We are FINALLY turning the corner to Spring!

I don't know about you, but this winter has felt like it's gone on forever!  Where I live in SE Idaho, it's been dark, gray and COLD!  In fact, it's been so cold that the average high temperature in my town was 5o below normal, and the average low temperatures were even lower than that.  And we've had snow, snow, SNOW!  The snow at the top of my driveway (where snow gets tossed from the driveway and sidewalk) is nearly 6-feet tall!  So, whenever there is a sign of Spring, or at least Spring to come, it's cause to celebrate!  And that news came today from the far north...the Arctic Ocean.  

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, it looks like we have finally turned the corner from this year's maximum sea ice extent, and we may be headed back toward summer.

On top of that, I'm currently visiting family in Montana, and the melt here appears to be on!  This doesn't mean that it won't snow again...it probably will...but it does my heart so much good to see temperatures above freezing, melt water dripping down icicles, and puddles of water here and there during midday.  Plus, I've started hearing black-capped chickadees calling.  These are non-migratory birds, but they don't start calling until they are ready to start seeking out mates...and this means Springtime!

I say bring it on!  We have had snow on the ground constantly since before Thanksgiving where I live, and I'll be happy to see grass (albeit brown) again!     

Moisture and motorcycles - a new reality

It's late January in eastern Idaho - the heart of winter.  Historically this meant snow, ice, and COLD.  My first experience with Idaho winters was in January 1977 when I rolled into Rexburg Idaho to attend Ricks College (since renamed BYU-Idaho).  I got off the bus and started the 6-block hike up the hill to campus.  The roads were literally sheet ice.  I remember this because when my suitcases got too heavy to carry I just leaned down and slid them along the ice all the way to campus (this was in the days before suitcases with wheels - what a great invention!).  Roads and sidewalks around here were usually snow/ice covered from after Thanksgiving through March.  There was so much snow in fact that some of the more adventurous (i.e., crazy/stupid) guys in the dorm would jump from the second floor landing into the deep snow below.  My roommates and I also used to get together at the end of the day and share the ice-related wipe-outs we saw during the day, and they happened every day on campus.

There is, however, a new climate reality.

There are of course still times when streets and sidewalks are snow/ice covered, but for the most part the streets and sidewalks are now mainly dry and bare for most of the winter.  This is even in a year where we are currently over 130% of our annual precipitation to date.  So, if the climate was as cold as it used to be we should have mountains of snow, but we don't.  Sure you can see snow around, but it's nothing extreme at all.  The reason we don't have much on the ground is that it keeps melting off.

I was surprised yesterday afternoon (1/26/2015) when I noticed someone zip by on a motorcycle.  I saw another person on a motorcycle this morning.  Motorcycles in January in Rexburg, Idaho!?  In days past you'd take a motorcycle out in January only if you had some kind of death wish.  Now, however, the roads are bare so if you bundle up it's completely doable.  I was doubly surprised yesterday when I saw that the weather forecast for today is RAIN (!!!???).  We are slated to reach temps in the low 40sF today and it may not even reach freezing overnight.  Now THAT'S CRAZY!

Welcome to the new reality.

The Rexburg Idaho Flood of July 15 2014 - What happened!?

During the late afternoon of Tuesday July 15, 2014, scattered showers accompanied by hail started to fall in Rexburg, Idaho.  It wasn't long before the showers became a full-blown thunderstorm of Midwestern or Great Plains proportions!

It is unusual for rain showers in this part of the state, even heavy ones by local standards to last more than 5-10 minutes before prevailing winds push them farther up the Snake River Plain.  This time, however, the storm which was extremely localized and extremely heavy stalled out right above the city of Rexburg for about 40 minutes.

Weather radar (see below) showed that the storm was located directly above Rexburg, and areas just a few miles north and south of the city received no measurable precipitation.  Official reports from an automated weather station at the Rexburg Municipal Airport reported a total of 1.14" of precipitation, but unofficial reports from higher elevations at the south end of town suggest that over 2" of rain probably fell during the storm.

The downpour produced flash floods through the city and immersed low-lying intersections and residential areas.  The massive amount of water that fell also produced back pressure in city storm drains and sewer lines that caused water to gush upward through drains and toilets into buildings and homes.

