Weather 2011

Wow, Mark.

That looks cold. Snow's gone here, although in Belgium one never knows, it might snow again in April or so.

Beautiful pics btw. Which reminds me I still have to buy that wonderful yellow Magnolia which is covered in snow.

Mark, you really have gotten a good old style winter! It's like I remember from my childhood in Oslo many, many years ago! They have that much snow in Oslo now but I'm not there ;D
The next time I'll experience such snowcovered landscape will be in March when we are planning a holiday at our mountain cabin :o

Nothing can match the natural silence after a snowfall like that, except the musical tinkling of ice crystals falling with a gentle breeze.  Photos can never capture the real wonderment, but those are close.

A nice Japanese Katsura.  Is it male or female?  (I will guess female.)

----------------------------

Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Squarrosa Lutea'
(with a few twigs of my Japanese Katsura intruding on the left)

And isn't it amazing how flexible Chamaecyparis wood can be?
This tree is actually twice as wide as you see here.

Very cool snow pics. (no pun intended)  So very different to here. ;D

Nice images, Mark-- I love trees in their 'white phase'
here's an image from here, not too long ago..
Unlike so many places with extreme or troublesome winters, ours has been well within the range of what we are used to and equipped for.
We've had a couple of sets of colder than average weather-- much of December, and the next two weeks are set to be cold, but nothing like the maximum lows we could have--we haven't even hit -40 (same C/F), though close a couple of times, but only for a day or so at a time..
Still, winter is far from over here, first wildflowers not expected till the end of April at the earliest..

Hi Cohan, glad you made it over here, a hearty welcome to the NARGS Forum! We had a bit of a teaser yesterday and today; almost 60 F each day, snow melting like crazy, but since it is so deep and hard pack, there is still plenty left.  Even on the sunny south side of the house, where snows abates earliest, and where snowdrops and crocus are planted, there is still a thick mantle of snow/ice.

Indoors, I have few plants but the Nothoscordum felipponei I showed in flower previously is forming seed pods after I hand pollinated.
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=24.msg5763#msg5763

We were supposed to get deep cold and snow this weekend, but the forecast changed, while it'll still be wintery, the sun is here for at least a couple more days, here's the latest.

Cohan, I expect I will have as much snow as you show, in April..with nearly 5 feet on the ground, no flowers of any type are likely to be bloming here in April, unless there is a drastic thaw.

Sitting in my brothers house in Calgary where, at the moment, there is a light dusting of snow falling.  -10 C but expected to drop to -20 C this evening and stay cold the rest of the week.  At least back home in St. John's might be tons of snow, but the temps are hovering around 0 C.  -10 C is too cold for me, let alone -20!

Todd wrote:

Cohan, I expect I will have as much snow as you show, in April..with nearly 5 feet on the ground, no flowers of any type are likely to be bloming here in April, unless there is a drastic thaw.

Sitting in my brothers house in Calgary where, at the moment, there is a light dusting of snow falling.  -10 C but expected to drop to -20 C this evening and stay cold the rest of the week.  At least back home in St. John's might be tons of snow, but the temps are hovering around 0 C.  -10 C is too cold for me, let alone -20!

Since moving back here in 07, I have been watching more TV news than I ever have as an adult--the (only?) positive outcome of which is that I know more about the weather in various places--less since CBC stopped doing comprehensive national weather nightly; It might be just the luck of the last couple of years, but often I feel we are fairly lucky in my region--definitely a looong winter to endure, and sometimes the summer isn't much (in terms of exotic heat loving vegetables etc, anyway! the natives of course don't mind, and I suppose alpines wont) but we have very little traumatic weather--few storms that do damage in summer or winter, not much around that could flood, I'm not in a usual fire zone etc--and most of the cold we do get is well within norms our buildings and clothing can handle, so overall, I wont complain :)
And I did not move back from 'balmy' Toronto for the weather (apart from more winter sun here), so I determined at that time I would not complain about temperatures here...lol

Watch this! (From Finnmark, the northernmost county in Norway)

http://vimeo.com/21294655

And here are the result of much rain last night. This is not far from here (inland) - the snow has started melting in the rain!

http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/hordaland/1.7560946

Spring? in Central Alberta..
full album:  https://picasaweb.google.com/cactuscactus/April022011Spring#

Our parking area at home this afternoon, after yet more shovelling...

