Face shots!

We certainly haven't been getting any powder face shots around Western Montana lately. My view is a bit skewed maybe due to my lack of having a season pass and in general skiing less than normal. But the winter around W. MT seems like last year (unscientifically speaking), some decent snow in Dec, January turned into June-uary--with warm temps and rain. Now I'm just hoping that February comes in like last year!



This footage of Canadian National Railway locomotive 2304 (ES44DC) plows through huge snow drifts in Salisbury, New Brunswick was filmed yesterday. Southern New Brunswick was hit with three major blizzards in less than a week, and there is more snow in the forecast.

Alma Desnuda

It feels like we are finally approaching summer, last year of course summer never really came. This year a lot of the SW US has been in drought conditions and fires are busting loose and burning structures left and right it seems. Western Montana is pretty wet and we've been sitting below normal temps for the most part. The teaser 80 degree temps we had a couple month ago have not returned, but they'll pop soon.

We'll have some much anticipated visitors in a few week from California and the cousins will be going beserk in the backyard. We're planning to get out camping with the 6 kids for a few nights and enjoy some pyrotechnics in the Missoula valley. We can't wait Horans! 

Mountain biking and riding the KLR have been great this spring, lots of loamy soil to be shredded. And our little man has been great, he is very pleasant and so far is a mellow little baby. Our girls have took to him like fish in water, even showing interest in changing some diapers. My goal by the time they are 5 = change a diaper :-). I celebrated a new year with some great friends and a bbq.

 

New tire for the KLR, sweet traction!

My birthday cake from my funny wife, I'm really not that anti-wolf

The kids rocking out to Alma Desnuda at a private jam party.

A generous Bitterrooter friend of ours invited us down to enjoy some music last Sunday. The band is a San Francisco based group called Alma Desnuda. The herd of kids each grabbed an instrument (tamborines, rattles and maracas) and played the opening song. The rest of the energized adults rocked out to some great music and enjoyed some excellent Bitterrroot Brews (Single Hop and Nut brown). Thanks Goeltz's!

Rocky Mountain Wildfires Set to Intensify?

Rocky Mountain Wildfires Set to Intensify? | NewWest.Net

Thought this was interesting. Although, right now it doesn't seem as if anything could ever burn in Montana. The cold and wet continue. I was out in the woods yesterday at 6500ft doing my sawyer re-certification and guess what? We froze our asses off. It was 40 degrees and we had hats & gloves on. Lame. Bring on summer

Fall weather and winter outlook - La Nina

JW tearing up on the Ravine Trail on a mild October day.

First off I'd like to say thank you to everyone that reads this blog, I always appreciate any comments or suggestions. Its not always apparent if you guys enjoy the content or not. So if you do, maybe make a crack or wiseass remark every once in a while eh? Thanks for looking!

What a fall we've been having in W. Montana, you couldn't ask for much better weather. The temps have been pretty mild and even on the warm side for most of September and October. This week saw nighttime temps dipping into the 20's but daytime temps still in the 60's. The leaves are beginning to peak in the valley and upper elevations, I think most leaves have dropped. Contrast that last year when had a the super cold snap the first week of October, with many trees leaves getting a "flash freeze" only to remain on the tree all winter. Our garden this year was decent, definitely not as many tomatoes as we've had like 2 summers ago. But the peppers (green, yellow and jalapeno's) did great. Garlic was weak but we had huge onions.

And now on to some hopefully good news, only time will tell but the 2010-2011 winter forecast sure seems to be shaping up for a deep winter in Montana.

AccuWeather.com - Meteo Madness | Henry's Winter Forecast for Dec. 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011



And from Lou Dawson's blog on La Nina:

"The meteorologist magician who made our Denali trip a total success, Joel Gratz, comes up with interesting answers. In a Boulder Daily Camera newspaper article, he says during La Niña the PNW and perhaps northern U.S. interior areas such as Montana will get pounded. Indeed, he points out, during the 98/99 Niña season was when Mount Baker got the most snow ever recorded in a single season in the United States. I remember that winter, and the stories of how they had to dig out the chairlift towers before they could start the ski lifts."

******ANTI-JINX*******

Not so fast there Fall

As always Montana's got some weird weather. Watching the news last night, most of us here were a bit surprised to hear the Winter Weather Watch for Glacier NP and the Bob Marshall. They are calling for 3" of snow above 7000ft. Ha, I ain't ready for that. I could use about 2 more months of flipflop weather.

T and I got the chance to check out the Rodeo the other night at the fair here in Missoula, and take a few pictures. I left there wanting something with a bit more zoom, but actually for sitting as far away as we were the 50mm didn't do too bad. We of course indulged in some fair food gut-bombage, a huge funnel cake followed by grade A people watching.







