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Headed over to the lake today to go to Eagle Days and check out the Snowy Owls that everyone is talking about. Snapped a couple pics of the owls and a flock of Snow Geese. Apparently we just missed the Bald Eagles.
The first of the Snowy Owls. This was taken by the dam as the owl was moving a few feet down the shore.
This one was hanging out on top of one of the docks by the marina.
This was the Snow Geese starting to take off. Taken from a long way away so the pic isn’t that great.
In a nutshell December was mild with some more much needed rainfall and no more than a dusting of snow. But, more specifically it was the wettest December since we’ve lived here. We received 2.84” of rain in December. The previous wettest December was 2006 with 1.73” and the average has been 1.3”, including snow melt. While this rainfall has helped to ease the drought we could still use several inches of rain or snowfall. The average temp was 36.3 which is well above the average December of 31.5. The warmest temp for the month was December 31st with a high of 65. The coolest temp for the month was 13.9 on the 7th and the coldest wind chill was 3.5 at 4:47 am on the 7th. This was the first December since we’ve lived here that there were no single digit temps for the entire month of December. This was the second warmest December we’ve had, December of ‘06 was a little warmer with an average temp of 38.47. The peak wind gust of the month was 35 mph on New Years Eve. A second webcam was installed in December. The view is just to the left of the original cam and looks to the NNW. Both webcams can be viewed here. Just a few weather stats I’ve compiled because I got bored. This years growing season has came to an end after we spent a couple hours below freezing early this morning. It was below 32 from about 5:30 to 8:10 this morning. Is that really a killing freeze. I’ll let you know for sure in a few days. My guess is that it was a killing freeze for plants out in the open but probably not for plants near the house. The banana plants are the best indicator. There are also no set rules that I can find as to what a freeze is that “officially” ends the growing season. I’m going with at least a couple hours below freezing for the stats that follow. Could these stats be argued? Yes. Do I care? No. I have determined that the growing season ended early this morning after we’d spent more than two hours below freezing. It probably wasn’t a hard freeze as we didn’t get to 28 or below, but it was a freeze. For the stats below I’ve only gone back to temps that were below 32 for a couple hours. I have not done the research to find hard freezes that definitely end the growing season. This is not a scientific study, just something I’ve thrown together. “Un”officially the growing season this year was 206 days. This was the second shortest growing season since we’ve lived here (first full year of stats was 2007). 2007 had a growing season of 204 days, 2008 was a very close third at 207 days. Last year the growing season was a long 226 days. 2009 is debatable. Officially, at least to my records, the growing season came in at 211 days. However, the killing frost of November 5 was very borderline. The next no doubt about it freeze did not occur until November 26. Add those 21 extra days and the growing season would have been a record breaking 232 days. Average all this together, and for the first 5 full years that we have lived here the average growing season has been 210.8 days. Killing frosts have not been accounted for, only days that were below freezing. The earliest, last killing Spring freeze was on March 22 in 2010. The latest, last killing freeze was on April 9th of 2007. The April 9th freeze was brutal as it was the last day of several that were very long and hard freezes. March of 2007 was very warm and most plants had started growing early. All of my grape plants had already started growing and did not recover from this late freeze. The earliest killing freeze occurred on October 20th of 2011. The latest killing freeze occurred on November 5th of 2009. The November 5 of 2009 freeze is up for debate. It got below freezing but not for very long and not below 30.8. The next real freeze of that year was on November 26th. There you go, my very unofficial report of freezes for the area since we’ve lived here. We had a quick shot of rain and wind gusts over 50mph with these storms. Made this quick little time lapse of the storms as they were approaching.
 August 8, 2011 thunderstorm
Go here for a few pics from this Summer’s vacation to Colorado and Wyoming. The vacation that allowed us to skip the worst two weeks of the worst heat wave in years! Our AC just went out but it made it through the brutal heat after we returned and it just needs to be restocked with some freon.
Here’s a couple pics that you’ll find in the Picassa web album.
The buffalo’s were just starting to shed their winter coat in the middle of July.
A little HDR fun on the Arkansas River in Colorado
Just walking down the street minding his own business.  |
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