Watchin' the snow go...

In spite of the second highest snowfall ever recorded in September (Storm of the decade 10/3/15), the relatively warm, dry weather in October has melted most of the snow.

Not much else going on, cause I just got my knee overhauled. After the hip work (Summer vacation? 6/30/14), I figured I'd be good to go, but like an old worn out nag, not so much. So now my nickname's gonna be robo or maybe metal man. That's how it goes, I guess, sometimes your hot, then sometimes you're not and you wind up with a medial unicondylar arthroplasty.

And now it looks like Frankenstien's knee!

Back to the Black, again...

Been awhile, but finally got back down to help survey the Delta River at Black Rapids for my friend Mike's project. While in the past we used traditional survey methods (attaching the boat to a cable stretched across the river, then using a mechanical meter and sounding weight to measure flow), we often had difficulties (Busted...6/13/10). So now Mike has an acoustical doppler meter. It uses a sonar-like application for depth and velocity and GPS for position, so there's no need to stretch a cable, often the most difficult part of the survey. It's so easy, it's almost fun; once the unit is calibrated, you just cruise slowly back and forth across the river until you get a reproducible, verifiable survey. Technology can be pretty cool.

Picked a fine day for the trip.

Mike calibrating the doppler meter.

Finishing up the notes afterwards. The doppler transmits the data to an electronic note.pad

Storm of the decade?..

We've had two major snow storms already, the first dumped about five inches of heavy, wet snow last Friday, which then mostly melted, and this Tuesday to Wednesday we got another eleven inches. While this still isn't as bad as September 1992, when we got about two feet of snow, this will likely rank as one of the highest snowfalls in September ever. I would have posted sooner, but the power was out from Wednesday morning to Friday evening. A few photos of the snow:

Here's the yard and deck after the first snow.

How it looked yesterday.

Here's the driveway/garage after the first snow.

Now there's a bit more snow.

Here's some factoids from the weather bureau's September summary:

    FAIRBANKS, AK  SEPTEMBER TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION

AVG MAX TEMP (F)            50.2   15TH COLDEST OF 110 YEARS

AVG MIN TEMP (F)             34.6   47TH COLDEST OF 110 YEARS

AVG TEMP (F)                      42.4   28TH COLDEST OF 110 YEARS

TOTAL PRECIP (IN)            3.74   2ND WETTEST OF 102 YEARS

TOTAL SNOW (IN)           20.90   2ND SNOWIEST OF 102 YEARS