This was by all accounts a once-in-a-generation weather event for the city.  I moved here in 2002 and in all that time we never had a downpour like this one.  Life-long residents say that you have to go back over 30 years before you would come across a comparable rainstorm.

Click on this link to see images of the aftermath:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/davarav/the-12-things-you-saw-at-the-byui-flood-last-night-ulbz

You might be thinking, "Come on, one or two inches of rain doesn't sound like all that much," especially to people who live in areas where this kind of storm is relatively routine.  So why all the flooding?  What happened!?

Here are a few basic facts:

1. Rexburg is located in eastern Idaho, an area that typically receives only about 15" of rain annually.
2. Most of Rexburg is built on level ground at an elevation of 4850', while the SE quarter of town is built on a gradual rise topping out at 5150'.
3. Because Rexburg is built in a semiarid area, it is not engineered to accommodate large amounts of rain runoff from a storm like this one.  It is, however, designed to accommodate significant amounts of water from snow melt runoff in the spring that are released more gradually.  Ironically, the city was in the middle of installing an upgraded storm drainage system in the SE corner town designed to reduce surface runoff when the storm hit.
4. A significant amount of new residential building in Rexburg has occurred at the higher elevations, thus greatly increasing the proportion of area covered by roads, driveways, sidewalks, parking lots, etc., and reducing the amount of green space that is good at soaking up precipitation.  

OK, back to what happened...why the flooding?

This is a topographical map of Rexburg, Idaho (click on the map for a larger view):

The arrows on the map below show two of the tracks where water flooded most severely - remember, surface water run-off is mostly going to follow roads in a situation like this (click on the map for a larger view):

If you look at the topographical map below, the bottom-right corner has the highest elevation, and the hill slopes off to the NW.  OK, find the circular water tank located just south of the center of the photograph.  The four houses on the south side of the road, just east of that water tank, were among the most heavily damaged in the city.   Why?  (Click on the map for a larger view.)

I admit that I'm no hydrographer, but I watched this storm develop and watched the water flow from my house, which is just around the corner from those houses.  

This is probably what happened, at least in this localized area.

First of all, the storm was extremely intense, dropping a significant amount of water in a very short time - more than this area hardly ever sees in a single storm.  If you follow the topographic map's contour lines you will see that they run generally from the SW to the NE corners of the map.  Unless otherwise constrained, surface runoff water will flow downhill perpendicular to those lines.  

Rain that fell on the upper part of town quickly filled the storm drains so lots of the water moved as surface runoff.  Look at the housing development just north of the "5150" contour line marker.  This housing area slopes downward to the NW, and all roads in in converge at a low spot where the road seems to bulge upward toward the NW.  There is a walking path easement there that passes between that housing area and a neighboring apartment complex.  Water from the housing development was forced through the narrow opening along that path between neighboring houses and joined water that fell on the apartment complex's lot.  I walked that area again last night and saw that grass there was literally abraded down to nearly nothing by flowing water, sand, gravel, etc., as the water swept through in sheets across the parking lot.  The vulnerable houses were located directly in at the path of this flooding water.  Water flooded down into these houses' back yards, into basement window wells, broke those windows inward, and flooded the basements all the way to the ceiling before also breaking out basement windows on the sides and front of the house.

Of course this water was not done moving there...it was subsequently channeled largely along streets and roadways in the northerly and westerly directions.  The next thing all this water hit was the BYUI-Idaho campus where water gushed along sidewalks and walkways, streets, into quads, and even through some buildings.  This closed campus for the rest of that evening, but it reopened the next day.

Water continued to flow downhill to the lower part of town, flooding out virtually all of Main Street and many low-lying areas and intersections as water from the hill joined water that fell over the rest of town.

In the meantime, a second area hit with intense flooding was the "Hidden Valley" housing development.  This development is indicated by the blue arrow along the right side of the image above.  There's a reason it's called "Hidden Valley"...it's built up into the mouth of a valley.  That valley exists because water from fields above drains through there.  Of course this area was hard hit because water from the entire area above that development was channeled right down through the middle of the valley!  A friend who lives there has a home that backs onto a shallow drainage depression designed to channel moderate amounts of water away from homes there.  He said that by the end of the storm that the depression had been eroded into a gully seven feet deep! I heard secondhand reports that many families were displaced from their homes in that development.