Philadelphus showing it can be covered in white more than once a year!

and a few shots from our drive to town today.... the back roads

the highway

and in town

Cohan, a familiar sight - when I drive through the mountains ;D

Maybe this is encouraging for my future rock gardens-- I seem to have alpine climate  ;D

cohan wrote:

Maybe this is encouraging for my future rock gardens-- I seem to have alpine climate  ;D

Cohan, there is a certain "winter artistry" to those winter-in-spring views, but I suppose you're tired of the snow by now, I know I would be. :(  True spring weather will arrive soon enough.

Thanks, Mark--I do find winter is often pretty--thank goodness, as its so long here! I am about ready for some 'live' plants outdoors, but apart from being exhausted from a long winter of shovelling snow and cutting firewood, I don't let the weather bother me too much--it won't help! And when I moved back home from Toronto, I knew I was heading for a longer winter, and determined not to worry about it...
So, if we could just get to snow that melts without shovelling, I'd be fine...lol

On March 27, 2011 (last weekend), I headed out to North Adams, Massachusetts, with my wife and daughter, about a 3-hour drive to the northwestern corner of the State.  We headed there is visit a college my daughter is considering attending, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.  It was a beautiful sunny day, but very cold.  At one point on the approach to the long north-south valley where North Adams is located, the main road turns into a small, windy mountain road that climbs up the Hoosac range to about 2200' elevation.  I stopped at an overlook to enjoy the panoramic view of the "mountains", it was fiercely windy and 16 F (-9 C).  On the left is Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts at 3,489 feet; these are not tall mountains but the area is most scenic. The woods in this particular region are mostly deciduous with red maple dominant, so the fall foliage is spectacular here.

Very nice view, Mark. (It looks rather cold.)  But you have to go there in fall to and show us what you boast off ;)
Today the weather is very promising. I took this picture now from my veranda.

Nice spot, Mark! Just a little higher than me, but much more varied topography!

Weather 2011, eh?  In Utah we have a high today of (8C) 47F.  Last night I was planting up a large deep dish pot with a nearly as large tufa rock (Thanks, Tony). It was drizzling a bit.  I thought, "No big deal."  Within 15 minutes it was snowing... again. 

Northern Utah is preparing for spring flooding with sandbags and all other preventatives.  It seems rather imminent.  With a mountain snowpack that hasn't even started melting but is being added to with each storm, if it warms up quickly there's lots of flooding ahead.

Here's a link to our local television station if you are so bored that you want to check on Utah's weather.
http://www.ksl.com

We've had 15-20cm overnight and up to now, of wet, heavy snow.. still coming down.. the gravel roads should be fun...
luckily we are not in a real flood zone--no rivers close enough, and none that flood more than locally, but plenty of full roadside ditches, yards that are more puddles than land, etc.. and most snow has not melted yet (before the new stuff..)

I hear ya, cohan!  Our most recognized ski resort, Snow Bird, has so much so that they'll be open until May 29 and possibly later if it keeps snowing in the mountains every other day!  Some of the bigger storms are laying down nearly 4 feet of powder... makes me wish I still was a snowboarder.

Flower-wise, Thanksgiving Point http://www.thanksgivingpoint.com/calendar/events/tulipfestival/index.html has delayed their Tulip Festival by a week and even then there won't be a full burst of color. 

I'm just hoping for a stretch of mid-60s for a week or more.  The seeds planted last fall and early March don't seem to mind.  They're stretching out as much as they can.  :D

The weather forecast here is sun and warmth weather the next week ;D ;D ;D (warmth, that is 10-18C here ;))

cohan wrote:

We've had 15-20cm overnight and up to now, of wet, heavy snow...

Same here... about 20 cm overnight, about half melted through the day.  Environment Canada prophesizes more for Monday.  Yuck, I've had enough of this!    >:(

Skulski wrote:

cohan wrote:

We've had 15-20cm overnight and up to now, of wet, heavy snow...

Same here... about 20 cm overnight, about half melted through the day.   Environment Canada prophesizes more for Monday.  Yuck, I've had enough of this!    >:(

Can you understand, next week we are going to explore the snow in the mountains? For a whole week? Hope it is some of the white stuff left, seems that you take it all over there ;) :D

Yes, I do understand, though I don't ski!  The snow is fine in the mountains here, and will be for some time yet!

