Meta-weather.

Whither April: When we got to Intercontinental Airport in Houston just before 6 am on April 8 the outside temperature was 66 degrees. When we landed in Bozeman five hours later it was 24 and snowing sideways. The past two weekends have seen some impressive snowfalls and plenty of cool (multipe records have been set in Missoula, including a Monday morning low of 15 this morning and a 16-degree reading last week) and cloudy weather. Spring seemed to emerge early this year, and I’ve been thinking for a while somewhere we skipped a month – I had supposed that we missed January somehow, but now it seems we missed April, too, and have substituted it with a month of meta-weather: the cold of March and the storminess of May.

Day 71:

Who’s the overestimater now?: Including Sunday’s wonderful squall, I’ve counted 42.6 inches of snow at my house this season. My snow measuring equipment includes a snowstake planted in the back yard and eyeballing what has accumulated on the grill. Because of my, ah, enthusiasm for snow, I have been accused by “some people” of overestimating the snowfall. Now, however, we have solid proof that I may in fact have been underestimating: NWS Missoula is reporting almost 5 inches more than me!. NWS is at the airport, and while our elevations are practically the same, we are close to the mouth of Pattee and the foot of Sentinel so I would expect that orographics would boost our totals.

Day 73:

Green-up: There are buds on a lot of trees, but we are still several days away from real greenery. Last year I reported green-up at April 25; I neglected to write it down in 2011 but estimate it happened around May 9.

Max Baucus: you jerk.

Day 74:

Colorado avi deaths: This picture tells a sobering story.

YIKES!