More pictures here

Western MT fair

Western MT weather pattern changing

Taken from KPAX.com

MISSOULA - Meteorologists from the Northern Rocky Coordination Center in Missoula say that we are in a transition from a "El Nino" weather pattern to a "La Nina" weather pattern.

This shift can make for an aggressive fire season, but Meteorologist Mike Kreyenhagen says that's not the case for us in Western Montana just yet.

"Our research has shown that we have some fairly active fire seasons when we roll out of an El Nino winter and into a La Nina summer. The wild card this year was that this spring was very, very, very wet. And so that has in our mind, knocked down the significant fire potential danger though the month of July."

Kreyenhagen added that he expects the fire danger for the month of August and September to be "normal".

When asked about what kind of winter we may see this year, Kreyenhagen said that if you're a skier then you should definitely considering buying a pass this winter.

"La Nina winters tend to dump a lot of snow, a lot of rain at the end of October. Snow for the high country, hunters are happy, skiers are happy. That's kind of the shift we're expecting."

Wild spring weather and Billings tornado

The rain continues here in Western Montana, it's been pretty impressive by our arid standards. The wet weather seems to be the topic of conversation everywhere you go. The natives are getting restless and want some consistent sunshine. Sure there have been a sprinkling of very nice days in there, pushing into the 80's but in general the valley has been unpredictable at best for the last 1.5 months.

I was curious as to how many days it has actually rained since May, so I took a look at the Missoula Rainfall totals on the NWS site


May - 15 days of 0.01" of precipitation. We received 1.6", compared to a normal average rainfall of 1.8"

June - It has rained 15 of the 20 days so far (days w/ more than 0.01"), damn that's wet. Totals for the month so far are 3.47", normal for the month of June is 1.8".

Yesterday in Missoula there was some very impressive weather, huge dark cells set up over the valley and dropped some huge rainfall in a short amount of time. Some hail fell, but nothing notable. However, over in Billings a tornado touched down, check out some footage of that.





Wind speeds from the tornado were estimated to range between 111 and 135 mph, National Weather Service meteorologist Keith Meier said. The last time Yellowstone County, which includes Billings, had that scale of a tornado was July 2, 1958, he said.

some more footage of Billings Fathers Day tornado >> http://mikeheard.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/fathers-day-tornado-hits-billings/

Iceland volcano shots

Some mind blowingly great shots over here on the Boston Globe's Big Picture site. The scale of Eyjafjallajokull is unreal.

This link is also well worth visiting National Geographic's International Photography Contest 2009

A little snow too late?

Finally snowed yesterday, dropping up to 8" in the higher elevations. The snow in the valley was gone in minutes once the storm let up. Hoping that we get a few more of these before SB shuts down for the season. Snowbowl is reporting 62" on top and 28" on the bottom (5" from this storm)

Here's a few other links on the generally mediocreness of this season

Backcountry focus - http://backcountryfocus.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/march-9-2010-snowstorm/

Ravalli Republic - Irrigation problems - http://www.ravallirepublic.com/articles/2010/03/10/news/news22.txt

And Idaho as of 3/21/10 is sitting at 50-60% of snow pack, ouch!
ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/id_swepctnormal_update.pdf

Winter Weather Advisory

A little local weather action for W. Montana

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MISSOULA MT
734 PM MDT THU OCT 8 2009

.AN ARCTIC COLD FRONT IS MOVING ACROSS THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE THIS EVENING AND WILL SPREAD INTO THE REST OF WESTERN MONTANA AND NORTH CENTRAL IDAHO AFTER MIDNIGHT INTO FRIDAY. THIS SYSTEM WILL PRODUCE A RELATIVELY QUICK SHOT OF SNOW...FOLLOWED BY STRONG GUSTY NORTHEAST WINDS USHERING A VERY COLD AIR MASS ACROSS THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE BY
FRIDAY. RECORD BREAKING COLD TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED OVER THE
WEEKEND WITH DANGEROUS WIND CHILLS POSSIBLE NEAR THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE.

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT
TONIGHT TO 6 PM MDT FRIDAY...

SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 1 TO 2 INCHES ARE EXPECTED BY FRIDAY MORNING. HOWEVER...THE MAIN IMPACT FROM THIS STORM WILL BE STRONG GUSTY EAST WINDS 15 TO 25 MPH WITH LOCAL GUSTS UP TO 40 MPH CREATING BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW. ............WITH A VERY COLD AIR MASS SETTLING INTO THE AREA FOR THE WEEKEND.

But by the weekend the weather in Eastern MT should be clear and just a bit on cold side. Hoping it looks like this, just without the rain. Weather over there is looking pretty good, just chilly at night:

Fall snow in Western Montana

The "indian summer" we've been having this last month appears to have snapped in Western Montana. Looking at a few of the webcams on the passes, snow is falling this morning. Wooot.