Trond, Although I'm fairly philosophical about snow/winter ( I didn't move back to Alberta for a shorter winter!) I have always lived places with adequate snow for my needs (I have no particular need for it...) so I have never travelled to anyplace with more snow than where I am living..... and never had much desire to go into the mountains until there are plants to look at...lol

The snow we had the other day only melted on highways and areas that were shovelled or cleared, and some spots near buildings or trees.. otherwise, most of it is still on the ground (on top of what was still here...).. we luckily did not get another 2-4cm forecast for today, but there are 'periods of snow' forecast again starting tomorrow afternoon...
All I ask is that I not have to shovel any more :( but with highs forecast of -1, 1 and 0 for the next three days, I'm not optimistic.....

Hoy wrote:

Can you understand, next week we are going to explore the snow in the mountains? For a whole week? Hope it is some of the white stuff left, seems that you take it all over there ;) :D

Trond : I've never understood the need to head for the mountains at this time of year - it's been a long snow-rich winter with plenty of skiing, but now it's spring and I'll be spending the week in the garden... :) I'm obviously missing something as there were queues heading out of town last night...

Stephen, if i spent the week in my garden, I'd need skis!  :rolleyes: and rubber boots....

Stephenb wrote:

Hoy wrote:

Can you understand, next week we are going to explore the snow in the mountains? For a whole week? Hope it is some of the white stuff left, seems that you take it all over there ;) :D

Trond : I've never understood the need to head for the mountains at this time of year - it's been a long snow-rich winter with plenty of skiing, but now it's spring and I'll be spending the week in the garden... :) I'm obviously missing something as there were queues heading out of town last night...

Stephen to tell you the truth, it is my wife who insist ;D but I like it too. After we moved to the westcoast we experience less snow than when we lived in Oslo and this winter I haven't used skis at all!

But we don't follow the flock, Saturday we drove to Oslo (no snow along the road except at the highest mountain crossing at the western side of the mountains!!). Today, Sunday we head for our cabin. Rumor says very little snow there too.

I just had to mention I checked the Environment Canada weather for the next couple of days, and for Camrose, it's forecast for 7 deg. C tomorrow, "abnormal weather trend" they called it, I'd say so. Mind you, it was last year that we had a heavy wet snow this time of year, only lasted for a few minutes it seemed, but still! I'm farther south than Camrose, but brrrrr... I better keep that heat on in my tiny greenhouse.
Faith

Wow! Our low (for Rocky Mtn House) tomorrow is 13C for tomorrow..just a touch cooler than it has been for some days...normal high is 19C now, and we will only see that once in the next week (again, that's Rocky, we are 30km East, and could have slightly higher temps forecast farther East..

Someone send some heat my way...please!  The weather has been crazy here...in the past week we went from 4 C high to 23 C the next day, back to 5 C the next then 19 the following and now this past three days have been only 5-9 C again.  Not surprising I have  a cold!

Todd wrote:

Someone send some heat my way...please!  The weather has been crazy here...in the past week we went from 4 C high to 23 C the next day, back to 5 C the next then 19 the following and now this past three days have been only 5-9 C again.  Not surprising I have  a cold!

That's nippy! Here was odd, we last had -30 in March, I think, then May was quite warm, no snow! Snow is forecast for many places in western and northern Alberta tomorrow and Sat though!

I have had very nice weather the last few days here at our summerhouse. We arrived Wednesday in warm (that is 20+ Celsius) weather and it has stayed that way since :D :D :D
Won't last for long I am afraid. . . .

No I am sitting in the shade of the oak tree (all meals have been here too - even early breakfast) catching up with all the posts with a slow phone internet connection.

Some of the view:

In the early morning the fjord is like a mirror - not the smallest wave disturbs the tranquility. But then some not so noiseless boats approach :(

Nice view, Trond! I can imagine it does not stay quiet all day with the density of population it looks like there is..

We did not get the snow that was forecast as possible, or if we did, it was mixed with rain overnight and no sign of it... Rain possibility for 6 of the next 7 days, but June is historically the wettest month here--good for agriculture if/when farmers are able to get seeding done in May!

