Merging the lives of a performing arts accountant and a square dance caller

We haven't had much of a winter here. A protracted period of temps 10 to 15 degrees higher than normal. Virtually no precipition for three months. Recently, nary a cloud to be seen.

Although I'm all for shirt sleeve weather in February, it just makes me nervous for what the real Spring will be like.

Average high, Jan 22
49 F

Record high, Jan 22
66 F (1950)

Today's forecast
64 F

Shirt sleeves in January! Woowoo!

The result of having rusty gutters in sub-freezing weather.

Albuquerque joined the bandwagon with this brush with winter today. Yesterday's VERY light dusting of snow quickly disappeared into a fine (although blowy) day.

Today was a different matter, though. It started snowing this morning, and didn't quit until sometime late this evening. Not a heavy snow either, just a light snow/sleet that kept on and on with a bit of a breeze behind it. It never even got above 32F today. I think the high was about 30. The roads finally started freezing up treacherously about 5pm when the sun went down.

Danny had some errands to do (yet more electrical supplies for the house), encountering road construction delays and traffic jams everywhere. He finally made it home slip-slidding in places, coming in with a nice little drive-through-pickup dinner (Burger King) and episodes 7 and 8 of this season's soon-to-be-defunct "Pushing Daisies." My early evening was spent putting together an unusual "Mexican no-bake-Casserole-like-thing" for the office potluck tomorrow.

I peeked out a few minutes ago to see if it was still snowing. It's stopped for the night, deathly still. The cloud layer is VERY low over the city, the fog-like clouds reflecting lights off the 2 to 3 inches of snow we got today.

I'm not much of a photographer, but I wanted to try to capture the eerie greenish-gray glow over the city from the front stoop. Looks like daylight out, but it's nearly 10pm.



I'l fiddle around with the camera later to see if I can get less grainy night shots.

It's snowing!

[edit, 10 hours later]

The snow lasted just a brief time, and the dusting we got was melted and evaporated by noon. Just some brisk breezes during the day and a promise of more rain/sleet tomorrow.

Maybe, just maybe, we'll get a bit of the white stuff here tomorrow night into Tuesday. Then it'll look like bjarvis's area. Even considering we're in the desert, we're definitely in drought mode. That .21 inches of rain we received 11/27 (while Danster and I were winging it to the soggyish NW) didn't do much to moisturize the soil.

When I left the office at 4 today, 40 mph winds greeted me. The outside temperature was 40. Chill factor deluxe.

Wish I had had my camera. There were gorgeous layers of clouds floating over the Sandias, like a root beer float that had overflowed.

Got a couple of weeks, or maybe even six weeks, before we have the first serious freeze. It has been getting pretty chilly in the house in the mornings, down to the low 60s. Enough so you want a blanket on. To be kind to our houseguests this coming weekend, I shut down the swamp cooler, put the cover on the attic fan and changed the filter in the furnace. Still more winterizing to do, but all that can wait.

We have only five of our seven promised houseguests actually showing up this weekend. Two flaked out without telling us. No names, but it's the reigning HTQ and his significant other. Oh, well.

Another lovely, dry week of weather in the 70s, so the Balloon Fiesta has been going along as planned. I had heard one report that attendance is down about 30% this year, which I can well imagine. I still have to buy the tix only for the bus/fiesta for Deborah C-J and me for way too BFE Saturday morning, should probably do that tonight.

Got the quote today for the granite countertops, lower than I expected. Amazing.

Danny's back from his conference tomorrow, so I know he'll be prepping the house before I get back from work. He's been missed.

 This isn't a usual post for the high desert here, but it's keeping the weatherfolk buzzing.  It's especially hard to see this since at 8am, it's a crystal-clear blue sky all around.

So much for us using our pool this weekend!

[snip]

* A PORTION OF NORTH AND CENTRAL NEW MEXICO...INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING AREAS...MIDDLE RIO GRANDE VALLEY/ALBUQUERQUE METRO AREA AND WEST CENTRAL MOUNTAINS.

* THROUGH THIS EVENING

* SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS REDEVELOPING THROUGH THE DAY TODAY MAY PRODUCE RAIN AT RATES UP TO ONE AND A HALF INCHES PER HOUR AND FLASH FLOODING THROUGH THIS EVENING. SOME LOCATIONS MAY RECEIVE 1 TO 2 INCHES OF RAIN.

* EXCESSIVE RUNOFF FROM HEAVY RAINS COULD RESULT IN FLASH FLOODING OF ARROYOS...SMALL STREAMS AND DITCHES AS WELL AS LOW LYING AND POOR DRAINAGE AREAS.

Was a lovely day here for most of the day...I even took a daytime dip in the pool, enjoying the water and the heat of the sun. Noodled around with small projects during the day, starting to put the weather station together. Danny put together the new wall cabinet for the downstairs bathroom (so we can finally call that bathroom reno project DONE).

Just as I put the rain measuring bit out on the porch to test it, the heavens opened up and we got this ENORMOUS deluge of rain*. In fact we received as much rain in an hour (per the new electronic gauge) as we've received in precip the entire year! 1.1 inches (so far)

I was able to cross check this with my old rain tube, which had nearly an inch of water in it.   Finally, the Tstorms abated and we could head out to our Chinese buffet for dinner about 7.

Now all I have to do is mount the wind gauge and the rain gauge somewhere permanent and I'm ready to go! Turned off the drip system for the first time this year!

* I'm sending good thoughts to dukecityjim who has been having serious roof leaks since his new HVAC system was put in earlier this year.