One thing that amazes me about Boulder is the capricious weather. April 30 was very warm, and after an 8 km bike ride I was exhausted and sweaty. The next day… well, see for yourself.
I do so love it here. When I left Maryland in 2000 to move to California, it was 22 Fahrenheit outside with piles of snow everywhere. Besides a light dusting the first winter there, I don’t think I ever saw snow in California and I certainly didn’t miss it. It’s nice to be able to enjoy it again, even if this May Day snowfall is probably it for six month or more.
And hey, this is my 50th video uploaded to YouTube! Cool. Literally.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Your followers?
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I’ve experienced about ten winters in Bangor, Maine an I think we had snow every April.
I liked the white stuff, but usually by that time I wanted warmer weather.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Awww!
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
overstroming, I was thinking like Twitter followers, not religious ones.
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
You do long bike rides? I have a new wish. I want to go on a bike ride with Mihael Shermer and Phil Plait. Maybe someday, maybe.
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I didn’t realize you were originally from MD, that’s cool! I’ve lived in MD for most of my life.
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Canus Minor! BwaHAHAHA! Love it.
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
We went from 80 degrees to 35 degrees in the course of 24 hours a few days ago.
I wanted to stab someone.
Now I know why the beer’s so cheap in Milwaukee. We freakin’ need it.
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
miles and Celsius in the video but Fahrenheit and Km in the blog post???what gives???:)
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I don’t particularly like snow, myself. After living in Colorado and Minnesota, I think that pretty much cured me of snow like. It doesn’t generally snow all that much here, though, I’m ok with it. Snow in May is just wrong.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
The weather is just like that here in Alberta. A week and some ago it was just a beautiful day out. I mean you could go spend all day at the lake had the water been warmed up too; but the next morning, and up until a couple days ago, it was back to the dead of winter with about 2 feet of snow.
Crazy stuff.
Also, there are too many Dan’s around here…
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Good thing you’re not in Canada, where they have nine months of winter and three months of bad skating.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
In Anchorage, on April 23rd, it was in the upper 60s. Two days later, we got almost two feet of snow. Which melted away in the past week.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Thank you for that, Phil.
I live in Sandy Eggo. I went hiking in the foothills with my 3yo daughter today, as I have every other weekend since November. It’s just getting warm enough now to change the hiking venue until next fall, if we’re still here.
See, we’re trying to sell our house in order to move to Boulder! Life is nothing if not an adventure.
Always your genuflecting follower,
- Dave
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
…and what was that about global warming?
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
8km? Well, last Sunday I rode 60km. And I wanted to do it again this weekend because the weather forcast looks really really good for Germany…… but: When the weather becomes fine here, I get a cold! C**p! So, my little bicycle-ride is going to die. Hopefully we don’t get any snow this spring any more! But don’t try to predict weather………
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Today, +22°C here at 62.5 degrees North.
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:38 pm
OK, Canis Minor is a pretty good-sized (and cute) pooch. I suppose Canis Major is a chihuahua? Or maybe a Great Dane, I can’t decide which………
Gaak. Snow. It’s a 4-letter word that starts with S. The only time it’s a good thing is when you get snowed in and you have plenty of wine, food, and firewood and a nice, warm, mutually consenting adult to share it with.
Here in Filthydelfia we’ve had weeks of gloomy mid-50s, maybe 4 shirtsleeve days since the beginning of March. It’s supposed to be spring already! Get your F-bombing act together, Ceiling Cat!
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:51 pm
And to think I had to turn off the cooler the other night before going to bed here in Tucson….. We had about 6 inches of snow on Mt. Graham early last month when I was up at the VATT (probably gods wrath for an atheist using one of “his” telescopes – but it only wiped out one night….), of course, that is at 10,500 feet elevation and it only rained that day in Tucson. Oh look, there are a few wispy clouds out there today and it must be in the high 80s in town.
-Jim.
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Yes. The only sure thing you can say about the weather in Colorado is that it will be different in an hour. You can’t say HOW it will be different, but trust me, it will be.
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
There was a year in the 90s, I think it was, where no snowfall was recorded in Boulder. Many years, winter is dry and mild with the largest snowfalls in fall (Oct-Dec) and spring (Apr-Jun). My offer to take you up one of the flatirons still stands.
