Valley shivers as winter weather makes a premature appearance
Big snow flakes fell early Friday evening, turning Downtown Boise into a giant snow globe for people on their way home from work.
The snow caught many people off guard, including this bicyclist heading down Idaho Street between 8th and 9th around 5:45 p.m. Across the Treasure Valley, tree branches heavy with wet, snow-covered leaves fell on power lines, causing scattered power outages.
This is the earliest measurable snowfall in Boise since recordkeeping began in 1898, according to the National Weather Service. At 10 p.m., the Weather Service said 1.7 inches of snow had fallen. The previous earliest recorded snowfall was Oct. 12, 1969, when a little more than an inch fell. And if the snow wasn’t enough, meteorologists say winds across southwestern Idaho will average 25 to 40 mph through Saturday afternoon, with gusts up to 55 mph. Sustained winds of 30 to 40 mph are expected, which can make driving difficult.
There is also some early and record snows in Billings Montana
A snowfall record for Oct. 11 was set in Billings yesterday.
According the National Weather Service, Billings saw 3.1 inches of snow Friday. The old record of 2.8 inches was set in 1969.
Vehicles drive through the snow and slush Highway 3 between Zimmerman Trail and the airport Friday October 10, 2008.
Here in Northern California, we are getting some much earlier than normal cold weather. As you can see on my Bidwell Ranch Weather Station, we got into the 30’s last night, not a record, but darned early for fall weather here:
Russ Steele reports on his Nevada County Watch blog that his first freeze came last night, about a month early. Also a hat tip to him for alerting me to this story.
Pamela Gray in comments points out this record report from the NWS:
000
SXUS76 KPDT 111801
RERPDT
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PENDLETON OR
1100 AM PDT SAT OCT 11 2008
…NEW DAILY RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES FOR OCTOBER 11TH…
NOTE: STATIONS MARKED WITH * INDICATE THAT THE STATION REPORTS ONCE
PER DAY. FOR CONSISTENCY…THESE VALUES ARE CONSIDERED TO HAVE
OCCURRED ON THE DAY THE OBSERVATION WAS TAKEN BUT MAY HAVE ACTUALLY
OCCURRED (ESPECIALLY FOR MAX TEMPERATURE) ON THE PREVIOUS DAY.
STATION PREVIOUS NEW RECORDS
RECORD/YEAR RECORD BEGAN
*JOHN DAY(CITY), OR 23 / 1990 21 1953
MEACHAM, OR 20 / 2002 15 1948 :SINCE MID
*MITCHELL, OR 26 / 2002 21 1949
PENDLETON(ARPT), OR 33 / 1990 25 1934 :SINCE MID
*PENDLETON(CITY), OR 24 / 1890 22 1890
*PENDLETON(ES), OR 23 / 1990 18 1956
WALLA WALLA, WA 35 / 1987 33 1949 :SINCE MID
Harbinger of a colder than normal winter perhaps.
Per Strandberg (14:19:33) :
Wow, a model projection that is verifying? Rather, a human description of model
output stated ambiguously.
Yawn. Snow in Idaho. Well, that will make for an interesting rest of the football season/bowl games for Boise State University. Other than that, it barely registers with me. The real news here is that the early snows, if followed by a vigorous winter and a wet spring, will lead to more spring-time floods and predictions of ‘global disaster’ by Al Gore & Co.
As Denzel’s character said in the movie, Training Day: “This (expletive) is chess not checkers.” More moves to come.
I wonder if we’ll see a correlation between stock prices and global temperature.
GISS–>DJIA r^2
p prosperity so conceivably not co-indidental?
Oh crap! Here in Ottawa, we are enjoying an Indian Summer.
You have to remiond me of what’s comingg … ???
If air temps are getting colder, there should be less moisture available to fall. That could by why ice is recovering but snow is not this year. The Arctic air is very cold, thus very dry at the moment.
Funny how even with this massive global warming, the seasons still come and go just like they always have.
We here in Arizona also set records yesterday AND today. It was 21 here at the house (5400′ MSL) northwest of Prescott , and the city itself set a record low High yesterday, and low this morning. Of course this is merely a weather event, and not climate…………. Please see below:
SXUS75 KFGZ 121544
RERFGZ
PHXWRKRER
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FLAGSTAFF, AZ
840 AM MST SUN OCT 12 2008
…RECORD LOW HIGH TEMPERATURES FOR NORTHERN ARIZONA ON OCT 11 2008…
CITY (PERIOD OF RECORD) NEW LOW HIGH PREVIOUS RECORD/YEAR
BAGDAD (1929 – 2008) 55 64 IN 2000
PRESCOTT (1898 – 2008) 54 56 IN 1985
…RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES FOR NORTHERN ARIZONA ON OCT 12 2008…
CITY (PERIOD OF RECORD) NEW LOW PREVIOUS RECORD/YEAR
BAGDAD (1929 – 2008) 35 40 IN 1969
COTTONWOOD-TUZIGOOT (1911 – 2008) 35 35 (TIED) IN 1986
GRAND CANYON NP S RIM (1903 – 2008) 18 21 IN 1969
PRESCOTT (1898 – 2008) 23 24 IN 1946
WINSLOW (1898 – 2008) 21 25 IN 1969
THESE RECORDS ARE PRELIMINARY PENDING OFFICIAL REPORTS.
