2005

Has it been more than a year??

My how time flies. It doesn’t seem like it could possibly have been a whole year since my last post here. I will try to do better — and try to lose weight and get more exercise, etc, etc.

The winter of 2004--2005 was not remarkable here in Fort Wayne. We had a fair number of minor snow events, but not one good storm.

The spring and summer of 2005 were quite warm and often very humid, but we had very little rainfall. This is in sharp contrast to the very cool and wet summer of 2004.

The remnants of Katrina mostly skirted to our south, but we had a direct hit with the remnants of Rita. It has been our only one-storm rainfall since spring of more than an inch. We are still experiencing lighter and less frequent precipitation events than normal.

The only weather of any note, really, happened early this past Sunday morning (2005-11-06) as a line of strong thunderstorms with frequent lightning (but only about ¼" rain) ushered in a day of strong winds, which gusted to 33 mph at my house. This is the same line of storms that produced the killer tornado in Evansville — for more information on that F3 tornado, see story and video at www.14wfie.com [no longer available?], a photo gallery at www.indystar.com, stories and video at www.wthr.com, and entries in accuweather.com's blog by Jesse Ferrell (see the 2005-11-08 and 2005-11-07 entries).

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awc 2005-11-09 14:46

Winter 05-06 begins at last

Though we had a rather cool snap at the end of October that brought lows of 29° on the 26th and 26° on the 29th, truly cold air held off until 16-18 November. With a high of 28°, the 17th is the only day so far this season with temperatures below freezing all day; the lows of 14° on the 17th and 13° on the 18th are the lowest of the season so far.

The other noteworthy occurrence on the 17th was the first snowfall. Several snow showers passed through Fort Wayne during the day, occasionally covering mulch (but no other ground cover) by 30% with snow pellets.

The first measurable snowfall of the season occurred on the 23rd. Snow began before 7:30am and continued through noontime, with a total accumulation of 2". That day also saw the lowest barometric reading since I got my Davis Vantage Pro2 (significantly lower than when the remnants of Rita passed over us): 29.21"Hg.

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awc 2005-11-27 00:51

More Early Season Snow

Thanksgiving was one of those winter days where the highest temperature of the day occurs shortly after midnight and the temperature steadily slides throughout the day. The breezes bringing the cold air also produced interesting fingers of snow reaching out from Lake Michigan (which, according to Google Earth, is 98.61 miles WNW (-60°) from our house). We were occasionally within the fringes of those fingers on Thanksgiving; but none brought any accumulation.

One week later, on 1 December, we had snow move up from the southwest. At work, on the west side of Fort Wayne, we had perhaps nearly 2" of snow. At home, however, the ground was not even covered and we probably had less than ½" snow.

We had more snow showers Friday, with perhaps another ½" snow total.

Last night (3 December), it began snowing around 2100 and continued steadily through the early morning hours. We awoke to find almost 3" of snow on the ground here.

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awc 2005-12-04 20:01

First Significant Snow of the '05-'06 Season

Thursday afternoon, 08 December 2005, between 1500 and 1600, snow started falling. The low which had covered much of Texas in ice was tracking north through the Ohio Valley and the snow spread into our area from the southwest.

Snow quickly became heavy at times and there was easily three inches of it by 1800 when I left work. Moderate snow continued steadily until around midnight, when the wind suddenly shifted from easterly to westerly and picked up significantly. Winds in my back yard (at 6' off the ground) of around 15 mph caused significant blowing snow to partially mask the fact that the snowfall was quickly tapering off.

The quick moving storm left 6" of snow on the driveway, and snow cover in the back yard ranged from 8" to 14" (we still had at least 2" snow cover before this storm started).

My best guess then, since I don’t have a sheltered spot for accurate measurements, is 7-8" snowfall at our house, accounting for packing. The official snowfall for Fort Wayne, at the airport on the opposite (southwest) side of the city, was 8".

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awc 2005-12-09 15:50

Late December Thundershower

Today between 1100 and 1135 a thundershower rolled over our house. It looked more impressive on radar than it actually was, producing less than 0.05" rain in half an hour, and virtually no wind at all. The thunder was nearly constant, though, and a couple of visible streaks of lightning hit about a mile to the northeast.

After the big snow on the 8th, we had an inch on the 11th, two inches on the 15th and another inch on the 16th. Also, on the 14th, we had about a half inch of sleet/freezing rain/snow. The snow cover had packed to a solid 6" by the 16th, and remained fully preserved by a cold snap that finally let up on the 22nd.

On the 23rd, my rain bucket reported 0.05" precipitation even though the sky was clear, due to its frozen contents finally melting. The temperature has remained above freezing (except for a low of 30° on Christmas Eve) since then, and the only snow cover left is “pile remnants” (some of which are quite significant). From the 24th thru the 26th, we had 0.51" of rain, and so far today we’ve had 0.09" of rain.

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awc 2005-12-28 11:54