Then while all of this was going on many of the student apartments around town also suffered significant flooding.  This stems largely from the fact that for whatever reason, it's been a tradition to build the first floor of student apartments so that their first floors are partially below grade.  This way walkways along these apartments put a person about 3-4' below grade (the level of the ground).  I saw MANY photographs posted showing flooding to the doorknob-level in these apartments.

Suffice it to say that this was a mess.

Interestingly, the overall attitude associated with this flood appeared to be a mixture of partying, fun, horror, and depression, depending on how you were affected.

As soon as it became clear just how bad things were in some areas and for some people, however, the community really pitched in to start to clean up.  The community response to this flood has been an inspiration to me.  As soon as the rain was gone and the floodwaters were passed, people were out all over town checking on one another to make sure everyone was all right and to see if there was any damage and pitching in to help.    

Sadly, people in this area do not have flood insurance.  Sure, if a pipe breaks and you get flooding or water damage that way in your home then homeowners insurance will cover it, but that kind of insurance will not cover things like this freak storm/flooding, since it falls under the category of "Acts of God" for which insurance companies are not accountable. 

There you have it...what happened during the Rexburg storm and flood of July 15, 2014. 

Politically disenfranchised in Idaho

Yesterday was the 2014 primary election.  For Madison County and Rexburg City, Idaho, this means that this was THE election that matters.  Now that the primaries are done the election in November is, for us, largely a formality where GOP candidates proceed to steamroll over the opposition, if any, in a tidal wave of "red" voting.  I'll get back to this later.

Idaho is politically inconsequential to most people in the United States.  Its population is so small and its political leaning is so overwhelmingly red that even Presidential hopefuls generally don't bother stopping by during their election years.  Republicans skip a visit to Idaho because they know they have the state all sewn up, and Democrats skip it because, well, it's largely a lost cause to them.

This brings us to yesterday's election and I'll use one race as the focal point of this posting:

Ron Nate vs. Doug Hancey (incumbent) for the State House of Representatives seat for Idaho District 34A.

Doug Hancey is a member of the GOP and a business man who knows what it takes to run a business, work with employees, etc., and who has a proven track record of working with house members on both sides of the aisle to get things done in the Idaho State Legislature.

Ron Nate is a also GOP, but with a stronger Tea Party flavor, who sells himself primarily as "the more conservative choice."  He is a professor of economics, and though he has been active in local political organizations he had never been elected to office.

During yesterday's primary election, as of midnight last night, Ron Nate earned 2710 votes to 2190 for Doug Hancey.  A story in today's Idaho Falls Post Register newspaper Doug Hancey said that he was disappointed, but that he was most likely hurt by low voter turn out.  Local reports also commented that voter turnout was low, and that they are at a loss about why this was so.

Why a low voter turnout?  This is no mystery.  A few years ago the Idaho state GOP voted to close all GOP primary elections.  Only registered GOP members are therefore allowed to vote in GOP primary races in Idaho.

I started thinking about this and I did some research.  District 34 includes Madison County and the northern rural part of Bonneville County, which does not include the cities of Idaho Falls or Ammon.  Rexburg is therefore the largest population center in this district.

According to the web site CensusViewer.com (http://censusviewer.com/city/ID/Rexburg), in 2010 Rexburg had a population of 25,484 with 20,289 over the age of 18 and therefore at least potentially eligible to vote.  Again, according to CensusViewer.com this is the breakdown of registered GOP and Dem voters in Rexburg in 2010:

• Republican 4, 944 
• Democrat 208

These numbers indicated that though this district votes overwhelmingly for GOP candidates, only about one quarter of eligible voters are registered as either Rep or Dem.

