Obligatory Posting

My apologies to the tens of thousands of people whose days revolve around whether or not this blog gets updated. One of the problems with a free internet service, like blogger.com is that you get what you pay for. Blogger is a great forum, however it is unreliable at times. I had this nice post all ready to be uploaded and WHALLA the site went down, and so did my twenty minutes of work. Oh well...

I was pretty excited last weekend as I had my first encounter with Wintery Mix, and no that is not some local prostitute, but in fact a term used to describe junk precipitation, a mix of rain, snow, hail, and whatever else overcomes gravity. We had a cold windy front rush through around 1 PM and drop the temps to around 35, into the not quite rain, not quite snow territory. A nice dusting of snow coated the hills around Reno, and a I walked though a few flurries. I also experienced graupel, which is a small white frozen pellet ... no there were no flying bunnies above me.

Yesterday I went out to hike Mt. Judah, a twin peak with Donner Summit just west of Truckee in the granite encrusted Sierras. There was about 1 foot of snow along the trail which made for some excitement as my feet are not snowworthy just yet. Despite the snow, I actually worked up a sweat on the way up. Of course I reached the peak at around 4 pm, and came down the shaded side as the wind picked up and the sun dipped below the horizon. Let's just say that I think I still had hands by the time I reached the car, although they were not functional for at least 15 minutes. Note to self: gloves.

Climatologically that should be my last high Sierra outing for the season...although variability is an inherent quality of the weather, so who knows? I am heading down to Southern California this week where recent temps have been in the upper 80's and low 90's with offshore Santa Ana wind conditions being a frequent guest.

I have committed to being a co-Secretary, or vice-Secretary for the local American Meteorological Society Chapter. Myself, a college, and a local TV weather personality are going to be running the show, hopefully trying to liven up the world of weather to the community.