Winter

Winter does seem to have made its mind up to hit town. 

For the past couple of weeks, we've had slightly above average temperatures (mid-50's).  That came to an end this weekend.  Friday was cloudy and overcast.  Saturday it started raining around 8 AM and continued to about 10 AM.  It stopped long enough for me to run errands.  Then it started up again and continued into the evening, later turning to snow.

Here are the Sandias in early afternoon on Saturday.

I got about half an inch of snow at my house, much of which has melted since we got into the low 40s today.
Here's what the Sandias looked like today, at about the same time (early afternoon) as yesterday.

The weather's supposed to stay cold with another slight possibility of snow later in the weekend.

I'm already over it.
Looking forward to Spring,
Papillon

Brrr!

On Saturday, we had nice weather, cool but sunny.  Here's more autumn color.

Then a minor cold front blew in on Sunday bringing rain with it.  Since we're in high desert country, rain is always welcome.  (Just not when I'm walking to and from my car at the ABQ main library for their book sale.)

Today, more wind, more cold, more rain then snow.  After sitting out in the cold, I guess the car's battery was affected because it took a bit longer than usual to turn over.  It cranked, but didn't start up right away.  Panic, followed by relief.

I got home OK.  Here are a couple of trees in the front yard.

Wet roads plus overnight temps below freezing - not looking forward to the morning commute.  I'm really hoping work delays opening tomorrow.

Papillon

Confusion

Albuquerque exists in an environment known as high desert.  High as in being a mile above sea level.  Desert as in - not a lot of precipitation on a yearly basis.

That said, this has been one wet month of May.  It started raining yesterday and has been intermittently doing it right up until about mid-afternoon today.  Then the clouds moved off (mostly) and the sun came out just in time for sunset.

Whatever blew through also blew in some cooler temperatures.  Normally daily highs in mid-May are in the upper 70's.  Today, the high was forecast to be in the low to mid 60's and I'm not sure it got up that high.  I had to turn on the heat this morning.  Not very high, but enough to take the edge off.

The weirdest part has been the snow in the Sandias.  I tried to take a photo around noon, but the clouds had rolled in and looked to be dropping another light layer.

All this while the vegetation around town is still doing the spring thing.  Notice the green in the lower fifth of the above photo.  Or this lovely bush, I think it's called Spanish Broom.

Later the clouds pulled back a bit.  You can see small areas of snow at the top of the mountains and just below the clouds, if you squint a bit.

Tomorrow it's supposed to start warming up a bit.  And we might get more rain later in the week.
Either 1939 or 1941 are the wettest Mays on record.  If we keep going the way we have been, we might just beat the record.  Considering how recently the state was listed as being in a drought, any and all rain is welcome.

Papillon

More Snow

One month after my last post, here I am posting about more snow.  For a state that's been in a drought for several years, we've sure been getting a bunch of moisture lately.

It started Thursday night as you can see from the park out back.

This made Friday morning's commute an annoyance.  Fortunately, work allowed us to come in 2 hours later than usual.  As usual, there were a whole lot of idiots who were driving as though the streets were dry and clear.  Sigh.  Not surprisingly, there were a whole lot of accidents.  I was NOT one of them.

The middle of the day was snow-free.  However, I noticed the weather radar showed another band of snow was forming up west of town so I took a couple of hours of vacation and headed home.  I doubt I was missed since there were only about a dozen people in my whole office building.

It started snowing again about halfway home.  Fortunately the streets were damp but clear which made the afternoon commute much easier than the morning's had been.

Overall, it wasn't a 'vicious' snow storm.  It was more like a dripping faucet as opposed to a gushing one.  However, even a drip over a long time adds up.  Desultory snowing over 8-10 hours does add up.

From the snow on the wall, it looks like we got about 3 inches of snow.

And it looks like one of the local critters hopped around the front of the house. 

I know they're hard to see, but the sun wasn't out and I couldn't get good shadows.  The trail looked like it hopped across the driveway and hung out under one of my bushes for a while.

Not surprisingly, the neighborhood kids seem to be having fun in the park.  Last time several built a snowman.  I wonder if we'll have more being built this weekend.

Well, the street in front of the house looks to be mostly clear and it looks like things might be starting to melt a bit.  I may be able to get out and run my errands.

Papillon

Snow days

The forecasters were right when they said snow would be coming to the metro area.

Friday morning I woke up to snow, and more snow.

I was hoping for a delayed opening at work.  No such luck.

It did finally taper off in early afternoon and the high temperatures got up to several degrees above freezing so things did start to thaw a bit, creating this fun design on the pavilion in the park.

The snow continued, very lightly, overnight.  It put more snow back on the pavilion.

Not surprisingly, there were folks in the park having fun with snow.  Of course, there were the obligatory snowmen-in-the-making.  (I'm not sure what the people and dog are all looking at.)