Fred,
Bloody ‘ell. With no snow, we will all die in Canada!
Ohio. 78 degrees. Oct. 12, 2008. We are all loving Indian Summer. Farmers Almanac predicts below normal temps thru winter and little accumulations. Just enjoying the nice day to clean out the garage, scrub the porches before it all hits the fan….
We had a frost on Whidbey Island on Saturday morning, but not Sunday morning.
Is the record cold due to UCI (Urban Cool Island) effect?
Here in the thumb of Michigan we are enjoying an Indian summer, which looks to be going away by mid-week.
Anthony, you reduce yourself to the fringes because you discuss weather, rather than global climate change. Our information is that this is due to global warming, There is nothing that happens on the planet that is not due to global warming.
@Leon Brozyna (11:34:35) :
You wrote: “In any case, since the weather will do whatever the weather does best, I’m prepared for this winter with a brand new snow shovel – and I’ve named it Al Gore. So this winter season, I’ll be using ‘Al Gore’ to shovel … snow.”
I see a brand-building opportunity here and it should all belong to you. You could market “Erog-lA” brand snow shovels (c’mon, ya gotta be careful infringing on his climate territory here) with that cut-out mask image from a few days ago pasted on the blade. Then for brand extension, you could market a line of “Erog-lA” tined implements which are used to clean out livestock stalls (essentially horse-$*** shovelers). Finally, I see a successful line of bumper stickers and an effective marketing campaign waged via the ad space on the sides of transit buses.
Get going. Your best opportunity to establish the brand and make your personal financial killing is during the cooling phase of the PDO. After that, who knows where the weather winds will blow? It won’t matter to you. You’ll be set.
Meanwhile, in a gesture of solidarity, my snow shovel has acquired the moniker “Al Gore II” (or “too” depending on how dried out my sharpie marker is).
Oh, P.S.
If you use that mask image for the brand, you might want to put a black marker moustache on it so’s not to rile up the copyright lawyers. Good luck with your hot (cold?) new product.
Global warming continues to cause people to talk about the man made climate change.
this just in, man created the world!
not 🙁
Is it that mild in Boise? Who’d of thought? Here in Denver (5,280 feet), it often snows before the end of September. Since 1948, it’s snowed during 20 Septembers, or one out of every three years on average. Seventeen inches in 1971. We always get a good dump during the month of October.
Tonight’s forecast: Cold and drizzly with widely scatter-brained AGW.
Buy all of thge agriculture related futures that you can… another cold winter on the way
To Fred (14:22:20) :
“Despite the “steep rise” in Arctic sea ice, the N. Hemisphere snowcover is way, way below normal.”
Ice accumulation at sea level in the Arctic is temperature driven. Snow is precipitation. Colder than normal air masses contain less moisture producing less precip. I’m not surprised that snow cover at this time is below normal while the ice accumulation is steeply rising.
“Buy all of thge agriculture related futures that you can… another cold winter on the way.”
…. What? Agriculture has a future?
Here in Australia, the farmers have been blamed for ruining the continent.
But the Socialists are going to save our continent and reputation it seems. By buying out farms and water allocations…. Allow the rivers to run free and the wilderness to return…. I’m not quite sure what the people are supposed to do though?
…. There’s a kind of madness stalking the land. :-0
Frost in Nanaimo BC Canada (Vancouver Island) reported Wednesday morning and snowfalls on Mt Washington. Sounds like Weather to me.
i would be so happy if there is a snow here on our country
Well global temperatures are not rising, arctic, antarctic are going back to “normal”, the sun has got 24 spots so what… nothing has changed. I wish “climate scientists” would acknowledge…. because most meteorologist, being very cautious people, have not made alarming statements…LOL
We, we didn’t listen. It’s Two days before the day after tomorrow.
I know it makes no sense comparing local climates, but anyway it’s very hot in Western Europe. In my country we’re something like 7 degs celsius above average.
Flanagan,
I didn’t realize that “Western Europe” is a country, but Ireland had it’s coldest September in decades and temperatures are forecast to turn cold tomorrow – so enjoy the sunshine.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?world=0031
Here in Colorado we barely made it out of the 30s this weekend.
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