First Frost

This morning's low of 30 degrees at our weather station and 29 degrees at AGRIMET marked the first official below freezing temperature at the Hood River city elevation this Fall. It's a little earlier than average (Oct 20); once again global warming has failed miserably in extending the growing season here. Maybe next year.

It looks like I was able to temporarily save our very abundant pepper crop last night by covering it with Reemay fabric (from Good News Gardening), which can protect down to 30 degrees. The peppers do appear slightly stunned this morning but not melted, unlike the cucumber and squash plants which were unprotected. The tomatoes were barely nipped, since they are more protected by being up against the south side of the house.

One more cold night tonight, and then temperatures should moderate. The forecasts indicate no rain at least through next weekend.

Mt Adams has a bright shiny new coat of snow, as seen from our house:

Record Rain?

Maybe, maybe not. The previous record rainfall on any October 4th was 0.42 inches (1939).
We received 0.56 inches at our weather station yesterday. At the official Hood River AGRIMET station, the provisional rainfall data shows 0.41 inches. So take your pick (along with all the other weather stations around here).

In any event, it was a good soaking, and lawns that were allowed to go dormant over the summer should be perking up dramatically. Now the trick will be to catch an afternoon when the lawns are dry enough to mow. Especially if you've just fertilized the lawn, like me. It's always something.

This water year is starting off impressively. So far, 5 days into it, we've received 1.10 inches of rain, 0.89 inches above normal.

Speaking of possible records, we can add another record low arctic sea ice to the rapidly growing list of things that just don't seem to be heading in a good direction whatsoever. For mankind, that is. I suspect that the Earth (and especially the Universe) could really care less one way or another. Stay tuned...

This week's Hood River Weather poll wonders whether you will vote for Smith or Merkley for Oregon senator. If nothing else, that race has provided some entertaining negative ads.

First Frost

The average first frost in Hood River is Oct 20. We had our first frost this morning, with temperatures dipping down to 29 degrees. Only six days later than average. Last year, the earliest frost was Oct 10 (31 degrees), with a deep freeze of 20 degrees on 10/31 (Halloween!)

In an earlier post, I wondered out loud if global warming would extend the frost free season. Apparently not, at least for this year. Stay tuned.

Two More Records

Two more record warm nights, which makes 11 such records for the year. The September 14 low of 60 degrees beat the previous record of 58 (1965), and the September 15 low of 60 broke the previous record of 59 (1942).

That's 11 "warmest night" records so far this year. This is getting interesting. So this week's web poll asks whether these records are likely due to global warming.

Yes, I know, it's a simplistic question with simplistic choices for answers. On such a complex global issue as climate change, local trends don't necessary mean much. Still, taken along with all the other worldwide evidence...

Yet Again

This morning's low of 64 was 1 degree warmer than the previous record "high low" of 63 set in 1944. This is the 7th such record this year. I can't say for sure that this is a record year for numbers of record "high lows", but it sure seems impressive.

Although certainly not proof of global warming, it's pointing in that direction. As the climate warms, predications indicate that night time lows will trend warmer, but daytime highs won't be affected so much (at least initially).

So will this translate into later "first frost" dates in the Fall and earlier "last frost" dates in the Spring, thereby extending the growing season? I wouldn't really mind that, but I'm sure there are negative consequences also, such as less snowpack, less water supply, and more problems with insect pests.

It's always something....

More Temperature Records

Now this is getting darn suspicious... Even though this summer has had cooler than normal high temperatures, we broke more "high low" temperature records yesterday and today. That makes 6 such records since June, and 8 this year. Yesterday's low of 62 surpassed the previous record of 61 (1978), and today's low of 61 broke the previous record of 60 (1977).

This puts another notch in the belt for possible global warming. As the climate warms, predications indicate that night time lows will trend warmer, but daytime highs won't be affected so much (at least initially). Of course, a few records here locally don't make a global trend. Stay tuned...

Web Poll Feb 26

Cool, rainy and possibly snowy during the coming week. This morning, though, we are enjoying partly sunny skies (In the winter, I much prefer that phrase to "partly cloudy skies").

(Picture from our house in Hood River looking at Underwood Mt across the River in WA)

A new web poll this week regarding political leanings, suggested by Rick H. I myself am sitting on the fence at "neutral". In fiscal areas I am pretty conservative, and in social areas and foreign affairs more liberal. Currently it sort of balances out to neutral. Unfortunately, both major political parties aren't all that different anymore and neither of them are particularly fiscally responsible or seemingly even capable of dealing with long term issues that don't appear to require urgent immediate action but actually really do. Like climate change, energy policies, budget deficits, health care reform, social security and medicare funding...

I think it's human nature to allow big, slowly developing problems to just kinda sort themselves out, especially if the immediate choices are painful, difficult, or involve sacrifices. It's easier to put them off. Unfortunately, we might not be very happy with the future results of putting things off.

Regarding past web site polls, I am somewhat relieved that 88% of site viewers are either happy with the HR Weather Site layout, or have no opinion. I do plan on creating a more state of the art site design at some point. "After retirement" sounds like a reasonable plan. (See? It's only human nature, or least mine, to procrastinate...)

It Used to Be Colder

Westerly winds this morning! We haven't had west winds for over a week. Luckily, there hasn't been much of an fog inversion layer for the past couple of days, and it has been mostly sunny and cool.

Speaking of cool, today marks the 57th anniversary of the coldest temperature in Hood River's official records. On Feb 3rd 1950, the low temp dropped to -21 degrees. Granted, the temperature has almost certainly been colder than that, since official records only go back to 1928. It was probably colder, say, in the last ice age, perhaps around the time of the Missoula Floods, which did a lot towards carving out the Columbia River Gorge as we know it today. There was an excellent PBS special a while back on the subject. Awesome stuff.

And speaking of awesome stuff, the IPCC's report on upcoming climate change has been released. There is now official international scientific agreement that:

• Increased levels of greenhouse gases in a planet's atmosphere tend to increase temperatures (duh).

• By rapidly releasing the geologic store of carbon (fossil fuels that took millions of years to accumulate) into the atmosphere over a relatively short time period (100 years or so now), humans have been directly responsible for most of the increase in greenhouse gases.

• If we want to do anything about this, we best be taking global action pretty soon.

My personal opinion is that, given human nature (and my own skeptical nature):

• Our species has a poor record of working together on issues of global magnitude.
  

• Our global economy (and our spectacular growth in population, infrastructure, and technology over the past 100 years) has been possible mostly due to the era of inexpensive fossil fuels, which is now drawing to a close.

• Since the biggest step in reducing fossil fuel use is to actually use less of it, and since that could severely impact the global economy's "need to continually grow", it seems unlikely that meaningful change is going to happen in a timely fashion. Such change is more likely to happen if fossil fuel prices stay high or go higher, but then again... the economy...
  

But I could be wrong. Maybe mankind will undertake substantial changes rapidly enough. And even though the science is pretty clear on the warming effect of increasing greenhouse gases, we don't know for sure the impact of all the positive and negative feedback mechanisms in the biosphere, and probably won't know until they happen. Not to mention climate tipping points.


In any event, if it were me (which it is), I wouldn't own or buy land less than 50 feet above sea level, and I would try my best to think globally and act locally. For better or worse, we are all in this together. We are indeed living in very interesting times.