And there was a couple playing 'fetch the snowball' with a small dog.

While driving around running errands, I found myself wanting to stop at the house of total strangers.  Most houses in the area show they have good insulation in their crawl spaces by the mostly complete blankets of snow on the roofs.  However, one house had NO snow on the roof of the living space.  There was snow over the unheated garage.  I wanted to ring their doorbell and say - you could probably cut your heating bills in HALF if you would just add more insulation over your living spaces.  I didn't stop because I knew they would be totally taken aback by being accosted in this way by a strange woman.  But the thought was there.

Things should be back to chilly mornings and cool afternoons next week.  It'll be nice to see the sun after several days of lots of clouds.

Papillon

A Weekend - Gone Too Quickly

On Friday morning I was awakened by a hot air balloon.

My suspicion is that they were taking advantage of the weather.  Friday was a lovely day.  Sunny and cool but not cold.

For the past several days, the local weather people have been sounding the alarm.  The front that had dumped a whole bunch of rain on California was headed our way.  Weather warnings!  Weather warnings!  This will hit on Saturday PM.

With this is mind, I did all my errands on Saturday because they were forecasting possible snow for the whole metro area and I wasn't sure what the roads would be like on Sunday.

Sure enough, the rain started around 7:30PM.  From the puddles remaining today, we must have gotten a significant amount of rain.  However, it wasn't the violent downpour the weathercasters had made it sound like we'd be getting.  It was more of an extended gentle rain. 

This morning I woke up to sunny skies.  It was chilly, made more so by a sharp wind.  It sounds like the wind has died down, but it's still quite chilly.

Having said all that, the metro area did get snow.  This picture shows why I don't live in the Sandia mountains east of town.  I try to avoid situations that involve me shoveling snow.

I'm still missing Oscar.  It's been a week and 3 days.  I miss seeing him curled up asleep in my recliner.  I even find myself missing him at 8 PM.  He had to have one vaso-dilator pill a day and that was the time I usually gave it to him.  Missing you, you silly furball.

Papillon

Snow - really

Yesterday I posted about the tiny bit of snow we'd gotten.  Mother Nature laughed and dumped about one inch of snow on us.  I think it fell sometime after 5:00 AM because the newspaper had snow on top and bare ground underneath.

It looks like the local 'critters' were out and about in spite of the snow.  There were some bunny prints but they must have been out and about while it was still snowing because their prints had been partially obscured.  On the other hands, the local bird population obviously waited until the snow had stopped.

The snow looked rather picturesque caught in the needles of the pine tree in the front yard.

I do love digital photography.  Instant gratification and all that.

Papillon

Snow - sort of

Today is the first day of this season that I got snow at my (current) house.  Granted it was about 1/64 of an inch and most of it melted when it hit the ground.

Here's a small amount sitting on my car.

I also drove through some brief snow showers during the late morning. 

The whooping and hollering you hear is from all the area skiers.  Taos got 18 inches.  Skis are being waxed even as you read this.

My new house is coming along.  The paint is complete.  The laminate floor is almost down.  I was hoping it would be finished yesterday but no luck there.  It now looks like it'll get done on Tuesday. 

I'm going to have it deep cleaned by the local Molly Maid folks.  So far, it looks like I'll be spending the Thanksgiving weekend moving the small stuff.  It'll help work off the calories from Thanksgiving day!

Papillon

Winter's Last Gasp

A few years after I moved to the Albuquerque metro area, I learned the hard way that it's best not to plant any new outdoor plants before April's tax due date.

Today is a good example of why this is.  We are more than a week after Easter.  A cold front with rain moved through today.  As you can see, this left snow on the Sandias.

Tonight we'll be getting down to around freezing, possibly a bit below.  I'm just glad my heavy jacket was handy this morning.
Brrr!



Papillon

Rain and Snow

We've gotten rain...and snow!  Woohoo!  It's been over a month since we've gotten anything.

It started on Friday.  At my house it rained for about half an hour.  The airport got .15 of an inch.  It's not a whole lot, but at this point, we'll take what we can get.

Today we actually got some snow, sort of (at my house, anyway).

Here's what the Sandia Mountains looked like around 1:30 PM.

The mountains are hard to see through some falling snow.  There are also patches of sunlight along the valley floor.

Then we've got storm clouds to the north of town.

Finally, on the way home, I went through a short storm of snow pellets.  This eventually petered out.  The pellets stayed on the ground for about a minute and then melted.

The storm passed on through and sunshine is supposed to be back tomorrow.  Oh, well.  We can only hope for some more precipitation in the near future.

Papillon

 

 

 

 

Rainy Day! Hooray!

After months and months and years of minimal rain, we got a good 2-hour soak today.  Hooray!

For a while it cleared up, then another rain shower.

More clearing and then lots of wind with some rain.