If we look at the voter turnout for the Nate v. Hancey GOP contest, we see 2,710 to 2,190 votes for a total of 4900 votes cast.  Is this a low turnout?  It appears to be when you compare this number to the total number of potentially eligible voters in the district (>20,000 of them), but it is probably an extremely high voter turnout when you consider the number of people would were ALLOWED to vote in yesterday's GOP primaries.  From the data above we know that about 1/4 of eligible voters in Rexburg are registered Republicans.  If we accept the assumption that about the same proportion of voters in the entire district are similarly registered we would probably see 6,000 to 7,500 registered GOP voters.  When we compare the number of votes cast in the Nate v. Hancey race to this number, the registered voter turnout is between 65% and 81%.  This is an incredibly high voter turnout.

What does this mean?  This means that the state GOP maneuvering to close its elections disenfranchises all but the faithful few in the state, and thus guarantees that at least in my part of the state that the few are deciding who the leaders will be for the many.

I wanted to vote, but it was illegal in Idaho for me to do so in the election that mattered to me - the GOP primary.  I am not a registered affiliate with any political party.  I'll say that again...it was illegal for me to vote.

As a political independent, formerly associated with the GOP, I am now disenfranchised and prohibited from voting in elections for my state and local political leadership.  Is this still America?  It doesn't feel like it.  At least it doesn't when less than 25% of the eligible voters are allowed to decide who sits in city, county, and state elected offices.

Has it felt like a LONG, COLD January?

That's because it was!

Rexburg, Idaho, experienced quite a cold spell throughout most of January.  How cold?  Read on.

On an aside, it kind of baffles me why low temperatures experienced in the upper midwest makes the national news, while extreme cold weather here does not.  I guess it's because most of the people in the USA are familiar with Idaho, you know, that's where they grow potatoes, and it's the capital of Montana, or something like that.  That's part of living in a national backwater I suppose.  Anyway...

According to data from the National Weather Service, and put into graphical form by Weather.com, The average January high temperature for Rexburg, ID, is 29oF, and its average low temperature is 13oF (see below).

Here are the observed temperatures for Rexburg, ID, January 1-23, 2013.

A little number crunching shows that through 1/23/2013 our observed average high temperature was 18.5oF.  That's 11.5oF lower than our average high temperature for the month.  The average low temperature here was -2.7oF.  That's nearly 16oF below our monthly average.

Yep, it was cold, cold, COLD, in Rexburg, and lots of other places this January.  

Fortunately we are experiencing a change in the weather here now.  Today's weather?  Cloudy and RAIN...!?  Yep, rain!

2012 - Hot, Hot, Hot! The warmest year on record for Rexburg, Idaho

Every month or so I get a weather summary/update from our local weather guru, Lee Warnick.  He enjoys tracking the weather...I enjoy tracking climate.

Anyway, his latest weather news release to the "Rexburg Weather Group" was quite the eye-opener.  I mean it shouldn't have been much of a surprise given the un-Idahoanly mild winter we had in 2011-2012, but the effects of global climate change are being felt everywhere, even here in SE Idaho.

Here are some highlights from his weather summary of 2012:

Average annual high temperature data for Rexburg, Idaho (n=41 years of temperature data)

1. Average annual high temp = 56.25oF
2. 2012 average high temp = 59.36oF
3. Departure from average = +3.11oF
4. This is the highest annual average temperature on record for Rexburg, Idaho

Average annual low temperature data for Rexburg, Idaho (n=41 years of temperature data)

1. Average annual low temperature = 30.59oF
2. 2012 annual low temperature = 34.12oF
3. Departure from average = +3.53oF
4. This was this highest annual low temperature average for Rexburg, Idaho ever

>90oF days 

1. Average number of 90oF days = 15.6
2. 2012 number of 90oF days = 32
3. 2012 had more than twice the historical average of 90+oF days!

<0oF days

1. Average number of days with below 0oF temperature = 17.5
2. 2012 number of days below 0oF = 1...that's right only ONE!  Unbelievable!

Windy days in Rexburg, Idaho...a place already known for its wind

1. Annual average number of windy days = 65.6 
2. 2012 number of windy days = 104 
3. Yep, that's 1.6 times more windy days than the historical average.
4. The previous record number of windy days/year was 95 in 2011 (also a record at the time)

Daily temperature records

1. High daily temperature records - there were 45 new daily temperature records set in 2012
2. Low daily temperature records - there were 6 new daily low temperatures set in 2012.
3. If we were in a normal temperature year we would predict roughly equal numbers of high and low temperature records to be set, but in 2012 high temperature records to low temperature records were set at a rate of 7.5:1.