It's just over a couple of weeks until the shortest day and yet it's forecast to reach 15c this afternoon ,so still quite pleasant here.
What has been noticeable is that night temps have been so mild with only a couple of good frosts so far .....

In saying that there is very little in bloom ---just a few Narcissus and this this lone Gentiana acaulis .(I'll post it here as i don't think there is a thread for 'Sexy Plants') .  ;)

I just love the voluptuous, corseted shape  :-* :-* ;D

Cheers Dave.

Very nice, Dave.  Isn't it odd that Gentiana acaulis is blooming here and on the other side of the world at the same time, or is it just me??  :D

Toole wrote:

It's just over a couple of weeks until the shortest day and yet it's forecast to reach 15c this afternoon ,so still quite pleasant here.
What has been noticeable is that night temps have been so mild with only a couple of good frosts so far .....

In saying that there is very little in bloom ---just a few Narcissus and this this lone Gentiana acaulis .(I'll post it here as i don't think there is a thread for 'Sexy Plants') .   ;)

I just love the voluptuous, corseted shape  :-* :-* ;D

Cheers Dave.

I don't think I'll have Gentians flowering in my garden in 6 months! How is the light level at your place midwinter ???

Hoy wrote:

I don't think I'll have Gentians flowering in my garden in 6 months! How is the light level at your place midwinter ???

We could do with a bit more sun in the winter Hoy.

The flip side of a sheltered woodland garden is that while frosts can be up to -9c out in the open country side, we are well below that ,(less than -4c), so Datura sanguina and Japanese Banana ,Musa basjoo, (both in pots), continue to grow at this time of the year when placed under partial cover.

On the edge of the bush other 'marginals ' such as the tall Kangaroos paw Anigozanthos flavidus clump up and flower,(yellow/green), without any attention....

Cheers Dave.

At last the dry spring has begun to break and we have had significant rain for a couple of days - nice and persistant today. I'm not sure if it will make much difference to farmers and the wheat crop but any grower must be breathing a sigh of relief.

I've never thought of gentians as being voluptuous before! Now I see them in a different light, and of course they are!! Does this make G. verna 'sylph-like'? I do hope so.

Heavy downpours night before last, causing localised flooding--especially in the small town of Eckville, 11 miles from here.. lots of water in fields, and yesterday when we were going to town, ditches were full of running water, much like spring run-off, but water was even running over the highway at once junction, something I've never seen...
https://picasaweb.google.com/cactuscactus/July122011WetWetWet

Here in London, Ontario, it has been dry as a bone since the spring ephemerals went to sleep.  Every morning during my garden tour (the last two months), more devastation met my eye.  Plants which had been pretty impervious to the weather, just shrivelled up and disappeared...and I don't like the look of my 2 ft. high Dawn Redwood just now - after all the wire used to protect it from the rabbits, now this!  Stokesia and some of the gentians look pretty bad.  However, we finally got a decent rain last night and I feel there is lots to learn from this.  Two amazing survivors are the little Ruellia humulus (wild petunia) and the red Ipomopsis rubra.  Some of the droopers have rallied - the Monkey Flower and and Lobelia syphilitica - both native here.  Of course there are water restrictions - no lawn watering - but time consuming to spot water plants in pots and the most severely stressed plants twice a day. Wish I could send pics of all this but, since I had the worm erased and my computer "fixed", Photo Shop has disappeared and I have no way of resizing them.  Maybe Mark can tell me another way to do it? BTW, Mark, it was a very good "onion" season at my place.  Fran

Frances Howey
London, Ontario, Canada
Zone 5b??

Hi Frances,
"A lot to learn" is a good and useful spin to put on drought.  It's funny that you mention Ruellia humilis as a star in a drought situation.  I am not sure what you meant by "little", but in my garden the plant approaches 3ft in diameter.  I would have put it in the category of your droopers, although I agree that it is far more drought tolerant than the droopers you mention.    Perhaps it's just that my wild petunias are surrounded by even more drought resistant plants (?)

A good, simple, user friendly, free, and quickly downloadable photo resizing program (all it can do is resize) is Pixresizer:
http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm

For a general image editor, I currently use the free Photofiltre.

