8:00 am temp: 8
Yesterday: 29/8
Normal: 29/15
Plenty of snow out there, and the most ice we’ve seen yet this year on the lake.
We got 8 inches of new, fluffy snow in about an hour on Friday evening. It’s made for great skiing.
Today is going to be sunny, cold, and beautiful. Forecast high of 11 with wind chill of minus 10. We’re headed out for a day of cross country skiing.
8:00 am temp: 14
Yesterday: 32/17
Normal: 29/14
Corn spilled along the train tracks
This morning I saw a young doe get hit by the train. It was the Amtrak train that hit her, but she was on the tracks feeding on corn spilled from a freight train.
We went down and dragged her body off the tracks and called the food bank to see if they could come harvest the meat.
Rest in peace girl, you just didn’t understand about trains.
14 ° Continue reading
8:00 am temp: 12
Yesterday: 11/3
Normal: 30/17
Ice has started forming along the edges of the lake.
Looking out toward the street this morning.
The ice grows mostly at night. It started three days ago, and each day it extends farther out into the lake. Already more of the lake is covered with ice than at any point last winter.
It warmed up to 12 at our house yesterday, so Tess and I resumed our mid-day walks. A couple weeks ago that would have seemed cold.
This morning we woke up to 7 or 8 inches of fluffy snow and big flakes coming down.
8:00 am temp: 6
Yesterday: 8/-14
Normal: 31/17
Well, I didn’t hibernate yesterday after all. The sun came out and we were lured outside to try skating on the Whitefish River.
There was good, thick ice on the river. Steve chopped a couple holes with his hatchet and at about 4 inches down there was still no sign of water. The surface was pretty good, slightly bumpy, and there was a thin layer of snow on top.
We skated for miles, the only ones on the river, except for…the person who had planted the idea, Don Scharfe, and his wife. I forgot my camera, so above is a video Steve shot.
I enjoyed the changing views and the quiet of cruising down the river. There’s snow in the forecast, which may mean the end of ice skating, but there could be some good skiing on the river ahead this winter.
8:00 am temp: -5
Yesterday: 4/-13
Normal: 31/17
Thin sheets of ice collect along the shore
I came home last night around 11:30. It was -10 at our house. It took a while to warm up my toes. I’m hunkered down at home today.
We saw the first signs of ice forming on the lake yesterday, thin sheets that the wind had pushed up against the shore.
A friend who lives south of town told me she saw what looked like a big cloud yesterday morning, which was the plume of steam coming off the lake. It’s amazing how long it takes, even in this severe cold, for the water temperature in the lake to drop to freezing.
Forecast for tonight, Dec. 6
Tonight’s forecast contains some numbers we don’t see very often. Minus 46 F, wonder what that feels like. Should I venture outside in the night to find out?
8:00 am temp: 1
Yesterday: 18/-4
Normal: 32/18
Steam rising off the lake this morning. It was 2 degrees F according to our thermometer.
It’s been cold here this week, and will get even colder. A second Arctic front is expected to arrive tomorrow, bringing wind and lows of -16 and -19 F the next couple nights. That’s serious winter the likes of which we haven’t seen in several years.
I’m thinking it looks good for the lake to freeze this year. That usually means some good skiing.
8:00 AM temp: 21
Yesterday: 28/23
Normal: 34/21
Four-legged icicle.
There were some interesting ice formations along the edge of Whitefish Lake yesterday.
What a beautiful planet we live on.
8:00 AM temp: 7
Yesterday: 38/11
Normal: 37/23
Winter evening on Big Mountain
I took the dog and the showshoes and headed up to the mountain after work. It’s a good start to the winter for the mountain. There’s 50 inches of snow at the summit, and a week of cold weather ahead. The snow making machines were running full blast today. Opening day is Dec. 7, so we locals can tromp all over the mountain until then.
