My War Against Rain Gear, Part Umpteen

I've lived in Portland for almost twenty-two years, and for all of those years, I've been an all-year, all-weather cyclist. And if you are an all-weather cyclist in Portland, that means you're going to have to deal with rain. Rain is the default weather from sometime in October (or November if we're lucky) to sometime...

A Portland Snow Event, 11-15 Feb 2021

Why yes, it was just last week when I was talking about how I enjoy Portland's temperate winters. OnRhodes correctly surmised that I was "jinxing" things by talking about it. And jinx I did: We've had a significant winter weather event over the weekend. While snow in Portland isn't uncommon during winter, most of it...

Winter Solstice 2020

Monday was Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. Solstice was more significant this year due to the "Great Conjunction": Jupiter and Saturn line up in the night sky, making a "star". Alas, the weather was cloudy and rainy at the time it happened, so there was no observation here. Instead, we got a...

A dry spell

It's no secret: Winter in this part of the Northwest is about rain. No, it's not a non-stop downpour, but there are more days that feature some sort of precipitation than not. But there are dry days, even sunny days interspersed in there. During the middle of winter, it's rare to get more than two...

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...

Winter biking (sort of) in Portland.

It’s Cold Snap 2013 in Portland! Wait, maybe it’s Arctic Blast 2013? I’ll just have to wait for the media to tag this current below-average temperature event. And we typically get one or two decent cold snaps each winter here, but this one is unusual for its duration and the extremes in the cold. Portland...

Blink and You’ll Miss It: A story of Snow (and bicycles) in Portland

Portland, you wish. More like Edmonton. Thanks Keith! As most folks know, winter means rain in the West-of-Cascades region of the Pacific Northwest (or to some of us living here, Cascadia.) Now that's to say that snow doesn't happen around here (see "The Great One Week Snow and Ice Storm of January 2004" or "Snowpocalypse...