We're back in Norway again and spending our days at the mountain cabin. Lots of downpour here too and some floodings in lowerlyings areas but none serious so far. The good thing: No plants have died of lack of water this summer!

Hi Frances, your summer sounds like our summer in New England last year, where we literally had only 1 single day in August of any appreciable rainfall, the entire summer in drought conditions the worst in about 50 years.  However, in the following spring, the losses were less than I imagined... I did lose a few treasures, and at least a dozen and a half very expensive Epimediums flat out died from the drought, or were so weakened by the drought that in spring 2011 maybe a sprig or two of life reappeared on well established plants.  I know first-hand just how disheartening it can be to see the garden collapse under great thirst, with watering restrictions in place.

This year we had lost of rain in June, but July has been HOT HOT HOT, reached 102 F (39 C) in Boston (and here) this past week, tying the record for the hottest day recorded in Boston, many other days just a few degrees less hot but still HOT.  The lawn is crisping, and plants are drooping.  We have the usual mandatory ever-other-day watering ban (unlike last year's 100% no-watering-whatsoever ban), so I take advantage of that and use sprinklers to keep the woodlands areas moist.

Glad your allium season is going well, these babies do like the heat and tolerate drought quite well, except for some of the chinese Alliums that appreciate more moisture... lost my 20-year old Allium macranthum from a Ludlow & Sheriff collection in Bhutan :'(; I did send a piece to John Lonsdale a couple years ago, wonder if he still has it growing.

Regarding resizing photos, I hang on to an early version of Paint Shop Pro, and its like second nature for me to quickly edit and resize images with it.  It is now owned by Corel, and is inexpensive.  ACDsee Photo Editor is another good program to use, a relatively low cost product (about $50 US).

Howey wrote:

.....my computer "fixed", Photo Shop has disappeared and I have no way of resizing them.  Maybe Mark can tell me another way to do it?

Irfanview (FREE to download, and safe to download) comes with a re-sizing tool that is very easy to use. I use nothing else.

It has continued generally rainy and cool here--our share of the heatwave affecting large parts of North America was about 3 days in the mid-20sC last week (one day high 20's) always with cool nights still, and most of those days had one to several heavy downpours from thunderstorms;
Edmonton (quite a distance north, but the closest tv news/weather that we get-we don't get Calgary stations, just as far south) had 11 days without rain since the beginning of June, as of a couple of days ago, and we have had at least as many rain days, starting actually in late May.. Friday our high was something like 11C(51F) and there have been lows just above freezing--frost warning last night.. back up to 24Cish today and tomorrow, then cooler again, possibility of rain 5 out of next 7 days....
Nothing devastating here though, some areas in the province have declared agricultural disasters due to rain flooding fields, but here its just parts of many fields wet... if we don't get any dry stretches though, crops will be very slow to ripen and it will be impossible to harvest hay etc...
Wildflowers generally are loving it, with more bloom on many species, and blooming plants showing in large colonies and or scattered in places I hadn't seen them before--eg--semi/dry coniferous woods have a lot more things flowering in this wet year, and I am seeing huge numbers of Zigadenus elegans in roadsides--which is educational: I think the plants are fairly drought tolerant, based on some locations I have seen them, however, this massive wet year flowering tells me that they truly 'tolerate' drought rather than favour it...(and in fact, its been wet for at least 4 out of the last 5 years-so lots of opportunities for many plants to germinate, as well..

Thanks for the tip, David.  I have downloaded this program and look forward to working with it.
Cohan - yes, Zigadenus elegans seems to be pretty tough - not a spectacular flower but ANYTHING flowering in my garden now is doubly welcome.  Quite amazing how the lawn has suddenly gone from gold to green with this sudden rainfall - must be the corn gluten ferilizer??  Fran

Frances Howey
London, Ontario, Canada
Zone 5b

Ah, the charms of living near the mountains... getting to a trailhead in 45 minutes is great; the downside is turbulent weather!  

Here's the aftermath of a late hail-storm (they occur more usually through July) in the early evening.  It was the biggest hail we have seen in the yard in the last few years, up to about marble-size.  (We have got off lucky... there has been lots of much larger hail elsewhere in the city and environs).