For now, it looks like it's been raining lightly enough that I haven't heard it, but the windows and roads are wet.

I'm glad it's happening on a Saturday.  If temps get below freezing tonight, the roads could be dicey tomorrow morning.  Instead of worrying about going to work, I can just stay home and sleep in.

On the other hand, the forecasters are saying there might be more headed our way through Tuesday.  We might even get some snow.  Sigh.

I figure I'll take it a day at a time.  If things look slick on Monday or Tuesday, I'll go in late.  I've got vacation time and see no reason to endanger myself by trying to get to work on time if the roads are too slick.  (My desire to be retired peaks at times like this.)

Papillon

Snow - and it's annoying

I still haven't figured out how to make my iPod nano to play the stuff I want it to play.  I'm giving the two of us a time out.

The house's pipes are flowing nicely.  Last night I made sure to leave a couple of faucets running slightly.  I sure don't want to go through the whole frozen pipes scenario a second time.  Nope, nope, nope.

As if I wasn't already feeling annoyed, today's weather helped things along nicely.  It started snowing early in the afternoon.  Mucked things up a bit and then stopped.  Fortunately things cleared up enough to make it relatively easy to get to my car.  However, as I headed home, I could see clouds headed my way.  Sure enough, about halfway home it started to snow.  NOOOOOOO!

At one point I was sitting at a stoplight and you could see the snow beginning to accumulate on the road.  Oh, no!  Fortunately, at about 3/4 of the way home, the snow tapered off and things went fairly well the rest of the way.

After I got home I took a few minutes to sweep the snow off the sidewalk.  Otherwise, tomorrow it would most likely melt enough to change into ice before I got home.

It's supposed to be COLD again tomorrow and then start warming up to normal temperatures by the end of the week.  Sooner rather than later would be nice.

Papillon

Snow...

The last day of a very dry year, we got a small amount of moisture in the form of snow.

The weather forecasters had been saying we had a 30 percent chance of snow.  I went to bed and there was no snow.  This morning I got up and voila!

It must have started shortly before 5 AM because the newspaper gets delivered around then and there was snow under the paper.

We have a fairly active rabbit population in my neighborhood and they are obviously more active than I'd originally suspected.

You can't see it in this shot, but I did spot one line of tracks that I think belongs to one of the neighborhood cats.  It must have strolled through either pre or post bunnies because I don't see any evidence that bunnies were chased (or caught).

Have a great 2013!
Papillon

Tiny Snowfall

We did get a tiny bit of snow last night.

The sun came out shortly after this photo was taken and most of the snow is now history.  For a while it looked like it was going to be a pretty nice day.

However, some clouds blew through around noon.  It's now sunny, windy and cold.

Papillon

Rain and snow...maybe

Today was cloudy and chilly.  A very definite change from normal New Mexico weather.  I was rather hoping for some sort of precipitation, but no luck here in the Albuquerque area.

Fortunately, other parts of the state have gotten snow.  This is a definite plus during a drought.  All the skiers are very happy since a lot of the ski areas have gotten numerous inches of snow. 

This is good, not only for the skiers, but also for the agricultural folks.  They have a rough several years.

I'm trying to get everyone to do the Law of Attraction.  Thoughts become things.  If all anyone thinks about is drought, that is what they will attract.  I'm trying to get everyone to switch their thoughts around.  Instead of concentrating on drought, they should think thoughts of precipitation.

They should also emulate Goldilocks.  She was a smart cookie who knew exactly what she wanted.  We should attract not too much rain or too little rain, but we should attract the amount that is 'just right'.

Papillon

We had our first fall storm roll through.  We received rain yesterday, the first time in 50+ days.

It looks like the Sandia mountains east of town might actually be getting some snow.  I don't know if it'll provide any measurable amounts or if they'll stay for more than a day or so.  I'm just glad we're getting some moisture.

Here's what the mountains looked like this afternoon.

A bit further south, you can actually see some moisture headed down.  I don't know if it was actually hitting the ground.

It's supposed to be chilly and windy for most of the rest of the weekend.  It's supposed to warm up a bit early next week.

Papillon

Halfway through Winter

According to whom you read, either Thursday, February 2nd or Friday, February 3rd was the halfway point through winter.  Of course, knowing that, I shouldn't have been surprised.

When I checked the forecast midday on Thursday, it said that we should expect a 20% chance of showers during the day and a 10% chance of showers overnight.  I didn't think much about it.

I got up Friday morning and looked out the kitchen window.  At first, it looked normal.  For no particular reason, a few minutes later, I looked out the window again.  Flipped the curtain back into place.  Then stopped and looked again.  I thought, the bushes don't look normal, so I took a closer look and discovered they didn't look normal because they were covered in snow.

I looked out the front door and sure enough, we'd gotten about half an inch of snow overnight.

