what a winter!

The latest official report is that Portland's up to 23.2 inches of total snowfall this winter. For PDX, that's a lot: #15 on our snowiest winters*. In my lifetime only 1968 rises higher, #9 at 34" - but no white Christmas in '68, and no flakes on my birthday so there. Speaking of which, we're nearly through the gauntlet of holidays now: Christmas, anniversary, birthday, then Valentines Day (no, Super Bowl Sunday doesn't count :^). We celebrated quietly at a local Irish pub which serves gluten-free beer. The next morning we had about 2" on the ground, so my birthday saw plenty of flakes and overnight accumulation! Add about an inch more on the 27th and that's where we stand. Here is a particularly nice image from the most recent storm:

So now it's on to February - wonder if we can find 10.81 more inches of snow?

*I just noticed that, if you remove 19th-century reports from the list, we're #5!

home again, time for more parties..

We had a fine time in Centralia for our 2nd anniversary! Amtrak and McMenamins' Olympic Club did the work, we just went along for the ride. The Club is an old-style place, stuck in the early 20th century when water closets and showers were down the hall. We wandered through downtown and picked up a few fine antiques including a nice old mantel-clock, had great meals and watched the latest Bond flick before turning in Sunday night. It's a two-hour train ride and a one-block walk from downtown Portland to the Olympic Club, and mostly-clear skies kept things chilly but pretty all weekend.
Now it's on to the next event. Sadly, I felt crummy on Inauguration Day, when we had hoped to go join a local celebration; my wife was crushed, for a while. Now it's my birthday and time to party again - I'm not 100 percent but will do my best to be energetic this weekend. What a stretch this past month has been!

A few shots of the fun can be found Here!

and so into 2009!

Well, for the most part we survived December '08 - the snowiest ever, breaking the 1968 record (whoopee!).  It also broke long-standing records for Christmas-day snowfall and snow-on-ground on Christmas day.  Now I've truly had a white Christmas in Portland, and seeing our lack of snow-removal equipment it's clear that white Christmases in Portland are a bad thing.  Sad, but true.  My sister is now dealing with water seeping into their newly-renovated basement, and floods are becoming a problem as warm rain on old snow looks for a way to the Pacific.  

I began 2009 with a high-quality head cold, with a bit of anti-fever (97°) thrown in.  Despite my lethargy and stuffiness, we headed north to visit my in-laws - the trip we were supposed to take at Christmastime. **  We used all twelve days to get Christmas in this year, with a final gift swap occurring on January 5th, the true Epiphany day from my childhood.  Beyond the visits and a few more bits of loot, my wife's cousin was married, so that added to the festivities.  Our own anniversary is coming up next week, so I'd better stop typing & start planning :)

** While there, I added at least four more inches to my winter snowfall total.. in fact, the morning we left town Portland added another 1½" (after 2" of rain - that must have been quite a snowfall to stack nearly two inches of snow on standing water!!).  At a rough guess I've now seen (12+2+5 =) 19 inches of snow, which must be a lifetime best as well. Rumors have reached me of another cold spell late in January, so we'll see where my final snowfall amount ends!

* never mind *

After two failed storms, the third one that began early Saturday morning and continues as I write (Sunday 6PM) is the charm.  This now rivals 1968 as my biggest snowstorm here - two monsters (by local standards) in my fifty-one years in Portland.  Drop in on the PDXsnow site for pretty pictures!  Foot-tall drifts were sealed overnight in 1/8" of ice, but the air cooled again and we're back into snow for the forseeable future - a white Christmas like I've never seen.  We have had snowfall, and perhaps even an inch or two (1990 comes to mind), but even 1968 failed to produce thanks to a warm rain on Christmas Eve and day.  For me, this really is without precedent!
The sad part is that we had high hopes of Christmas in Anacortes this year - with each forecast showing cooler weather, it's pretty much an impossible 250-mile drive.  Even Amtrak chose not to head north last night, and I'm not sure they felt any better about it today.  Therefore, I'm off all week, "stuck" at home, with snow to play in and snowshoes/skis to play with.  My wife can use the snowshoes, I'll just shuffle along beside her.  O what fun!

slow learner!

You'd think that 40 years of heartache was enough, but no - Portland again missed out on a fine snowstorm. Oh it snowed well enough, but with a 30mph south wind it was 34° and wet semi-snow most of the afternoon. We may wake up to 2" on the ground in the morning.. but that isn't good enough. I'd put money on 1/2 inch of ice for Sunday instead of the currently-expected snowstorm. I'm tired of being denied my second lifetime-best snow season!

party like it's .. 1968?

I've lived in Portland my whole life, and only one year stands out as truly wintry in a snow sense: 1968. A friend went to Hawaii for the holidays & I promised to keep a journal. It went sorta like this:

• 12/19 snow, which stuck around a few days
  
• 12/24-25 warm rain = muddy brown Christmas
  
• 12/26 Huge snowstorm w/drifts
  
• 12/30 Another one atop the first pile!  Icicles on the roof as tall as me!

It was amazing.  Now it's 2008 and I've never seen anything quite like it. We had snow this past weekend, a mere inch or three, but it hasn't left. We may get six inches tomorrow, or two, or icy rain, or ??? And another snowstorm is expected Sunday. Could it be a repeat, at last? Doesn't take much to get this old kid excited.. please visit for shots of the first event, and perhaps other events soon!

On another topic, we held a nice brunch at our home this past weekend. Friends, neighbors, co-workers and the like dropped by and brought food - a fun day!

holiday update

We've put up the tree early, so we can celebrate locally before heading north for Christmas. Warm temps means we could go high and catch a tree at 4000 feet, where the noble and subalpine firs live - nice trees for the $5 Forest Service permit! Weather forecasts are suggesting cold weather on the way; we'll see how that impacts the season. We've had little enough rain, it would be odd if we went straight to snow (unlikely at 50' elevations, but not unknown). Hope everyone reading this has a fine December holiday season!

adventure and excitement?

Well, it could be considered that.  

I declared war on back-yard-invading plants, for the first time in quite a while.  My primary goal was the blackberries, which had reclaimed a lot of territory along the back fence since I ripped them from the ground & installed the fence in 2003.  I did some fine damage to their plans today & piled plenty of debris into the recycle bin, then took a break.  I noted another task that was probably more important, and more difficult: the neighbor's bamboo had begun to sprout about 5 feet into my property, and just below a fine viburnum.  After my break I grabbed shovel, loppers and a hatchet and got to work on the new foe.  As the day waned I was exhausted but satisfied, having ripped out many tendrils beneath the surface and pushed all that I found back to the property line.  Several of the roots were over three feet long, and one massive one was closer to eight feet!  I am sure that somewhere beneath my plant, enough root remains to trouble me again - but for now I claim victory in this first skirmish!  

But oh boy do I ache...