try to do any. The day temps would be OK but with a drop at night I am afraid it will freeze the mortar before it has sufficent cure time.

[Drew]

I live and work on the San Francisco peninsula, so we don't freeze.  We apparently can't drive in the rain either, but that's another story.

I've got my eye on our farm in Palermo (Near Oroville) this week.  It's supposed to rain today through Thursday.    We just started laying the footings for a post and beam foundation the weekend before last, and I was hoping to take advantage of the late rains and get it done before the spring.

The soil has clay so it's slippery when it's really wet.  The building site has a moderate slope, but the road into that part of the property has a serious grade on it.  If I'm not careful i could get my truck down there and have to wait until spring to get it out.  The alternative is for my son and me to walk the 21 pier blocks we built into the site.  While doable, it would kind of take the edge of the enthusiasm for the rest of the day's work, at least for a while.  Maybe I can make a deal with my wife.

"Drew move rock.  Dan level footing.  Drew hold up tree for a minute...."

Our place is at 400' elevation, and that is no accident.  After narrowing down the area, we visited the properties in the late winter, early spring.  Places that had signs saying "No snow service" were out.  Anything over 2,000 feet where out.  Dead standing trees (meaning flooded) were out.  Funny.  When my wife and I walked our property with the realtor, she grabbed my arm and whispered hoarsely into my ear, "Buy.  This.  Place."

[Redoverfarm]

Sort of sounds like the same as for me. I am only 400' elevation above where I live to my cabin which is at 2,830 ft but the road for that 400 feet is a climb of about one mile on a US Forrest Service road which has "no snow removal".  So once it sets in for good(ice, snow) I really can't get my equipment trailer or supplies up to it. I have a 4 wheel drive atv but it is kind of hard to carry a generator, saws, and the like on it.  And it's hunting season here and when the snows come ,the hunters do also and travel the road packing down the snow til it freezes and thaws and usually turns to ice.  Add a snow everyonce in a while and well you can see where I going with this.  Seen your post sounds like it will be a good experience if nothing else practice for your ultimate project later.

[MountainDon]

Down here at home at 5500 foot elevation we currently have sunny skies with a temp of 44 F, 28% humidity, zero wind. Low last nigh 19, projected low tonight 24. We had a touch of snow here over the weekend but it's all gone except for a few shaded spots.

Up in the mountains at 8000 foot elevation it's currently a sunny 38 with about the same humidity, but the winds have been running 2 to 8 mph all day. Last nights low was 15. Those figures are from the remote weather station very near our property, but we're 800 feet higher, so the temps are likely a little lower up there and probably more snow.

The road in off the section of snow maintained forest road has 6 to 10 inches of snow in most places. However up near our gate it has drifted in. It's about 18 - 24 inches and not worth the effort/risk without a partner vehicle.

It's snowmobile weather up there, and I don't have one at present.

[peternap]

It's about 40 here. Not too bad and I rode the whizzer about 40 miles today just for the fun of it.

We got a fair amount of rain on Saturday but it wasn't cold enough to really get any snow. A few nearby spots got some, but not me.

I went back home yesterday and the west side of the mountain (Redovers part of the country) had a pretty decent ice storm still on the trees. I didn't see much snow though.

[glenn kangiser]

Right now - 43.5 f. 91% humidity - threatening to storm us good -- same as Drew a bit North. 

I'm welding I beam earthquake moment connections on the job I'm on and welding steel deck to the roof.  Thought the weather had us this morning but it eased off and I was able to get 2 moment welds done and tack welded down about 1200 sf of roof decking.

Tomorrow morning is -- see what the net shows and call a company man on site to see if I go in or not.  1 1/2 hrs one way drive for me.  I'd rather drive 3 hours per day than stay in the city.

[Redoverfarm]

Woke up a littlle nippy this morning at 9F. Forecast for flurries but doesn't look it.  Won't get much done today as the highs will not get above 30F. Parents have stayed the last week so I will take them toward their home and meet a sister halfway(2hrs).  Then a X-mas dinner of my wifes employment and sons band concert afterwards.  Busy day.