Fortunately, although it wasn't a light, dry snow, it wasn't wet and heavy either.  Fairly easy to clear off my sidewalk, car and driveway.  The roads out of the subdivision were slushy but not icy.  Hooray!

It was actually rather picturesque.  I do like picturesque, especially when it doesn't interfere with my getting to work in a timely fashion.

It was warm enough that the snow was 99.9% melted when I got home.  So, other than the brief cleanup in the morning, I didn't have to do any really hard work to get rid of it.  I love when a plan comes together.

Papillon

Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice and already I am so very tired of winter.  Or at least with its byproducts.  All we've been hearing is that La Nina will be giving us a very dry winter.  So far we've had three winter storms in two weeks with the latest one hitting today.

In a theoretical sense, I like snow.  I like to stay indoors and watch it snow.  I don't particularly like to be out in it. 

What's most annoying is the timing of this latest storm.  It was originally forecast to hit us starting late yesterday and continue on into today with it clearing out tomorrow.  Instead it started tonight and is continuing on into tomorrow.  I'm hoping we don't get a lot of snow or I may not be able to make it to the airport on Saturday so I can visit with my family on Christmas.  Sigh.

Oh, well, will deal with things as they happen.

On a related note, things were VERY foggy in the way to work on Wednesday.  Normally when you look at this tree, you can see buildings behind it.  I thought it looked cool with standing there all alone.

Papillon

Snowed In

In yesterday's post, I spent a fair amount of time kvetching about the small amount of snow we had gotten.  I should be careful about what I kvetch about.

The forecasters all said we would be getting more snow.  Maybe 1-2 inches overnight with the possibility of more snow today.  Sure enough, it started to snow last night.  I was hoping it would blow through  leaving a minimum of snow behind.

No such luck.  I got up this morning and found a good 4-6 inches on the ground and more falling.  Work's start time was delayed by 2 hours.


















One problem - I drive a PT Cruiser.  The front end only clears the ground by about 4 inches.  (I've confirmed this the hard way by scraping the curb if I pull too far forward in a parking space.)  With 4 to 6 inches of snow on the ground, I'm no longer driving a car, instead I'm driving a cute red snow plow.

So I called work and said that I'm taking a vacation day since I'm not able to get out of the subdivision.  Fortunately, I didn't have anything critical work-wise on my plate.  I did miss a holiday luncheon that sounded as though it was going to be yummy.  (Rats!)

I really didn't want to see the snow.  I'm saving up my vacation time for some stuff I'm planning on doing next year.  The snow just shot 9 hours of that.  Sigh.  Plus, since I took the above pictures, I've been shoveling snow.  Apparently I overdid it with my right arm because it's feeling really tight.  Oh, well.  After I get done here, I get to go out and move more snow.  I may spread some sand as well.  No point in walking out tomorrow morning and hitting ice.  I've never been fond of falling down.  Nope, no thanks.

Papillon

P.S.  I actually measured the snow on top of my car.  I officially got 6 1/4 inches.  Sheesh.  One of the forecasters said there are parts of the metro area that only got a few flakes.  Salt in the wound.
P.S.2  The forecasters are saying we will be getting down into double digits over night.  Oh, really.  If I wanted winter time temps in the single digits I'd move to some place like Minnesota or North Dakota.  (And yes, I do realize their single digits are usually negative numbers.)
P.S.3  I am SO glad I had my house re-piped earlier this year.  Now my pipes are all properly insulated (unlike those installed by the builder) and much less likely to be affected by really cold temperatures.

Not Everyone Dislikes the Snow

Yesterday I ranted about how I'm not the world's biggest fan of snow.  This feeling obviously does not apply to everyone and that includes some of the area's critters.

I have a large fir tree in my front yard.  Several years ago I noticed that one or more of the local rabbits likes to hang out at the base of the trunk of said tree.  To a certain extent, it makes sense.  With its butt up against the trunk, the rabbit is fairly safe from larger predators sneaking up on it from behind.  This is bolstered by the branches around the base of the tree.  The possibility of being stabbed in the face by a branch deters coyotes, et. al. from just rushing in.  On the other hand, the branches aren't packed too close so as to hinder the rabbit's field of vision.  (Note:  I don't know if it's always the same rabbit I see or if a number of rabbits have figured out the niceness of napping under my tree.)

After all my anti-snow rantings, I was surprised to walk out around mid-morning and see the rabbit snuggled under the tree.  Here's a wide shot of the rabbit - he's the small mound of brown fur at the base of the trunk.

Here's more of a close-up. 

I was hoping to get a shot from an angle that didn't have a branch across him/her.  But Rabbit was camera-shy (or people-shy) and hopped off after just a couple of shots.

I'm not sure why Rabbit wasn't freezing its butt off sitting directly on the snow.  But it seems to like where it's at because its been there for several hours.

To each, their own.

Papillon (who's staying inside and out of the snow)