epistolary

[ilanarama]

Dear La Niña,

It's not that I actually mind walking downtown in shorts and a t-shirt in mid-November. But the mountains look kind of stark, all brown with no snow on them. More importantly, we ponied up for weekday passes at Purgatory Durango Mountain Resort, and we would like to get our money's worth this year. And of course, this year's snowfall will turn into next summer's water supply, and the plants I put in the yard this summer are going to die if I can't give them at least a little.

Yes, I know that it's still early in the winter, and our big snowfalls typically happen later. But we're currently at 10% of normal snowpack for this time of year, which does not bode well. So if you don't mind, could you move the jet stream just a tad southward? The San Juan River Basin will thank you.

Sincerely yours,
Ilana

Comments

[frosch.livejournal.com]

hey now. we're having a drought down here too. if you haven't been following the news, atlanta is shriveling up and in danger of blowing away.

rumor has it that a cage match between Sonny Perdue (http://www.gov.state.ga.us/) and Bob Riley (http://www.governor.state.al.us/) is in the offing.

my money would be on Bob even if he weren't collecting my taxes.

[catbear.livejournal.com]

I talked to my ex yesterday. All of the flood control lakes in north GA are mud pits. It's tough to sell a house up there with a lovely view of a mud pit. And gas is supposed to hit $4 a gallon. Makes living in a rural area pretty damn expensive when a trip to the grocery store costs ten bucks. She's kind of trapped up there...

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

I find it ironic, though, that Atlanta's drought means that Atlanta's getting only about 150% of what we here in Durango get in a good year! And it's not a good year here; we're down to about 75% of normal. (In numbers, you guys already have had more rain than we expect for an entire year.)

But of course absolute numbers don't mean much; you guys have an ecosystem geared for ample rain, not to mention about 100 times our metro area population, and you don't have these nice mountain reservoirs (aka snowpack) to maintain a water supply. So I totally have sympathy, believe me! It's just that it's funny when I look at the actual numbers.

[frosch.livejournal.com]

I know you mountaineers don't believe in cotton, but we grow a lot of it down here. Or not, when the weather's like it's been the last couple of years.

We're actually not hurting too badly in Alabama; what's got Perdue all mad is that the Corps is still (or was until recently) releasing water from Lake Lanier into the Tennessee valley. There's plenty of whining in the newspapers, but there's also a cotton field abutting my yard that had 7' plants in it this year.

Yes, that's what they call "tall cotton". I haven't been in there to see who's been defecating in it.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

And the lead article in today's local newspaper stated that we have had no precipitation here since Oct. 5, and that October's precipitation total was .43 inches, as compared to 1.87 normal. Time to get the Southern Utes to do a rain (or snow) dance!

[de-wynken.livejournal.com]

dangit..here I am stuck on the rez and missing out on Durango's fine extended short skirt season..sigh.

Tell ya what..I drove up to Mancos and into Echo Basin, Saturday, in the jeep with the rear window down. It was cold!! There's ice up there! And a wee bit of snow.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Hee! All the little Ft. Lewis girls are strutting their stuff.

And you saw snow in the La Platas? Woo! I guess the problem here is that I'm looking up at the SE faces of stuff, where everything melts immediately in these temperatures with this sunshine.

[de-wynken.livejournal.com]

I bet they are, the wee trollops!

Yes..all the northern faces had some..granted we're not talking endless snowdrifts, just some slight ground cover..and foot slick ice over some of the trails. I had to educate my friend on the fine art of sliding backwards on it till a tire catches the dirt on the side of the trail.. ;)

[saramwrap.livejournal.com]

I just got back from Denver... and I was so surprised by the balmy weather!

When I left DC, it was windy and just above freezing (it almost snowed while I was gone!). I had looked at Denver weather, expecting cold and snow and sweater and whatnot... and it was downright tropical by comparison. Personally, I can't really complain -- I enjoyed the warmth that DC won't have again until 2008*. But it's definitely weird.

* Yeah, it could totally warm up here again. Maryland is extra-crazy like that.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Heh. Everyone thinks of Colorado as cold in the winter, but the temperature typically varies all winter, from OMG fucking freezing to balmy and beautiful, then back again. It's a matter of topography and geography. By contrast, Boston, where I lived for three years, drops below freezing in December and doesn't warm up again until March.

[revbiscuit.livejournal.com]

Not sure what I can do about snow, but I wish someone'd take some of our rain. I went out for a run at lunchtime today, and could have done with mini windscreen wipers for my glasses. It was bucketing down.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

It hasn't rained here in six weeks. It's supposed to get colder in about four days, but there's no rain (or snow) in the forecast for the next two weeks.

[alembicresearch.livejournal.com]

We're running about 200% of normal
rainfall here right now.
We had some pretty early rain in October,
and then it was quite a good indian summer
for a few weeks, then It dumped on the little
party we had all saturday (fortunately for us
it was an inside affair).

While we were warm and nug inside drinking lots of beer,
people were dying in a blizzard up in the
Sierra, because they thought they'd go
hiking in t-shirts and shorts.
Which isn't very wise in November, even if you're in
California.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Yeah, people are dumb. Last year it snowed during hunting season (late October) and a bunch of hunters had to get rescued.

Jet Stream

[(Anonymous)]

Snow ... we are sending it down ... we had enough of winter months, could do with a break in snow (and related work in the driveway). A few months agon, Environment Canada told us we were to expect a "warm" winter ... now they say we are getting the real stuff, a winter we did not have for the last 15 years. Yeah! Forecasters!

Good luck!

H&M

Re: Jet Stream

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Hee, we are getting it right now! Yay!

I know, they told us we would have a dry winter and Colorado has more than 100% of snowpack for this time of year (a very good thing)!