Seize the January day

It's been a dry few days around these parts. It doesn't rain non-stop all the time in winter here in Cascadia, so there's opportunities for dry rides a lot of the time. But a reliable string of dry sunny days during the wet season, a period where the rain gear is safely abandoned, calls for...

A taste of summer.

The last few days we've gotten our first tease of summer here in the Pacific Northwest, a "spring heatwave" if you will. It's been pretty nice since last week, but since Sunday we've seen the thermometer go up: 65F/18C on Sunday, 74F/23C on Monday, and 80F/27C on Tuesday. Eighty degrees! But it's supposed to get...

The thaw occurs.

It was bound to happen. Portland can't stay that cold that long (usually). The much promised thaw began to happen, despite the snow's best efforts to stick around until May. It started with whimper on Tuesday. It started to rain (some areas got freezing rain) but the temp was in the mid-to-upper 30's. There was...

Finishing up a “real winter” weekend

As I type this report on Sunday night, there is still lingering snow and ice from Wednesday's snow event around Portland. We may see a brief amount of snow overnight, then real rain starts and the daytime high adjusts to its seasonal norm of mid-40s. So we'll have snow on the ground in the lowlands...

Another snow day, another snow biking day.

It seems like just last week it snowed here. Oh wait, that's because it did! 😉 But yeah, on Wednesday December 14th, old man winter decided to knock on Portland's door again. It started snowing in the afternoon. Since it was my day off and I had no plans or obligations, I didn't go out,...

Snow? Snow!

And without warning, and just like that, Portland got its first snow of the season, the first of 2016. (At least in the lower elevations, the higher elevations got a little last week.) It's been cold for Portland the last week, highs just above freezing, but sunny. Our "cold snap", so to speak. And I...

Is this my celebrated autumn?

We've had a week of off and on precipitation and lower-than-average temps. This has been refreshing, since this summer was becoming too much of something to be endured not enjoyed. Continuous 95F days do not make me happy. And because of the cooler, damper weather, autumn's approach is being felt. And I'm happy with that. I actually...

Summer drags itself out to the bitter end

It seems a bit funny to complain about summer becoming an unwanted guest, especially someone like myself who loves summer. But complain I will. And this past summer has been a very hot one. While we didn't have too many big heatwaves, we had lots of 90F and above days, and quite a bit of...