What does all of this mean?

It means that 2012 was the warmest, windiest year on record for Rexburg, Idaho.

Is this an evidence of global warming?

It is statistically difficult to tie an individual weather event, such as one warm year or one windy year, to global warming.  But, what we can say with confidence is that the current trend of global climate change makes years like these more likely to occur than in the past, and that the observed elevated temperatures and increased number of windy days are also consistent with climate models of ongoing global warming.

We can also be confident in saying, like it or not, that there will be cooler years than 2012 and warmer years than 2012 in the future, but that we are almost certainly going to see more warmer years than cooler years as long as the current trend of global warming continues.

(image courtesy of allposters.com)

Looking For A Great Place To Go Cross Country Skiing? Try Warm River, Idaho

Last Saturday we went cross country skiing at one of my favorite places in the world: the Rails to Trails Route at Warm River, Idaho.  This trail is readily accessible, beautiful, and doable for just about any skier.

This image (courtesy of GoogleEarth) shows the general location of Warm River.

To get to Warm River, drive north on Hwy 20 toward Yellowstone National Park.  When you reach Ashton, Idaho, turn right on Hwy 47, which is also Main Street in Ashton, and follow that road.  You will drive past many farm fields and then down into the river valley of Henry's Fork of the Snake River.  As you continue on Hwy 47 you will see the Warm River Campground to your right as you drive up out of the valley.  This campground is on Warm River. 

If you want to, you can access the bottom of the Warm River to West Yellowstone Rails to Trails route at the north end of the campground.  It is well marked, and is located on the west bank of Warm River.  During the wintertime the entire trail is open to snowmobiles, so there is sometimes quite a bit of activity on the trail from the campground northward.  Personally, I choose not to ski this part of the trail because the snow mobiles tend to chew up the course.  My preference is to access the Rails to Trail route at Bear Gulch.

Bear Gulch is a turnout at the end of the stretch of Hwy 47 that is maintained and plowed by the state.  This is also a popular jump-off spot for snowmobilers, most of the snow machine riders who start here do not go over to Warm River, they continue up Hwy 47 where they can really open up their machines.  We, however, pop up onto the road from the parking lot and drop down to Warm River via a well traveled trail.  Granted, this route is also accessible to snow machines, and can also get chewed up, but we were able to find pretty good snow along the edges of the main track.

I enjoy going to Warm River not only in the winter, but it is also my favorite fishing spot.  You don't tend to catch a lot of big fish there, but it's highly unusual to get blanked.  

Anyway, when we went on Saturday we got there around 11:30a or noon, and we skied up the trail for about 3 miles, as marked on the image above.  This is a beautiful place.  It was a nice day, though overcast.  The temp was not too cold, and it snowed on us on and off, with huge flakes.  A perfect winter day outing.

Here are some things you will see if you visit this area in the winter time.

This is a shot looking south, up the hill from the Bear Gulch turnout - note the trailers and snow machines.  We drive to the north end of the lot and park there.  This puts us out of the way of most traffic.  This is a nice turnout, and it has restrooms (though without running water).  It is, after all, on National Forest land.  If you look closely you will see where people have hiked up or were driven up this hill on snow machines and then skied or snow boarded down.  It beats paying for a lift ticket - at least according to some.

This is a panorama collage I put together using 6 shots taken from just down the trail from the RR tunnel.  The tunnel is visible as the dark object at the end of the trail at the left-hand end of the image.  The Warm River is visible at the bottom of the valley.  It is surrounded by pine and snow-covered hills. It's beautiful.

This is a shot of just the river valley.  In the spring, summer, and fall, there are also stands of aspen trees that you can see in the valley as well.

This is the southern end of the old RR Tunnel.   A few years ago here was a partial cave-in midway through the tunnel, and the USFS blocked both ends, and built an extension of the trail around the outer edge of the tunnel so you can still easily access the trail above the tunnel.