Somebody loves the snow
8:00 AM temp: 59
Yesterday: 63/45
Normal: 73/45
The neighbors
We finally saw a fawn yesterday. I’ve been watching for weeks, but apparently they come later in the spring than I expected. This one was born next door, on a fenced lot of nearly an acre. The fawn is out of sight in the brush most of the time, but ventured out with mama this evening. Mama comes and goes, but the fawn will be on that property until it is old enough to jump the fence.
Last year a fawn was also born on that property, and one evening later in the summer we saw several adult deer on the outside of the fence and the fawn frantically running the fence line but unable to get out. It was hard to watch, but it is probably actually a safe place for a young deer to grow up, out of reach of neighborhood dogs.
8:00 AM temp: 49
Yesterday: 62/46
Normal: 66/39
Spring green
I heard some noise this morning and went outside to shoo away any woodpeckers that were attacking the roof or exhaust vents, as they occasionally do, and saw two flickers sparring. Ah, Spring.
Someone is excited to have plants and flowers on the deck this summer. But mid-May is still a bit early for potted plants in this climate – a low of 30 is forecast in a few days. I’ll have to baby them.
I’ve recently returned from the red rock country of southern Utah. Arrived home at night and woke up to Spring, definitely with a capital ‘S’. The view out the window has turned aggressively green. The aspen are especially vivid.
Fortunately the male robin who was valiantly conquering his reflection last Spring, and making a mess of the windows on one side of the house, has not turned in a repeat performance. I was in the process of buying the house at that time and it was vacant, so he was free to bully his reflection undisturbed. Hopefully having residents in the house will dissuade him from picking up the gauntlet again.
8:00 AM temp: 24
Yesterday: 41/24
Normal: 56/31
We watched as a black bear walked through the yard one night in November. It left these tracks next to the house.
The bears are out and about again. According to the paper, a turkey hunter in the southern part of the valley was charged by a grizzly that was, along with her two yearling cubs, feeding on a deer carcass. A motion camera subsequently placed near the spot filmed a large male grizzly feeding on the carcass the same evening.
Closer to home, it would be surprising to see a grizzly in the neighborhood, but we did have a black bear scavenging for garbage here in the fall. We came home from a weekend of camping to find a bag of trash (not ours) strewn around the back yard along with several piles of bear droppings. While on our walks over the next week or so we occasionally saw garbage cans knocked over. Then one night around 2 a.m. Steve happened to get up and look out the window, catching sight of the bear walking up through the back yard toward the house.
As the bear walked around the side of the house we ran to a glass door and pulled up the shade, and the bear was standing just a few feet away from us. It ambled on around to the front of the house and across the street. When it started checking out garbage cans we decided to try to scare it off, waving flashlights and yelling from our front porch. It wasn’t too worried about us, but eventually did shuffle off.
There was a skiff of fresh snow, so in the morning we followed his tracks around the neighborhood. He was obviously looking to strike it lucky with an unsecured garbage can. It didn’t look like he found any that night, but sadly people seem to be quite casual about leaving the cans outside with garbage in them.
8:00 AM temp: 39
Yesterday: 52/22
Normal: 55/31
Spring visitors
The deer are back. And so am I, after travels south to find the sun. The grass is starting to green up, but there is snow in the hills and the forecast calls for an inch or two of snow here in the valley today. The fluctuations of spring.
There is something comforting about watching the ebb and flow of the seasons. It feels eternal, timeless, certain. Yet, this is an illusion. The earth bears the marks of historic variations in climate, from ice ages to warmer periods. But no change has occurred as rapidly as the one that we are currently in the early stages of. What will spring look like here in 10 years?
8:00 AM temp: 25
Yesterday: 39/27
Normal: 48/27
There are a couple dozen swans on the lake this morning. I’ve been watching them through the telescope, white bodies floating on the gray water with snow lightly falling. It’s beautiful in a Japanese, wintry sort of way.
Tundra or trumpeter swans? I can’t tell from this distance.
Backyard Climate Report 