Trego's Mountain Ear

The hydrological year starts on the first of October.  As I write, we’re about a month into the new year – back when I started doing snow surveys, we monitored the fall snows and rains by a small barrel, placed inside a large one, started with several gallons of antifreeze, topped with a touch of transformer oil to prevent evaporation.  Bonneville provided the used transformer oil, so it was free.  We had a reducing cone over the antifreeze barrel so it wouldn’t overflow.

Now, I can get online in the evening and view the cumulative precipitation – tonight, October 26, it stands at 2.2 inches, and has gone up 80% in the past 48 hours.  And the information is available to anyone who wants to click Snow Station Information – STAHL PEAK SNOTEL  Life is a whole lot easier now.

NOAA predictions for the coming winter are one of those good news and bad news type of things – the good news is that the Climate Prediction Center is projecting less precipitation and warmer temperatures for the upcoming winter.  The bad news is the same:

Projections for the later parts of our upcoming winter aren’t particularly different:

As with Stahl Peak, the Climate Prediction Center projections are available to all at

Climate Prediction Center – Seasonal Outlook