This is a shot of my wife and daughter on the bypass trail around the tunnel.

Once you finish the bypass trail you can look back and see the north end of the tunnel.  Well, you can actually see all the way through it...the tunnel isn't all that long.

While the section of the trail below the tunnel is scenic, my favorite stretch is above the tunnel.  Here are some shots from the trail as it travels along on the west bank of the Warm River.

This is a shot I took through a natural frame of snow-covered pines.  I love the way the snow piled up on boulders in the middle of the river.  This next set of shots were taken as we continued north on the trail.  There are places where there are volcanic outcroppings above the river, as shown below.  

The shot below shows ice cycles that form where the river water splashes onto logs that have fallen across the river.  I also really like the layering in the snow along the riverbank.

This shot shows a favorite fishing hole of mine that I visit several times each summer.  This trip though, all I'm taking are photos.  Well, actually, I am mostly a catch-an-release fisherman, so I don't tend to take that much even when I do come here fishing.

Note the large snowflakes falling with the dark water in the background.

And you will be treated to many scenes like this one all along this trail...and did I mention that you don't even have to pay any access fees!  Yeah!

Eventually it was time to turn around and head back.  Because the trail is an old railroad bed the grade is quite gentle, and when you are outbound it's not all that noticeable that you have been climbing in altitude.  But when you turn around you can tell the difference, and while you don't ski all the way down, you will find that the going is quite a bit easier.  And, you will notice that the difference in perspective of heading south gives you a different view of things you passed when you were outbound. 

And here we are, back below the RR tunnel, with Warm River in the background.  Until next time!

Oh, and when you're done and you're on your way home, don't forget to stop at Dave's Jubilee in Ashton for ice cream or a bite to eat at the deli!  Yum!

Cress Creek Nature Trail, Idaho

Originally posted 5-29-2011

After we left the Kelly Canyon Resort we drove over to Cress Creek and took the short hike there.  We've been there a number of times, and it's a nice outing for people of all ages.  Here are Emily and I at the parking area.

Here's a link that provides more info about Cress Creek Nature Trail: BLM Cress Creek Nature Trail

This nature trail was developed by the Conservation Corps, and they have done a fantastic job of developing and maintaining this site.

There is a nice parking area, restrooms, and trail.

The lower part of the trail is all paved.  This part of the trail is designed to be completely wheel chair accessible (it would a  good idea to have someone pushing though, because sometimes the grade can be  little steep.  We also saw lots of people up there with their young families, including small children in strollers.

This phots shows part of the paved lower trail.  There are benches and picnic tables located here and there, as well as signs describing local plants, animals, and geology of the area.

I'm not sure how far, maybe 1/2 mile into the trail it switches from paving to gravel.  This is also where you will see Cress Creek for the first time.  This creek is interesting because it is spring fed, and has a constant temperature year-round.  Also, you can always see water cress growing there, thus, Cress Creek.

This photo shows Emily poking around in the water in Cress Creek right by the train.  The green leafy plants in the water is the water cress.  Some people use water cress like lettuce to make salads or in sandwiches, etc.

The gravel trail is a loop, and there are scenic lookouts placed here and there along the trail.  The South Fork of the Snake River runs along the foot of the hillside where the trail is located.  We had a heavier than usual snow pack this year, and the snow melt is underway.  The Snake river has flooded lots of lowlands this year - more than usual.  The trees in the background along the river and covering the bottom lands are cottonwood trees.  In fact, this cottonwood forest is supposed to be one of the largest continuous cottonwood forests in the world.  Anyway, this photo is looking off to the north, and you can see the Menan Buttes in the distance.  One of those buttes (dormant volcanoes) is "R" Mountain, for those of you who may have attended Ricks College or BYU-Idaho., and they are only a few miles from Rexburg.

The photo below shows the view to the south, showing the South Fork of the Snake River, and looking to the south and east of Ririe, Idaho.

This is a good outing.  We hiked the whole trail, and though it's not long, it's a good outing.  We enjoyed it, and if you like poking around and learning about nature and SE Idaho, you may too.  Best wishes!