Misty mornings giving way to mostly gray skies continue. Temperatures hover between 25 overnight to near 40 during the day. Yesterday after a crunchy walk/snowshoe around the mountain loop, I went to the front porch.
Snow melting off the roof provided a symphony in the form of drips and plops on the snow and rocks.
I started with Karl for company…
Bob joined the party.
And…
…finally Steve.
Overcast gave way to sun and then dramatic clouds. Thunder rumbled from the direction of the mountains late afternoon. This evening it is a wonderful 70 F. There was a breeze, but now it is ominously still.
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These are real raindrops – NOT water from the sprinklers – on the lily-of-the-valley leaves…this morning!! So very exciting as rain is both rare and welcome in July in Montana. And especially welcome as yesterday’s forecast was for dry thunderstorms… as in lightning and thunder but no rain. And also for windy conditions. There was a fire weather watch and to me that is scarier than bears or mountain lions or coyotes. It is a fear based on a natural and healthy fear of fire, combined with some irrational fears of being trapped by fire.
And although some extra humidity last night as the clouds formed was encouraging, the rain this morning sealed the deal and made things much less scary and cooler.
Rain!
After a weekend that felt more like mid-July, than mid-May, we are now feeling like mid-April …wonderfully cool 50 degree temperatures and lovely, gentle, “turn everything green” rain. The stuff that should be green mostly is, but things dry out so fast and the mountain snow pack is a bit light and everyone hopes for a good fire season as in no fires so the spring rains are good. We typically get very little rain in July and August.
As I’ve written previously, probably ad nauseum, Memorial Day weekend is most often cold and rainy, no matter how far away from the real Memorial Day we celebrate it. And it usually snows, if not flurries, at least snow in the mountains.
Ho….this year looks to be a bit different. The forecast is for warm (70’s) and sunny with just the slightest chance of a shower.
And below, my route to California – it looks really good all the way excepting the heat in CA where the A/C will get a workout.
The above for any interested, is courtesy of Weather.com Gold subscription. I pay $19.95 per year for this screen as well as the ability to completely customize all screens and remove all ads and extraneous stuff I don’t want to see. But it is the ability to look at weather for 10 cities that makes it worth it to me. I travel by rv any time of the year and have used this to see my route forecast. It has worked very well for me and is more efficient than manually looking at several cities as I move along. As a one woman show, I am all about efficiency :) !
The plan is to leave Friday morning and pedal to the metal on interstates after St. Regis. I hope to arrive Vacaville, CA (southwest of Sacramento) on Sunday afternoon and will park there 2 nights at what looks to be a lovely and hopefully shady, vineyard RV park. It will be a rest up and prepare for the last 100 miles of urban jungle driving. I have reservations in Pacifica, south of San Francisco, for a week. The rv park there is basically a parking lot for rvs – very narrow spots. It is on the ocean and across from a BART station (Bay Area Rapid Transit) AND there is a woman who does dog walking and checking in the park so Karl and Bob will be checked on and hopefully Karl will agree to a midday walk-about…Mama’s boy will not always go with just anyone… I hope we’ll have a chance to meet the woman and have her take Karl for a spin with my encouragement which usually works.
The details of getting house and yard ready to leave have come along nicely. I managed to purchase the same water timer that neighbors Mike and Nancy did so they will be able to adjust mine easily if needed.
A last service appointment to check a few rv items has been completed and all is loaded except for the usual last minute things like me, pets, computers and frig food.
The only somewhat sad thing is that the lilacs and lilies of the valley are close but not close enough. I’ll miss them blooming. Maybe next year. I might pick a few sprigs to take with and see if they’ll bloom along the way.
We’re getting ready to roll.
It might not look much like Spring to those of you who live in places that have tulips, daffodils, crocuses already blooming, grass greening, but here, this is progress! Although it was still slightly below freezing, the sun was hitting the front porch this morning, birds were singing and despite the large piles of snow left to melt, it had the feel of Spring – really!
The sun was even making Bob’s eating venue warm and spring-like.
This is near the end of our short loop – looking back from whence we came along the snow covered ridge. There is still 6-10 inches of snow on some of our path. In the morning it is frozen and easy walking. By afternoon and for our evening walk, it is like walking in mashed potatoes.
As we approached our own property, Karl decided on a toe cleaning break – hopefully one of the last for the season. We’re getting there!
Graupel: Graupel (also called snow pellets) refers to precipitation that forms when supercooled droplets of water condense on a snowflake, forming a 2–5 mm ball of rime; the snowflake acts as a nucleus of condensation in this process. The term is derived from German Graupel meaning the same. (Wikipedia)
Below is what it looked like when it was done graupeling.
We also had sunshine, rain, regular snow, more sunshine, then the graupel and now there is blue sky to the west.
But the forecast, it looks promising…
even though today we had graupel.
Out with Karl shortly before 8 p.m. last night, I noticed magenta streaks through the trees to the east. We jumped in the Jeep and sat in our usual spot to watch the colors. Turning around to come home…
Snow on the mountains above the house. It was raining when we pulled in the driveway.
This morning, it is snowing…
I never get tired of “Big Sky” or mountains – this evening was beautiful. But it is not “snow sky” at the moment…