What's really strange about the weather here is that it doesn't even have to be a hot day for hail clouds to develop.  It was actually very cool today, ~15 deg C... and, of course, dropped further to about 4 deg C as the ice came down!

Our yard is pretty hail-proof (all perennials, and resilient) but folks with lots of annuals (and bigger hail) might be hard-hit this late in the season.  Oh well, that's gardening here in "hail-storm alley".

Tufa garden under ice... (cleared area behind is future extension thereof):

And at about 10:30 this morning, there was still a sheet of ice on the ground - even in the sun in some places!!  Amazing, considering it was 5 deg C overnight and given the warmth of the soil.  :o
 

Update:  A local neighborhood weather station recorded a low of 2.9 deg C, +0.1 deg C with windchill... which better explains why there was still ice on the ground in the morning!  :P

Wow Lori, shocking to see frozen stuff on the ground in August! We've had such a long and hot summer, I'm ready for a cooling trend.  Was 88 F (31 C) yesterday, not super hot but hot & humid enough, seems like the daily temps are always in the upper 80s, supposed to be the same high 88 F temperature today with high humidity. I'm looking forward to a night where we don't have every window wide open and a half dozen fans running, and can actually sleep using a sheet or light blanket for cover... I'm so looking forward to autumn.  Until then, I'll just have to look at your plant travels in the high mountains of Alberta. :)

Can't say I am looking forward to the autumn weather! That usually means rain and more rain. . . .Although hail is not uncommon in summer I have not seen it this season. The temperature here at our summerhouse today was 22C, not bad as the "hottest" day this summer was about 26C. It is 17C in the sea and tomorrow I intend to take a morning bath :o

Hoy wrote:

Can't say I am looking forward to the autumn weather! That usually means rain and more rain. . . .

Sounds like a Devon August! ;D

deesen wrote:

Hoy wrote:

Can't say I am looking forward to the autumn weather! That usually means rain and more rain. . . .

Sounds like a Devon August! ;D

Should wish it lasted only August and not 9 months :o

Late summer, and invariably there are Hurricanes brewing in the Atlantic.  So, Hurricane Irene approaches, with the current projected path taking it directly through New England and Massachusetts.  Of course, by the time it hits inland, it'll probably be weakened to a Tropical Storm, however latest projections still call for torrential rains and winds up to 80 miles per hour, which is still a major concern.  Tomorrow, I'll button down the hatches, and secure all movable objects such a deck chairs, BBQ Grill, and other such stuff.

The red dot shows where I am located:

Hope you don't get hit too hard, Mark! Seems I'll be hit too - in a couple of weeks :o

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/hurricanes/#!/2011/Irene?smid=tw-nytimes

Hoy wrote:

Hope you don't get hit too hard, Mark! Seems I'll be hit too - in a couple of weeks :o

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/hurricanes/#!/2011/Irene?smid=tw-nytimes

Cool link Trond!

Good luck to all in Irene's path! 

You coastal and near coastal dwellers have all the fun  :rolleyes:

Mark, did you fare OK with Irene?  I'm in Chicago babysitting grandchildren so missed everything.  My son reported that the barn was flooded and water was running over the driveway but everything else was OK and we have power.  That's remarkable.  It used to be that 4 minutes of rain was equal to 4 hours power failure on our place.  He didn't check the garden, so who knows?  I've seen the pictures of the flooding in the Catskills and it's unbelievable.  Hope everything is OK with you.

It was uneventful here, only lost power for about 3 seconds, enough to make our computers and cable tv reboot  ;)

Lots of rain and wind, downed limbs and such.  People in some towns lost power for a day or so.  The eye of the storm went further west of us than first predicted, tracking up New York State and towards Vermont, one of the quickest hurricane/tropical storm events in memory.

So pleased to hear that your properties are safe folks.  Anne, have you heard if all the Berkshire members have escaped major disruption?

McDonough wrote:

It was uneventful here, only lost power for about 3 seconds, enough to make our computers and cable tv reboot  ;)

Lots of rain and wind, downed limbs and such.  People in some towns lost power for a day or so.  The eye of the storm went further west of us than first predicted, tracking up New York State and towards Vermont, one of the quickest hurricane/tropical storm events in memory.

Good to see you and Anne made out okay.. we've seen on TV not everyone was so lucky..

