{"id":177,"date":"2010-04-13T11:57:53","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T17:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/northerndestinations.com\/scindex\/?p=177"},"modified":"2010-04-13T11:58:53","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T17:58:53","slug":"april-13th-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/northerndestinations.com\/scindex\/april-13th-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday April 13th, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings and welcome!<\/p>\n

It is a chilly cloudy day in the high 40s. The little bit of rain that came last night could visit us again late this afternoon with another brief round of showers.<\/p>\n

Yesterday and last night’s rain was mostly a radar event. The radar showed it raining for a good bit of the day, but it never made it to the ground. A few hours after sunset it picked up into a mist, and overnight got going enough to get the ground wet.<\/p>\n

Once we get through today’s cool and damp weather we are into a nice day for tomorrow. It should clear up and get up to around 70, a nice change from today’s 47.<\/p>\n

Thursday another line of showers threatens to bring us a little rain and a temperature drop from the 70s to the mid-50s for Friday and the weekend. That Thursday line of showers should be it for the week and weekend, replaced by mostly clear weather.<\/p>\n

The rain has helped a little. It has served us to keep fire danger reduced and to at least give emerging greenery at least something to drink.<\/p>\n

Based on what I have seen we have a pretty significant rainfall deficit. As you saw, my pond is pretty low, and area lakes and rivers are too. It isn’t someting that will go away in the short term, at least not with sub 1″ per week rainfall.<\/p>\n

Talking about it over the weekend, I suggested that we would need a protracted stormy pattern, a cut off low pressure system that sits over us for a week, or maybe a tropical depression or hurricane remnant to soak us. It is nice that we are seeing a shower here and there, and encouraging that the storms are actually getting close to here. It is still a ten dollar payment on a million dollar loan. It took a couple of drought summers and low snow winters to get here, I don’t expect it to heal overnight, and certainly not at a half inch a week.<\/p>\n

On the other side of it, my El Nino (ENSO) research last night found that the El Nino is expected to return to neutral conditions any time now. The actual time frame was between March and June. It is in decline, but not gone yet. In theory with the passing of the El Nino we will see more storms come this way and a chance at more normal rainfall. By my observation, the transition out of an El Nino can be a stormy period. All is not lost.<\/p>\n

Some of the forecast models had us going into a La Nina phase later this year. As one forecaster pointed out, it is a little early for that. At this time of year the ENSO models are at their lowest skill due to the time frame looking ahead nine months. It wouldn’t surprise me though.<\/p>\n

Spring continues to spring, but there is a little lull in the action. The grass is greener and is growing actively from the recent showers. There is a willow down by the pond starting with emerging leaves. Both a tick and mosquito were spotted, though neither one got blood or was common. Some insects by the river started emerging. Tom turkeys were again easy to spot the past few days.<\/p>\n

Here are some pictures..<\/p>\n