40 Days and 40 Nights (Idaho Falls, Sandpoint: house, purchasing, dangerous)

[banjomike]

Bonneville county has gotten 3 inches of rain so far in August.
That is more than 6 times the average rainfall for the month, and I'm beginning to feel like Noah. Almost every day this month begins sunny, but by late afternoon or so, here comes the rain. And it's not typical light summer rain. This is jungle monsoon rain!

All this rain has severely damaged the crops, and the ground is so saturated here in places that some basements are beginning to leak. The Idaho Falls Chukars baseball games have been rained out, and the thunderstorms have created a lot of lightning, always dangerous when it's striking close to parks, ballfields, and other popular open public spaces.

We are supposed to get a break next week, and I sure hope we do. This place really needs to dry out and warm up!

…but at least, all this moisture brought an early end to the fire season, and Idaho's water is now at average levels, so we're going into the winter with much less threat of drought for next year.

It's so wet that the ripe grain crops are sprouting in the head.

The last time I remember that happening was 1968. I was on the other side of the country then and called home. My father said 2/3 or our wheat crop was lost, and he had never seen the sprouting happen before in his life. I never expected to see it in mine.

After so many years of drought here, I don't know if I should complain or not, since most of the west remains in deep, serious drought. A precipitation map shows only Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Utah and Montana to be currently drought free. But that doesn't make me any happier when I think about our farmers.

[Sandpointian]

Up in Sandpoint, April was like May and August like late september. Feels like an early winter is coming. Forecasts here say warmer than normal. Perhaps this will mean above average snow.

With the extra rains, I am very grateful we are not experiencing shortages of California. Bummer for the wife who likes her sun.

S.

[LionFamily]

Banjomike:

Just out of curiosity, what the winter following the rains of 1968 like? It will be interesting to see whether the pattern repeats.

[Cnynrat]

While the crop damage is never a good thing I suspect in the long run the relief of the drought will leave everyone better off.

Now we just need a few really wet winters down south here to allow things to get back to normal.

Dave

[Toyman at Jewel Lake]

It's been another odd year. Very little nice spring weather with sunny days with highs in the 70s or low 80s. It seemed like it flipped right from cold and wet to 95 degrees in about 2 days. I'm really glad we got all the rain in the last couple weeks. It cleaned up the air from all the smoke, knocked down the fires and greened things up. Some of my young trees were looking pretty limp.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by LionFamily

Banjomike:

Just out of curiosity, what the winter following the rains of 1968 like? It will be interesting to see whether the pattern repeats.

I was in the Navy then, and stationed in Norfolk.
My father said it had rained almost continuously, but whether that meant one heavy thunderstorm a day or a lighter, longer lasting storm series was something I never asked, and he didn't elaborate.

THe memory only came to me yesterday, and over 40 years tends to blur things for me. I think Idaho was getting heavy monsoonal rains like the current ones, as I have seen rain like this before, but never as heavy or long-lasting as this year.

I don't know how the following winter was at all. By then, I was in the southern hemisphere, going around the horn of Africa, most likely. We spent that winter on station out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, in the general vicinity where the recent airliner disappeared. That's a very big, very empty Ocean.
It was over 18 months before I returned to Idaho once more.

The ship I was in typically left Norfolk in late summer to mid-fall and headed south. We usually came back in early spring and spent the summers in home port. I never saw winter for almost 4 years; only spring summer and fall. I can remember only one winter partly spent in Norfolk, and we left before winter was over.

It's dumped daily here every day last week, and almost every day the week before. Today was cool, but cloudless and sunny with no breeze, and the rest of this coming week is forecast to be clear. I hop so; we really need to dry out down here.

[f5fstop]

Same weather conditions down here in Moab. Heavy thunderstorms in the late afternoon into the night. Not normal for the desert in SE Utah this time of the year. Causes a lot of washed out dirt/clay roads outside of Moab.

As for winters, most of the old-timers and even some of the scientific types at the USGS say it will most likely be a very wet and cold winter. I guess I won't be here in Moab to find out, but I will be finding out the weather conditions in ID soon.

The Uinta Mountains, outside of Vernal UT, had 4 inches of snow yesterday or the day before.

[banjomike]

Bridger Basin, just out of Bozeman, got snow too.

I really hope we aren't in for an early winter. I don't think it will be abnormally cold though, when it does come; the past few years have had rainy fall months, which were always very rare until this decade. Whenever there's been a lot of moisture in the fall lately, the winter has been dry and slightly warmer than average.

An El Niño could change that, though, to colder and snowier. I would just as soon have 5 feet of snow on the ground as this anyway. At least the snow is the most seasonal moisture of all.

[f5fstop]

Yes, I would prefer 5 feet of snow hen compared to the equivalent of rain any day.

I'm hoping the cold will hold off too, want to install some new windows in the house I'm purchasing and prefer a nice sunny cool day vs. a cold rainy one.

I have someone in the family who would really love 5 feet of snow....

[banjomike]

great dog!