Warm Storm

Today was (and still is) a totally fascinating weather day in Hood River. For me, it started at 5 am as I staggered out onto the deck with my first cup of coffee. I had heard the wind howling earlier in the night and figured the broken clouds might provide an excellent view of the full moon. I wasn't disappointed. I attempted to take some pictures of the moon with the clouds swirling past it. No go. Kinda looks like a blurry streetlight. My picture taking skills definitely need some work.

Anyway, we had a peak gust at our house of 36 mph at 6:23 am. That's the second highest gust of the year here, surpassed only by the 37 mph gust on January 17.

This is an unseasonably warm storm. This morning's low of 57 most likely set a record for the "high low" for any Nov 12. The previous record was 48 degrees in 1999. Then, afternoon temperatures warmed up to 65 degrees, tying the record high set in 1990. At my workplace in The Dalles, the high reached a balmy 74 degrees. (Don't ya just love the word "balmy"?)

As I write this (6:05 pm), it's still 60 degrees out, and raining heavily. Regionally, there is some concern about localized flooding, but this early in the season there's not enough snow to melt to cause more severe widespread flooding. It's more a problem with leaves clogging storm drains and water backing up.

I sure do enjoy stormy weather, just short of the point where it starts destroying things.

October Revisited

Compared to historical averages, October at our weather station was cooler, less windy, and drier.

The average temperature was 0.1 degrees cooler than long term averages, and 1.3 degrees cooler than more recent averages (2000-2007). Wind speeds were lower than average, with SW winds predominating.

The month started off with lots of rain, but ended up 0.82 inches below average.

There were no temperature or rainfall records set in October at the official Hood River Agrimet station.

The data below is from our personal weather station. The "historical average" numbers for temperature and rainfall are from the MCAREC Agrimet data. Historical wind average is from our own station's 2000 to 2007 data. It's important to note that average wind speeds include all 24 hours of the day and night, which is why they are way lower than daytime peak winds. In addition, the wind speed at our station is considerably lower than on the Columbia River.

	High	Low	Average	Historical Average
Temperature (F)	80	30	51.2	51.3
Wind (mph)	27		1.8	2.4
Rainfall (in)	0.56		1.56 (total)	2.38

Whew

Thank goodness THAT'S over. I don't know how many more Presidential elections I can take. They're way too polarizing, and way too superficial for my liking.

The final Hood River Weather site poll was Obama 60%, McCain 32%. Nationally, the results were Obama 53%, McCain 46%. In Oregon, Obama 54%, McCain 42%. I don't have the results for Hood River County yet.

Meanwhile, the weather continues on its random walk into late Fall/Winter with lots of rain, some snow in the mountains, and tree leaves falling rapidly all over everything. It's almost as if... as if the Universe somehow goes on its way with very little concern about the political and economic concerns of humans on this tiny rock 93 million miles from an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy in a Universe full of so much more than we can possibly imagine.

Rhythm of the Rain

November 1, and the rains have returned. October started off wet, but ended up drier than average. Can't complain, cause we've had some great Fall colors, warm sunny days, and some really cool pastel sunrises.

Bring on the rain. We need it. The next 4 months are critical for returning moisture to the soil and adequate snowpack to the mountains.

Every now and again, when it's gray, rainy, and a tad bit melancholy out, I get the song "Rhythm of the Rain" stuck in my head. It's usually the version by the late great Dan Fogelberg, which I can't embed due to copyright, but here's the link.

Looking around YouTube for the video, I was reminded that the song was originally written and performed by the 60's pop group "The Cascades", who are still kicking around in concert and sounding better than ever:



Why they have aged so much while I remain practically untouched by the passing of time is a mystery.

P.S. Good luck getting the song out of your head...

Leverage This

Those pesky Credit Default Swaps (CDS), which have turned a housing boom/bust cycle into a full blown global financial meltdown, are even worse than I thought.

It was 2 years ago, upon reading a lot about Wall Street's and insurance company's invention of CDS's, derivatives, their connection to the housing boom/mortgages, and their potential disastrous consequences, that I decided to move pretty much out of stocks. I was a year early, and missed out on some big gains, but also some big losses. It was one of my luckier market timing moves, and it almost makes up for all my typically terrible stock market timing moves earlier in life. I am VERY SLOWLY moving a little cash back into equities, but today I read this:

Unbelievably, CDS's were also set up to insure the debt of ENTIRE NATIONS.

This is not good. Not good at all. Talk about a domino effect... Goodbye to some insurance companies, goodbye to some sovereign nations' finances. Goodbye totally leveraged global financial house of cards. It was fun while it lasted.

The weather in Hood River, however, continues to be fantastic, fun, and lasting. Perfect for leveraging these warm days, cool nights, and great Fall colors into some great outdoor activities!