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:28 pm
To elaborate, during winter, the wetness gets trapped on the west/upslope of the Rockies, with Boulder being at the eastern base. Because the Southern Rockies chain is very wide in at this latitude, with several ranges being in the stormtrack flow ahead of Boulder/Denver, the moisture rarely reaches down here, which is why you can have so many great powder ski days just 100 miles west and have sun (or high overcast) just to the east (this is why the ski ares on the east side of the continental divide of the southern rockies are few and hug the divide itself with base elevations that have to be above 9000′ to be successful, while in mountain ranges just to the west ski areas have deeper snowfalls and can descend down to the 7000′ elevation and still maintain deep base depths). Moisture flows change in the spring with the appearance of big puffy cumulus and reverse-upslope-wraparound or precipitation that is forced down, descending the east side of the Front Range. In the fall, you get the occasional flow across southern COL or NM that hits a pressure system and then curls back into the area causing precip. But u knew all this already.
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
While I’m no big fan of snow, it’s stuff like this that makes me miss Boulder. The consistently variable weather, the Flatirons, Pearl St., CU, etc. Good stuff.
The daily 30-min. thunderstorms during some parts of summer were cool too.
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Well if all of you are tired of snow all you have to do is buy me a bottle of Jaegermeister and I will do the end of season dance and sacrifice to THE GREAT SNOW GOD and end the snow fall. You see I am a High Priest to THE GREAT SNOW GOD and did an especially powerful dance and sacrifice to HIM this year. In Jackson, WY we had a record year 605 inches or 15.3m mid-mountain. And yes it might have been due to GW, when its -20F (-28C) the air has no moisture carrying capacity so no snow.
But irregardless send me Jaeger and I will do the end of the season dance to THE GREAT SNOW GOD and HE will rest until next year.
Otherwise be perpared for snow of the 4th of July! You have been WARNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Doh! Forgot to add Canis Minor has grown quite a bit. Nice doggie!
May 4th, 2008 at 5:52 am
Former resident of Ft. Collins, Colorado, one of the neatest towns on earth but a bit too cold for old bones. May five or so of 1961…close to 18 inches of snow. Roads closed, of course. Two days later it was virtually gone and the warm weather was underway. I’ve lived in Maryland (Laurel – typical eastern weather), Monterey (too wet/foggy/chilly in the summer), Manila (pure misery every day of every year), Berlin (below freezing for 90 days at a time, with beautiful springs), Eugene (worst pollen and heat in the summer you will find, and way too foggy and wet the rest of the time), central Missouri (you spend way too much time in your basement during tornado watches), and Seattle (no, it does not rain a great deal but the cloudiness leads to insanity!), and now the Sand Hills of North Carolina (and so finally in my search for good weather, overall, I have found it in Fayetteville (known by many as Fayettenam because of the nearby Fort Bragg), but the Bible Belt is hard to stomach). Look for a college town, like Raleigh, for the best possible combination of weather and sophistication.
May 4th, 2008 at 6:26 am
Wow.
We’ll be thinking of you all and your horrible plight.
…while we’re on the beach.
We had some horribly cold weather a week or two ago.
…it got down into the high sixties.
We had a blizzard the last time it snowed here, too.
…almost half an inch of snow! December ’04.
Kisses from the frozen tundra of SE North Carolina.
May 4th, 2008 at 6:55 am
Please forgive me oh glorious leader. I’m merely one of your lowly nit-picking diciples. Waiting for you to lead us out of the superstitious dark ages that are spreading over the planet once more.
We rely on your wisdom and logic to help us develop the technology to build the space craft to get us the heck out of here
(apologies to Mr Hicks)
Cycling is the no1 means of transport here in the Netherlands and 8km doesn’t sound like too much effort, but then you have something we don’t : Hills!
May 4th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Phil,
You have WAY too much free time on your hands. Get back to writing!
May 5th, 2008 at 7:38 am
I’ve been having the same vibe when it does snow here, kind of feeling ok with it and a bit nostalgic. Growing up there was no qualms at all. Too rich, too thin, too warm – pull the other one, it’s got bells on it. Now when Kansas has actual snow with those biting winds, I walk miles in it. I don’t want to go back to that being a regular thing, but it’s nice to know that I can still do that and it’s fine. And soon it’ll be warm again. It’s gradually faded from solid hate of snow to a tenous love/hate. We’ll probably have a messy divorce almost instantly if it’s more then a week per year though.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:28 am
This is definately not the weather Jonathan Coulton sung about when he was suggesting what to do on the first of may.