Cliff, I don't get home until Friday and will be checking on everyone then.  My sister in Connecticut has been without power and water since Saturday.

Irene is here! But she arrives like all other low pressure systems of this time of the year:
http://www.yr.no/nyheter/1.7773579

No hurricanes here! But cool and windy (11C high) and frost warning again tonight, guess we can just get used to that from now on! Warmer days coming again though--they say 28 by Thurs! If its true, it will be one of our 3 or 4 warmest days of the year....

After a couple days of clear, dry, breezy not-too-hot days, it's back to being hot and humid, 86 F (30 C) with high humidity. Taking a quick trip around the garden with my camera, my feet and legs are bitten up badly from a fresh crop of tiny, fast moving, ravenous mosquitoes, no doubt a result of so much rain in last week's hurricane/tropic storm event and prior rain all season. Still waiting for a confirmed cooling trend, and a day below 70 F (21 C).

McDonough wrote:

After a couple days of clear, dry, breezy not-too-hot days, it's back to being hot and humid, 86 F (30 C) with high humidity. Taking a quick trip around the garden with my camera, my feet and legs are bitten up badly from a fresh crop of tiny, fast moving, ravenous mosquitoes, no doubt a result of so much rain in last week's hurricane/tropic storm event and prior rain all season. Still waiting for a confirmed cooling trend, and a day below 70 F (21 C).

I am always waiting for the above-70F-days!

Or you can move to: http://www.yr.no/sted/Antarktika/Annet/Sydpolen~6269204/langtidsvarsel.html

Trond, I'm SOOOO ready for some Norway-like temperature; I'm built for a cool climate and suffer through the long hot summers.  When it's humid and hot (which also = buggy) I lose any motivation to work in the garden.

Frost on the roofs this morning...  :o :o
But a beautiful day, now that it has finally warmed up.

Well, how's this for crazy weather?  The downtown was closed to pedestrian and vehicular traffic today due to high winds.  There were many windows in at least one office tower broken from debris flying around.  An area of several blocks around the building where I work is still closed to access.  Many trees knocked down in various parts of the city.  Chinooks aren't usually quite this violent.
Should be interesting getting to work tomorrow... assuming the building is open then.  

Lori, hope you make out ok today - talked to my sister in Calgary and got the update on her end of town, what a "breeze" you had! Wind here too, but not nearly as much when it reached us. 

Such is life, living right next to the Rockies. I have a friend in Boulder who saw a parked car blown across the street during one of Boulder's infamous windstorms. And he also saw a roof go sailing down the hill.
Here, I'm about 6.4km east of the foothills. Mount Falcon is 2377m so there isn't the dramatic slant to the foothills like the Flatirons in Boulder, and the winds are somewhat less frightening.
All sorts of things blow into the yard (and get stuck on the cactus). Never money, of course. One time we had high wind blowing for days, and at the end of it (I don't know how many times I've told this story) there was this box flapping in the front yard. It held an entire, almost fresh, cake, inscribed "Congratulations, Renee." Poor Renee.

Bob

Wind hasn't been nearly as bad here as in Calgary.
I can't resist posting pictures, so here's the mountain wave cloud this afternoon.

Bob

We have had a crazy weather the last three days. First a fullblown gale hit the northern parts of Norway and a high tide too (the highest recorded ever) damaged a few houses, sheds and boathouses. The next day another strong gale (both were caused by low pressure systems like hurricanes) hit the southern parts of Norway. The biggest waves that hit the coast reached about 20m tall. South of me two people, although standing far from the sea) were swept away and drowned. The next three days the weather forecast tells us that we will get a lot of rain (300mm). I crossed the mountains yesterday and timed the drive between the storms. However, the mild weather melted the snow even at the high mountains and a lot of meltwater and rain filled every creek and river  like the spring floods. All went well though - I was almost alone on the road!

On the lighter side; Bob, did you eat Renee's intact cake?

On the more serious side; Trond & Lori, sorry to hear of extreme weather conditions, sounds frightening, and a reminder of just how powerful mother nature can be.

Threw the cake on top of the compost pile, away from the lips of border collies, and the squirrels ate it all.