[tanya]

Mountains of North Central WA to dark still to see the thermometer but it is about 20 and we had about 4 inches of snow yesterday adn two days before that.  I have been shoveling the long long driveway and it is supposed to snow all week.  People ask me why I shovel the driveway when I could pay to have aplow come I say then I would have to pay to go to the gym too!!!  IT's a good thing it is snowing all week too because i made/ate chocolate Bon Bons. 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

We have a narrow little path shoveled to the truck with about 1.5-2 ft of snow on either side.  Today it is finally supposed to be one degree above freezing so we'll see if any of it melts!

[tanya]

We got about another 8 inches of snow today.  I have shoveled the driveway twice and that is all I am good for.  It is warming up some and it might turn to rain before I get back onthe snowboard I sure hope not.  But I am worn out now from shoveling, I plan to feed the horses and make soup and toast for dinner and then I am watching tv and going to bed early.  Hopefully there will be more and better snow tomorrow although todays snow is good I just didn't get on the snowboard when I should have.  Somebody...not me...should clean this house too. 

[glenn kangiser]

We have a narrow little path shoveled to the truck with about 1.5-2 ft of snow on either side.  Today it is finally supposed to be one degree above freezing so we'll see if any of it melts!

Should melt just enough to freeze to solid ice. 

I don't have any snow - yet...  but rain -- tons of it today.

[peternap]

Here's a picture from Sunday. Boy I miss those mountains. BTW that's all ice. No snow at all.

[williet]

it's been pretty cool the last couple of days, but we're headed for storms and some cold nights....all in all...it's just North Alabama in the winter. Two days hot /one day rain / three days cold / and we start all over again....

[Redoverfarm]

Peter you didn't stay long enough. Went out Sunday evening near Highland County and the roads were a mess.  They got right on them as they do not want to hurt the tourism with the ski resort. Those drivers are a different breed. The tourist I mean.

[Redoverfarm]

Well I thought I would get a break the next couple of days with the weather but it doesn't look like that is going to happen.  Woke up this morning and it started snowing about 0630 and so far we have 1" of new. Forcast calls for rain .  I think freezing rain so that plan is off for now. Temp 28F.  Tomarrow is another day.  Hope the rain on the west coast doesn't cause too many problems. The east coast said it has been raining for the past 2-3 days there.

[desdawg]

I am spoiled. High today should be 62 if the weather prophets are right. I spent two days up north with lows in the teens, highs around 50. I had snow on the ground where the sun couldn't get to it. As soon as I had my business concluded I shot back down to the desert. My goal is to be an AZ in-state snowbird. I will go back in the spring, about 250 miles door to door. That is far enough with today's fuel prices.

[Redoverfarm]

desdawg

I had a company in the area a couple years ago which utilize a helicopter to trim powerline right of ways. They were bases out of the Carolinas. They needed a place to fuel up and preform maintenance on the saw and chopper so I let them use a corner in my field.  Stayed for about 2 weeks. Brought up real conversation with the neighbors as I had my own chopper. .  But back to my original intent. One of the pilots was from either Flagstaff or Phoenix.  It was in the fall and the temps started dipping to the 20's & 30's.  He told me he couldn't wait to get home that he would be sippin while sitting on his deck.  Well he called me and that's exactly what he was doing as we were having our first snowfall and it was 75F there.

[MountainDon]

Hey, I never looked at it that way before. An in state snowbird!!    I  guess we are almost that too but our suburban winter weather is not as warm as yours. Home is 5500 feet. 66 miles door to door, plus 3300 feet. About 40 miles line of site.

One  thing is we can see our city lights on a clear night from the FS fire lookout tower a few miles from the mountain property.

[Redoverfarm]

Glad you could join in Don.  Well my cabin is only 1-1/2 miles from the house but right now it had just as well be 500 miles as I can't get to it.  I could break out the snowshoes. Nah.  Did you like the clock. Kind of depressing though.

