Greetings and welcome!
I want to start by apologizing for not shining around here little more in the fall. It is a very busy time for us, and I am weeks behind, even on the hot list. Time pressure on some projects is very real, stuff like moving dirt, patching the roof, and cutting wood. At the same time, I have plenty of other work coming in. At the moment I am a couple of weeks behind and fighting hard to get ahead. It is a great problem to have, but a bit of a challenge at the moment.
High on the list is an update for the Bear Point Sno-Cruisers. We had the first annual meeting about 10 days ago, and I still haven’t gotten the site updated. I am on that ASAP. They have apparel to sell, and I will get pictures of that posted ASAP too.
We just had a storm last week that brought 4-5″ of rain. In 11 years up here I have never taken rafting pictures in late September. It couldn’t be helped, the water levels were/are blowing away the previous records. Normally the river is flowing about 235cfs right now, based on 12 years of records. Today it is at 1,300. The record was 382. In inches, usually it is about -5″, it peaked Saturday night at +24″.
Most years we don’t even get water this high in spring. This year we got it in September, when the weather was still nice.
Naturally I look at the storm through the lens of what if it were January. It probably would have been an ugly one. A lot of it would have been rain. I suppose a 2-3″ ice base and a foot of snow would work out pretty good in the long run. It also could have been a devastating ice storm.
The part that scares me is what is behind the storm. Right now we are seeing a classic La Nina pattern setting up where there is a big high pressure system camped over the western US. The main flow goes north of the Canadian border, bring ing our weather out of the northwest. The end result is a lot of little storms that dropped all of their moisture over the Rockies, leaving us in the cheap seats with the cold behind the storms, but not much snow.
I am not saying that it will be the primary pattern for the winter, but it is somewhat typical. Link
The hope is obviouslythat we stay with the wet pattern that has developed since June. The high pressure setting up in the WesternUS has me a little concerned. I’ve seen it before.
There is obviously hope. We started the year in a D-3 or D-4 drought and at the moment we are 3″ above normal for the year. I am expecting a big winter for both cold and precip. If nothing else we are due.
I don’t have a lot else to report at the moment. I will be making some changes here and to the three other club sites that host with me in the short term. I really have my work cut out for me and I am looking forward to doing it well.
Have a good fall and thank you for visiting!
RJB