Local news is saying: If El Nino reaches moderate strength - as expected, temperature and precipitation effects over the United States should strengthen in late fall and winter.

That would mean near normal precipitation, but below normal temperatures, through October in western Montana - followed by above average wintertime temperatures and drier forecasts as El Nino took over.

And according to the National Weather Service, the summer of 2009 was a record-setter.

Western Montana accounted for 10 daily records from June through August, six of them in the maximum rainfall category. Kalispell accounted for three of the rainfall records.

The new marks, starting in June, included:

July 27, Missoula, record rainfall of 0.6 inches (old record, 0.39, 1927)
Aug. 8, Missoula, record rainfall of 2.03 inches (old record, 0.44, 1999)
Aug. 14, Missoula, record low high temperature of 64 (old record, 66,1978)

Well BELOW ZERO in Missoula

Just as forecasted, the Arctic beast rolled into western Montana Friday night. Saturday morning I peeked out the window to find white stuff in the front yard and its about time. It came in quick & dumped most of the snow (in the valley anyway) in the wee hours of the night. I think we probably got 3-4 inches here at the house, but with a ton of wind.

Snowbowl announced on Saturday that they were shooting for a nooner opening with 10 new inches up top. Reports varied from good to too damn cold. At any rate the base sounds like its building up top, with only Lavelle running. But the good news is apparently Paradise is passable. No skiing for me yesterday, I was stuck at work.

The top of Point Six is posting up some brutally cold numbers and when I say brutal I mean it. This stuff makes me shiver. From the Point Six weather station it shows that it has got down to 28 BELOW Zero sometime last night around 1030pm.

Currently its sitting at -25F with an average of 35 mph. If you are wondering just how cold that might feel to your precious little skin take a look at this Wind Chill chart. With that current wind and temp you would feeling like it was MINUS 65F. That means bare skin would have frostbite 5 minutes.

The snow should be sticking around for awhile. Temps are looking at -12 tonight, 0F on Monday, 8F on Tuesday and 10F on Wednesday. Wooot. Woot. We'll definitely have to remember this storm in the backcountry for a while as I'm sure the slabs and loading are setting up something fierce.

Batten down the hatches, here comes winter

The season has quickly changed from a nice Indian summer to fall that feels like winter. Two days ago I awoke to sub freezing temps, the first of the season. A hard frost hit the valley, signalling the official end to garden season. I had picked the remainder of our vegatables from the garden (cucumbers, tomatoes and green peppers) the night before in anticipation of the cold front.

Its great when change of season comes on strong. The leaves color change seemed to change a lot faster than last years. Leaves literally changed colors overnight a week or so ago, then dropped rapidly in the cold stiff winds. The tree in the backyard lost all its leaves in one windy day.

In the yearly ritual, I removed the screens and put on the storm windows. The plants in the garden were pulled up and taken to the curb. Leaves raked into a pile and bagged.

Snow is falling today in Missoula. No accumlation here yet, but in the mountains there definitetly is. And just a little further to the east the mountain locations got hammered yesterday. The Tobacco Roots have recieved 60" out of this storm, check out the Albro Lake Snotel. Maybe this is a sign for a good winter, who knows but I like what the Farmers Almanac has to say:

Winter will be much colder and drier than normal, on average, with snowfall above normal in the north and below normal in the south. The coldest temperatures will occur in late December; early, mid-, and late January; and early February. The snowiest periods will be in mid-November, early and mid-December, mid- and late January, and late February.

And lastly, just a screen shot of the Montana Highway cameras. Check out all the snow, huzzah.

Highlights of 2007-08 season

I'm on daddy day care today, T is out and about enjoying some time to herself. She opted out of skiing today, despite my prodding she just wasn't into it. I found myself reminising a bit, and pulled up my ski notes for this winter. Wow, it was a good year even though it was cut at least a full 3 months short. There will be great skiing this year into May. All the resorts are boasting a 100" base, thats the best its been since the big winter of 96-97.

Anyway, here are a few hightlights that noted:

• 19 ski days (12/6 - 1/29)
• 13 days of +6" of powder
• One waist deep day (see this video - Trench Warfare)
  
  
  Lolo Pass deepness - Trench Warfare from freakofsnow on Vimeo.
  
  

Update on the knee: Saw the doctor at the beginning of the week, his prognosis: 2 degrees range of motion difference b/t the good and bad knee = GREAT! I am spinning 8-10 miles a day. I'm also starting to be able to lift more, 100lbs on the leg press (both legs), 20 lbs on the hamstring pulley curl, squatting 45lbs. All in all the last 3 days the knee has felt great, the pain has really subsided and I have minimal swelling.