Beautiful winter & seed catalogs!

Blizzard warnings today, mostly in the mountains. Overnight last night it was very windy, and many drifts had appeared by morning. At 7AM it was 31 degrees, now at 1:30 PM it's about 28 degrees.

Bruce split a bunch of wood yesterday so we're now safe from freezing! We have this wood carrier thing that allows easy hauling of split wood. It also makes a handy dog carrier - poor Caddy is at Bruce's mercy!

I went snowshoe running over at the state wildlife area yesterday in the late afternoon - saw several hawks and many tracks in the snow. It was beautiful but cold; returned home with a frosted face.

Had to replenish the black oil sunflower seed and Niger thistle today at the local co-op---holy cow! Not (sort of) cheap like it used to be to buy that stuff for "wild" bird-feeding.

Picked up the mail today - four more seed catalogs arrived. Got one yesterday, and received a couple more several days before Christmas. I'd hate to think how many I'd be getting if I hadn't taken my name off a bunch of mailing lists! But it is making me think of seed-starting........

Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad !!

Today is a beautiful, snow-covered day in the San Luis Valley. The day began with snow falling until about noon or so, but now at 2PM the sun is mostly out with lots of blue sky. We took a walk in the falling snow and it was lovely. The orb of the sun was trying to break through the snow clouds, and finally succeeded.
The Canada geese are out and about, but the sandhill cranes that have been hanging out near the irrigation canal north of our house have left. The snow must have cleared them out.
Wolf Creek Ski Area's website says they've received 55" of snow in the past 7 days, and are due to receive a bunch more tonight. We head up there tomorrow to verify that snow report.....

White stuff slowly accumulates

Snow depth in the yard as of this morning is 6.5". The mountains to the west and northwest are getting pounded with 1-2' of new snow, today and tomorrow. Backcountry avalanche hazard is high. The Christmas bird count was being done last Saturday, December 20th. I was taking the pooch for a walk and ran into a friend of mine who was with two other birders looking for birds not far from my house.

While at the Rio Grande State Wildlife Area yesterday, I saw a few hawks and lots of Canada geese, plus lots of animal tracks and a set of x-c ski tracks. An eager beaver is taking care of a cottonwood tree near the river - photo shows recent activity. The Rio Grande is in the background - not frozen like last year.

Snow, especially in the mountains

I just checked the SNOTEL (SNOwpack TELemetry) website available at http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ for the Grayback site west of Monte Vista. Not as much snow as I'd thought would be up there - on 12/11 there was 9" of snow on the ground at the 11,620' site, on 12/16 there was 21" of snow. Another large storm is due starting tonight and will dump 1-2 feet of additional snow in the mountains, including the eastern San Juans west of Monte Vista. Will definitely help with the agricultural outlook for '09.

5" of NEW SNOW

FINALLY--last night--we got some real measurable SNOW. I measured 5" on my CoCoRaHS "snowboard" (actually, just a 1' by 1' piece of wood, painted white). The core taken with the plastic cylinder measured .44" of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE), and the amount of snow that fell into the plastic cylinder, & that was melted into liquid, was .29" SWE.

La Veta Pass east of Monte Vista supposedly received 19" of snow, and Wolf Creek Ski Area received about a foot.

My plug for Community Collaborative Rain, Hail andSnow Network, AKA CoCoRahs; see the program's website at http://www.cocorahs.org/. CoCoRaHs is a volunteer network of citizen weather observers from most states in the country. The mission statement of this non-profit organization is at http://www.cocorahs.org/Content.aspx?page=mission.

From the website comes this brief description of its primary goal: CoCoRaHS is a unique, non-profit, community-based network of volunteers of all ages and backgrounds working together to measure and map precipitation (rain, hail and snow).

I've been taking measurements for the CoCoRaHS program since December of 2005. Every morning at 7:00 I take a brief moment to check for & measure new precipation, whether rain or snow & infrequently hail, and then report the data at the website. The data posted at the website are used by many different entities, from National Weather Service folks to farmers to recreationists. It's interesting to be involved in this effort, with the added benefit of seeing where else in your county or state, or wherever else in the country, other precipation fell.

Nolan Doesken, who I think is the originator of the project, is always interested in new CoCoRaHs volunteers from all of the participating states. If you're interested in volunteering to be a weather observer (it's nearly painless!), go to http://www.cocorahs.org/Content.aspx?page=contactus and sign up. In the meantime, ENJOY THE SNOW (and next spring/summer's water!).

The high & dry valley is definitely dry right now. Very little precipitation during the past month of November. At our house I recorded three wienie precipitation events, all of them snow but it was snow that didn't stay. The upper Rio Grande basin is at 39% of normal right now. The river not far from our house is as low as I've ever seen it (of course, considering that I've been here for only three and a half years is not saying a lot, I realize....).

A few lingering sandhill cranes are still hanging out in the cut barley field just west of our house. They too know we're having a warm autumn and that there's no need to hurry, at least yet. Though when I went running at the nearby State Wildlife Area one morning last week in 10-degree temperatures I wouldn't have said it was mild.....

The dog knows where it's comfy.