[tanya]

It's snowing again today, lots of snow little snowballs instead of flakes.  To much shoveling I really don't want to do that again today. 

[Drew]

I'm at work watching the storm move through Butte County on Google weather radar.  Right now it looks like the southern end might just scrape Oroville/Palermo and leave it relatively dry.  I'm watching two personal weather stations in the area that indicate the wind is coming from the south.  If I can avoid any serious rainfall, I can work this weekend on our place.

Come on, baby!  Push!  Puuush!  Daddy wants to drive his truck back -up- the hill!

Who needs pro sports when you have weather?

[MountainDon]

  Did you like the clock. Kind of depressing though.

Thanks for noting that to me. Yes, I'd seen that clock before. John posted it a while back;  here

Interesting item. Also interesting in that John Raabe's link is slightly different. No ads on his link. 

That statistical clock doesn't tell the whole story though. For example, while the number of deaths from cardiovascular disease are quite high, the actual cardio death rate in the USA and AU is falling. That's good news. It could even be better if more folks paid attention to their diet. We can all control  that if we put iour hearts and minds into it.

In the USA death rates from cancers are falling as well, both childhood and adult cases. Overall the death rate from cancers has been falling by slightly more than 1% per year since the mid 90's. The childhood death rate decreased by over 20% in the same time period.

The per capita TB incidence rate has been falling slightly, but because of population increases in Africa and SE Asia the absolute number of cases in increasing.

We, the world, are doing better in reducing deaths from many causes. We can still do better, though. Proper sanitation and safe drinking water would eliminate most of the deaths from diarrheal diseases which occur in developing countries. This is reminiscent of what happened in England in the 1500's (I think that was it). People were dieing by the thousands from intermittent cholera epidemics. When it was finally shown that poor sanitation and drinking water practices were the cause, those deaths were virtually eliminated. It's surprising to us at times, when we are told that some people in the world don't understand the connection. Some folks don't have any choice unfortunately. They simply don't have enough safe drinking water available.

So I don't see this worldclock as a doomsday thing. It's just a way of recognizing problem areas. Aren't statistics fun... depending on how honestly they are looked at or used. There's the little picture the individual/group/government wants to present for their own purposes, and then there is the big picture where  everything has to be taken into account and a different picture emerges.

[MountainDon]

More on "the weather" 

There are a great many internet weather sites, but from what I can see if the location you're interested in is not near a town/city or location like a National Park/Monument, whatever, you can be left guessing a little unless you are already at the spot experiencing the weather.

I discovered an interesting site some time ago. It doesn't have any forecasting abilities, but it does offer an hour by hour history of the day's weather. In some cases the available records go back 6 years, maybe more in some. Some of these stations are located in remote areas. There is one located a few miles from our mountain property, and 800 feet lower in elevation. It offers temp, humidity, dew point, wind speeds, gusts and direction, accumulated precipitation, solar radiation, fuel temp (it's in the Nat Forest), fuel moisture and even the sites solar battery voltage. Not all sites include all these details.

They are scattered all over the country. This Page is where to start. Click the state in question. That opens a window with a general map showing some of the station, not all. Detailed station maps may be selected by choosing "station locations" from the product menu at the very top.

If you select current weather summary from that list a window with summaries is presented. If you can't find a location you want at first try changing the setting selector (NWS, RAWS, etc.)

Once you figure it out you will end up with a page similar to this one where the past 24 hours is displayed. The frame on the left has other selcetors to play with.

[desdawg]

I grew up in Havre, MT. That is about 30 miles south of the Canadian border. After I was discharged from the Marine Corps I moved to Colorado and stayed for 14 years. So I have paid my dues in the snow country. Can't really say I miss it. That makes being an in-state snowbird here just about perfect for me. I used to ski a lot and haven't done that in years. That I miss.

[tanya]

Today it is spring like weather here.  We still have a lot of snow but it has been raining and melting too.  It is so warm here I actually had the door open for awhile.