Russ Steele
When telling weather stories around the Thanksgiving dinner table, the winter of 54-55 always comes to mind. That is the winter we got six feet of snow at our house on the Banner Ridge. It came in three storms of about 27 inches the first night, 24 the second and 20 the third. I remember having to shovel the snow off the roof of my grandmothers house, which only had 2 x 4 rafters. The core of the house was part of WWII barracks which came from Beale Army Air Force Base. Not much snow load in the valley, but 4 feet of wet snow was causing the house to groan, so my two brothers and I were sent up on the roof to shove off the snow. And the next day we got 20 more inches and had to shovel it again.
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The power was out for almost two weeks, and our two freezers were full of garden produce, beef, and pork from some 4H projects. We shoveled for two days, opening up the quarter mile drive way to Banner, so my parents could take our freezer contents to the storage locker in Grass Valley. We were using wood and heating oil for warmth and NID Ditch water for drinking and flushing. School was out for a few days, but soon the buses were running. It was ten days before PG&E restored our power. Getting hay for our animals was also a challenge, as was milking the cow on cold mornings.
Why am I writing about all this Nevada County weather history? It all came back to me when I was reading the AccuWeather Forecast for the winter of 2007-2008 this morning here. This was the trigger paragraph:
First of all, the La Niña has gone to AT LEAST where we thought it would go and there is no stopping it. We are projecting a moderate to strong one well into the winter and may wind up with a top 5 ranking as far as the nino3.4 SST. In addition, the forecast cooler west-than-east idea is a known warm signal for the United States as a whole. In addition, the warm AMO and the type of autumn we have had also fit well into 5 analogs: 1949, 1950, 1954, 1955 and most recently 1998.
I am thinking getting another five gallon can of diesel for the generator, we may need it this winter if AccuWeather is right. Here is a dynamic view of the growing La Niña. Watch the animation, then observe the expanding pool of cooler water developing the Gulf of Alaska.
