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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!
It flurried very frantically this morning, and there was even a touch of accumulation, for about 20 minutes. That melted into the ground. Then it flurried for maybe 10 minutes an hour or so ago. What we are having all day is brisk and windy. Not breezy. Windy.
Now, I’m not willing to say we won’t have more cold weather — although the cold weather we did have 3 weeks ago was basically record setting, so I imagine we’re well past that!
I’ll just note the following indicators:
Daytime temperatures have been getting into the 50s regularly, and 60s occasionally; overnight lows have been mostly right around freezing. (One exception to that: yesterday morning it was 18°! But then it warmed up very quickly.)
Nearly every day has been at least breezy, and some days have been New Mexico breezy. That’s a real hallmark of spring for us!
Also, the house finches have begun singing their long, quite twisty-turny songs. The ones they sing in the spring!
The catmint in my garden has started leafing out at its base.
So we are on our way. My spring resolution is to get the Russian sages trimmed back before they start leafing out. No matter what! I figure I have at least 2 more weeks in which I can count on that. Not much room to put off that chore.
That’s the best word I know for the weather we have been having for the last few days. Warm, clear, just a touch breezy (just a touch). Last night’s low was in the high 30s. Today’s high was in the high 60s. It is still 50° out there, and it’s 9:45 pm. The moon is close to full and there are only thin clouds, heading east — the moonlight is bright enough that I didn’t need a flashlight for my equine feeding just now.
I’ve been having early afternoon lunch on the porch and reading in the sunlight this week. (Still doing morning tea on the porch too, of course.) The weather is just so lovely that I can’t resist more porch time.
What a difference a couple of weeks makes!
Our thermometer is showing -16°, so it is quite cold again. The MesoWest link for Mountainair bottomed out at -5°, about an hour ago. (At the link you can view the lovely plunge of temperatures yesterday afternoon as the snowstorm moved in. 2:05 pm: 45°. 3:05 pm: 22°. Fun!)
And it looks like there are another 4.5 inches of snow.
On the other hand, the sky is pristine clear and the sun is up. The trees are all decorated again, too. It’s very sparkly outside!
For a “warm, dry” winter, this is being an interesting ride.
Temperatures earlier today were in the 40s. Now it’s 3°. Oh, and we’ve gotten another bunch of snow too.
Goodbye moderate weather.
It’s 50° in the sunshine, and 41° in the shade — wow! There is a breeze, so it probably feels cooler than that. But this is much more like our usual winter weather.
I’ve been running into a “yay, we survived!” mentality all around town these past few days. Alan says another storm is on the way, but we’re not listening!
A thought I had last Friday night when taking feed to our equines: it was 32° at that time. Just a day and a half before (Thursday morning) it had been -25°. That was a warm-up of 57°. Now, 57 above 32 is... wait for it... 89! The difference in that day and a half was as if we had warmed up from freezing to just shy of 90.
It had been bitter, she wrote; and she was right.
February 3, 2011
Click to embiggen!
February 3, 2011
Click to embiggen.
And above zero, too! Five whole degrees above zero! (Two above at 7 am. Above!)
In other signs of relative balminess, the rabbits and juncos and towhees who spent Wednesday and Thursday mornings (and afternoons too) on our porches huddled against our house are out enjoying life this morning.
(Tuesday night, when the temperatures were plunging so rapidly, there was one towhee who kept crashing into the living room window — well after dark, when we usually don’t see towhees at all. We decided it was trying to get to some warmth any way it could.)
Anyway, life feels a lot more comfortable. I even stood on the porch for two whole minutes to drink my cocoa just now (special winter morning treat, tea still to come); and that was without a hat, without socks, without long underwear. Just usual lounging around the house clothes, and I lasted two whole minutes!
Oh, no wind at all, that’s a big element in the comfort factor too.
Neighbor Elaine Zabor took these pictures yesterday, of our neighborhood in its snow-bedecked loveliness. Enjoy!
North Dakota: minus 24.9°. At 6:30 am.
The good news: absolutely no wind.
Tea on the porch morning routine in this “brisk” weather: take mug of hot tea, step onto porch, sip the hot tea, wave at the mountains and say “hi world!”, step back into house as quickly as possible. Tea on the porch in the morning is for enjoyment, not suffering. Yes, I do close the door behind me for the 10 seconds I’m out there. Glad our doors only lock on deadbolts too; there’s not much room for error at these low temperatures, but I’m way too lazy to put on coat, ear warmers, hood, gloves, and boots for 10 seconds on the porch. Oh, maybe a hat or ear warmers.
Minimum: minus 14 degrees — by far the coldest temperature we have recorded at Happy Camp.
Maximum: more than a foot of snow in that one storm — the most I have ever noticed in one snowstorm here. Maybe we had a single greater snowfall last year, but I don’t think so. Last winter it was more about the frequent 8-10" snows, adding on top of each other. (Actually, it does look like it is still snowing a bit, but the cloud cover is very light; I think the accumulation is over.)
Now we contend with blowing snow and snowdrifts. Fun!
and the snow’s getting deeper.
Cattle are munchin’
on saltbush in the front yard.
This doesn’t rhyme
but you can sing it to Gershwin.
So hush, little baby,
stay warm and dry!
Yesterday morning was so balmy! We could feel the storm coming in — the air was moist, a welcome contrast to the recent extremely dry conditions. The temperatures were in the 40s until almost 4 pm. Then a few flurries started up and the temperature began a steady and fairly quick descent. The sky in the east was black for most of the afternoon. By 7 pm it was 25° and we had maybe 1/4 inch of snow. The snow started for real some time later.
Current conditions: snowing — many thick flakes briskly descending. About seven inches accumulated so far. A mere 6° out there. Cattle out front, our five plus two from the neighboring ranch, eating the saltbush and anything sticking up through the snow, since all the grass is suddenly covered up. (Don’t worry, our intrepid cattle team will be feeding them hay at the windmill too; but saltbush is a popular browsing plant and I’m not surprised to see them chowing down on it.)
It is astonishingly beautiful this morning, even under thick cloud cover. Of course, we don’t need to go out in it; it might be rather less beautiful if we were trying to drive. One of our Deer Canyon part-timers was heading this way in her car; I hope she got in last night, because conditions today are not good for travelers.
Today is also the school board election. We Happy Campers just happened to vote early for this one, since we found ourselves in the county buildings last week. That was the first time either of us early voted, and boy are we glad we did! Yesterday afternoon the Albuquerque radio & TV stations were repeating over and over again: “Don’t drive tomorrow if you don’t have to!” They got that right.
If the cold is daunting, here’s one consoling thought: hummingbirds in fewer than 90 days.
© 2011 Alan & Kathleen Clute
