Volume 1, number 2, February 1999 Ester's Weather Aaaahhh, finally weather that will put hair on your chest, or take it off, depending on how crazy cabin fever has made you. I’ve never thought of -50 degree weather as a marketable depilatory before, and I’ll bet a lot of other people haven’t, either. Weather like this makes wizened wheezers say, why, you young whippersnappers, when I was your age...(Did you ever wonder what a whippersnapper was or what it did?) What amazes me is that there are some cheechakos out there that have never experienced cold weather before; the beauty of -50 degree temperatures is that it gets rid of a lot them. For this task I need some assistance, so please follow along. First, don your most inoccuous halo, exude slathers of purity and innocence, (mind the shoes tho’), bend down on your knees and clasp your hands most prayerfully (that part is a new experience for me!). Then, warple your lips, aim at the sky and repeat after me: Snow, you ruddy blighter, or I’ll wring your scrawny little clouds! I have made a determination (for self-serving reasons, being in the snow removal business) that we need more snow. Also, it tends to be warmer when the sky is overcast. So much for my powers over the weather. (I have it from reliable sources that it is 68 to 70 degrees in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and that they had 4.5 inches of rain last week. Helps a lot, huh?) Are you awake? Did your brain start in first gear? Are you ready for technobabble? In the last column I discussed the weather-observing tools that I use, except the registering thermometers, of which there are two: one for the high temperature and one for the low temperature. How the high-temperature thermometer works is as follows: it has a mercury column with a restriction near the bulb end, which keeps the mercury from flowing back into the bulb. The thermometer’s normal operating position is slightly head down, just a few degrees below level. This way the mercury does not have to overcome gravity as it expands and it stays at its highest reading. Once I take that reading I then spin the thermometer to reset it, which forces the mercury beyond the restriction to the temperature at the time of the reading. (With me so far? No, no, no, I said first gear, not reverse!) The low-temperature thermo-meter is an alcohol thermometer with an indice in it. The alcohol is dyed yellow for visibility. The indice is moved by the miniscus (the point at which the alcohol and the gas in the column meet) down the column as the temperature drops to its lowest point. This thermometer’s normal operating position is with the bulb end slightly down a few degrees below level so that the indice does not have to overcome gravity. The thermometer is reset by turning it upside down so that the indice moves up the column to the temperature at the time of the reading. Each thermometer must read within a degree of the other when they are reset, and this gives me the current temperature at the time of the observation. Got it? Now I’m getting down to the results of this observing exercise: last month’s weather summary. Total snowfall was 5.6 inches, most of which, 2.6 inches, fell on January 25. That amount of snow translates to .34 inches of water. Our low temperature for January was -48 degrees on the 29th. The high temperature was +29 degrees on the 23rd. Our widest temperature swing was 63 degrees, on January 22. It went from -36 to +27 degrees. Our elevation in Ester is 656 feet, compared to the airport elevation which is 436 feet. Ester is 220 feet higher than the airport. (Strange, I don’t feel any higher.) I note this because for a period of time the lows at the airport were consistently lower than Ester’s lows by a degree or so. Our season total for snowfall is 26.6 inches compared 41.2 inches measured last year at my former observing station on Coyote Trail. Pray for snow! For those of you who are compugeeks, the forecast office has a web site at www.fai.wsfo.org, and I have been told that through this site you can view satellite images as well as acquire other weather information from across the state. | ||
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