Pacific NW News Service

Nov 4, 2013

Its colder than projected. Lets look at the NOAA projections for what the heck is going to or supposed to happen this time of year in this particular year.

So we are supposed to be at a normal year for temperature and the same loos like for precipitation whoever get 10 people in a room and they will never agree on anything, especially weather...oh yeah and taxes and politics but weather? See some are old timers and they think they know everything. They don't and are frequently wrong. A fella by the name of Gordy Strandberg was pretty good with weather. I don't think I can remember him getting it very much wrong. He was  a cattle rancher who had to worry about many aspects of the business including growing his own feed. Now just a mile or so from Gordon lived an older man by the name of Bert Edwards a fellow who could track and kill dangerous game if they were around. He was one of the few that the state trusted when it came to saving lives. He said "Nobody can tell weather except newcomers and fools". He knew Gordon and I expected he kept Gordon a secret. I would go by both men. I trusted nobody..oh maybe my bursitis... but NOT the federal government. By the way there is no such thing as NORMAL. That means if it's cold, put on your long johns.

Kathy Meader during summer fire in Cheney

It's summers which take a little to a lot of water in order to keep the water tables high enough to fight the fires...Actually it's winters snow pack which does the bulk of the job. Then it has to warm slow enough so that it isn't wasted. And if it isn't there....fires can be worse...but then there is the weed height and the dryness of said weeds. Fires are a science which is why we have come to trust folks like NE District Fire Chief Foster Fanning, a man on the job since he came to the area decades ago...

Bob Shannon

And then there is winter. WE had it good in the winter of 08-09...so good Spokane had a record from all time and to think I was here. Global Warming was still being argued. It is today as well. Maybe Bert was right" Nobody can tell the weather except newcomers and fools and maybe Gordon Strandberg". But the year earlier as seen below, was alight winter even on the ranches which are prone to large winds and snows which can pile as high as a two story building. The below image was taken in Feb 2008. Who could now what might happen only a few months later...and two years later I was in teh hospital for 6 months...Guillain Barre struck. I would love to blame snow but it was either the swine flu shot or the tetanus shot. I was just trying to be a god citizen. What happened? I got sic and ther was no epidemic..maybe this year? Anyones guess.

Bob Shannon

GROVELAND, Calif. — As autumn turns to winter and rain falls over the charred landscape left behind by the Rim fire, forest rangers and emergency planners have a new worry: water.

Over 90% of the blaze burned in the Tuolumne River watershed, where more than 2,600 miles of streams cut through steep, now-burned slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Those mountains are primed for flooding and debris flows in a big storm.

The 410-square-mile blaze — California's third-largest on record — ignited on Aug. 17 in the Stanislaus National Forest and burned into the northwest part of Yosemite National Park. More than two months later, the fire is fully contained, but some of the most serious hazards are just now presenting themselves.

Trails and roads are at risk of washing away, cutting off access to world-class white-water rapids. Burned trees and debris will almost certainly be flushed downstream, fouling irrigation water supplies.
San Francisco officials are closely monitoring hydroelectric facilities, soil conditions and water quality in and around Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, where the fire crept around the edges of the city's drinking water supply and made some slopes more prone to erosion.

 Rick Price