Bob

As my Great Aunt Mary would say - Zoy! (I think it's a Slovenian derivation.)  I'd like to see the Flying Nun negotiate that weather ;D.  That the downtown was closed really accentuates the severity of the matter.  Being from the "flatlands", it hard for me to grasp such a calamity with a storm accompanying.

And what a coincidence.  Today I was riding my bicycle and along side the road was an expensive looking unside-down cake pan still with cellophane wrap over the "top" (so I assume there was still cake).  I would have retrieved it for the pan, but then I would have been late for an appointment.

There was a patch on the side of the house where my neighbor claimed a railroad tie ("sleeper", across the ocean) was blown through the wall once. My neighbor is a nutcase, but it does get windy here. 90 mph, say (144.8 kph). Breezes.
Wind comes roaring down the eastern slope of the Continental Divide.
People who think that alpine plants are covered in snow all winter might contemplate the fact that the top wind speed recorded on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mtn. National Park is 176 mph (283.2 kph) ......
No cakes flying there.

Bob

Nold wrote:

Wind hasn't been nearly as bad here as in Calgary.
I can't resist posting pictures, so here's the mountain wave cloud this afternoon.

Bob

That's what's called a "chinook arch" here... there was one just like it out my office window today.  Yep, we do get chinooks frequently but, like I said, they're not usually so damaging!  They usually just break the cold spell, melt the snow and give people headaches (although the latter claim was supposedly debunked by a recent study... I can't comment, not being affected that way).
So, with no trains running through the downtown today, I made it to work in 1.5 hours today (as compared to my usual 1/2 hour or so)... can't complain, as many people waited hours for buses.
Lots of damage - trees falling on houses and cars and across roads, a roof torn off, lots of shingles/siding blown away, many semis blown over and rolled on the highways.  The wind at ground level was bad enough but at the height of the taller buildings, it was clocked at 150 kph, 90 mph (hurricane force winds or gale force 12 on the Beaufort Scale), hence the flying debris and broken windows.  Fortunately, there were no major injuries, despite that "showers of glass" were reported from downtown... very lucky, unlike Trond's account.
More damages from the same weather system along the southern mountain front... a huge grassfire driven by the wind near Lethbridge burned down a couple of houses.

No damage in our yard... I didn't even think to look for money or cake though!  Hilarious, Bob!

I remember being in Boulder (where I majored in Stupidity) during a windstorm, and thinking it might be good kite-flying weather.
The kite went up, and was torn to pieces by the wind.
Highway 93, runs from Golden to Boulder, passes Rocky Flats, where no trees grow. There is a reason for that. It's difficult if not impossible to steer a car when the wind really blows.
On a railroad curve a little further north, at equally treeless Marshall Flats, is a siding with line of abandoned coal cars filled with rocks, that I hear was left there as a windbreak, to keep trains from being blown over where the line curves and is particualrly vulnerable to high winds.
Well, at least it blows the smog away. 
But I've never heard of damage like you got.

Bob

Some weather pictures from the last days - not mine though!

http://www.vg.no/protokoll/?pid=1016

That windy day Lori mentioned above was not quite as windy here, but still- I was out in the bush getting firewood, late morning, when the wind picked up some more, and I thought- time to get out of the trees!! A few minutes later I heard a loud crack somewhere back farther where I had been.. next time I was out there, I found a fallen mid-size aspen ( trunk maybe 8-10inches diameter near the bottom).. it had conveniently fallen right by one of my staging areas, where I pile wood I've collected farther out before carrying it all the way home...

The same day, I was at my cousin's down the road getting some firewood she had for me; when we left, I noticed a lot of smoke at the neighbours' across the road, so we drove up their long drive through bush to see-- and the wind was fanning a fire on both sides of the road and several spots-- they'd been burning some brush some time before, and the fire had remained in the soil (a common risk here, especially around wet areas with peaty soils!) and was brought back up by the wind and spread into grass and standing trees.. luckily it didn't go farther, as it was near long grass and spruce trees, and could easily have spread far; we told the neighbour and he went out to look, and my cousin went back to help after dropping off me and my wood...

What about this? The whole year in one picture!

From this site:  http://nrkbeta.no/2011/01/06/et-helt-aar-i-ett-enkelt-bilde/

Interesting image- I fear my version would have a much smaller green section...lol