Icicles!
It's been a pretty bleak winter as far as snow and precip goes, with an early largish snow dump in early October, followed by... a lot of nothing other than some few and far between minimal snow showers and some minor snow in early to mid December. We've had cold mornings off and on, nothing unusual there, but we've had way more sun and unusually warm days compared to the previous four winters that MOH and I have spent here at our little house in the hinterland of eastern Nevada. This winter, we've had highs in the 50s to upper 70s in October, highs mostly in the 40s and 50s in November, highs mostly in the 30s to upper 50s in December and January, with four days in a row above 60°F right after New Year's day. So far, we've only had one high in the 20s, on December 5th, and no highs in the teens or lower. We have had a few scattered lows below 0°F, but nothing approaching our usual number of sub-zero nights. Consequently, what little snow we have gotten has not stuck around. Lowlands have been completely dry, midlands even to 7000 feet have been dry, and uplands have been largely snow free, at least below 9000 feet or higher. Elm beetles actually made a comeback last week; they must have thought it was spring. Hopefully not.
A couple days ago, it snowed! Six inches fell one day, two inches the next, and at least another inch fell the third day. Now, we're back in melting mode, creating what seem like the first icicles of the year, though maybe we had some back in October.
More icicles, including one making a fish-hook-like shape.
We don't have the usual ice field on the north side of our little house; instead, we have dry soil and gravel beneath a few inches of snow. Maybe we'll get a little more precip in the next day or two (hopefully not as freezing rain).Alaska! Send us your snow!!
2 comments:
Hasn't been a good winter for precip, so far. But you can have the snow.
That fish-hook icicle looks like a cave helectite.
There are even helictites that have a fish-hook shape!
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