Snowing in Houson

It still stops ... :)

Spent 10 days w/ daughter in Olympia couple of weeks ago now...saw the sun once while there for about 30 minutes... :(

except in Seattle where it rains everywhere, and heavier in the convergence zone...

- Doug

I've seen that too. It's really cool, like one of those cartoons where the single rain cloud is following someone around.

Mark & Juanita wrote: ...

I know, I spent 30 years in VA/TN where it does rain more generally like that...I suppose, though, that for those of us who are in the western states where virtually all of our rainfall is thunderstorm-type and where we can see for long distances, the phenomenon is so common as to be expected rather than the unexpected...

I recall one time as a kid sitting in the dining room at noon while it rained out the west windows and was dry on the east side--took several minutes for it to move the other fifteen feet or so required to get to the other side of the house, too. Usually things aren't that slow-moving around here, but that particular storm was.

While the precipitation line must be somewhere, it is usually not as abrupt, more of a gradual tapering off from rain to drizzle to mist. The sharp demarcation of rain/dry is what is interesting.

OK, I went and did a google for "freeze protection orchard grove" and found a nice paper

They also define the "advective freezing" and I see it is simply the movement of sub-freezing temperatures into the area en masse...under those circumstances there isn't much one can do. That's a nomenclature not known to me previously and, as I thought, a semantics issue....we weren't discussing the same thing.

Rules? ... tell that to somone who had an ill-timed, though relatively small, investment in a citrus grove operation back in the oil boom, flush, early 80's and wished like hell that mother nature would have indeed "played by the rules". :)

So as to know how those $$'s went away so fast way, I brushed up on the subject, but it has been a while.

In any event, evaporative cooling _can_ certainly "reduce the temperature of plant tissue to below the air temperature".

Suspecting that Texas A&M would have a current interest, and something to say, on the subject of protecting Texas' citrus groves from freezing, and so you don't take my word for it, here you go:

When we were kids they had a saying when you saw the phenomenon of rain on one side of the street, and sunshine on the other:

"The devil is chasing his wife around a stump with a broomstick".

Hadn't thought of that in years ... wonder where it came from?

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 09:09:10 -0600, Duane Bozarth calmly ranted:

Doesn't the Olympic Rainforest get something like 240 inches annually? Amazing!

------------------------------------------------- - Boldly going - * Wondrous Website Design - nowhere. - *

Used to see that years ago when traveling to AZ. Going through TX & NM you could see for miles and watch those thunderstorms go across the highway miles ahead of you. By the time you got there, the road was wet for a mile or two, then back to dry road again. Once we saw where some unfortunate slid off the road into a 6' deep ditch, then kept driving down the ditch for about 3mi trying to find a way out until they got stopped at a crossing. Only way they were going to get out was a tow.

The Olympic mountains are what creates the convergence zone. The Pacific weather moves in and hits the Olympics giving the amazing rainfall there. The mountains also force weather north and south heading east, and this weather "converges", usually somewhere from north Seattle to Everett to give that "enhanced" rainfall.

- Doug

True. I was going to mention that earlier this morning, but didn't quite work it in. As a truck driver I see this quite often. There's a line on the road. One side is bright and sunny, and the other is a deluge, like driving straight into a wall of water. Or the reverse too. It's not terribly rare at all.

Larry Jaques wrote: ...

Don't know the precisely although the Time/Life series of US geographical areas says about 150" (the bookshelf happens to be right over there... :) ). Let's see if the Smoky Mountains is given...I'm thinking it's in the 85-inch neighborhood if I recall correctly...no, that's not given there although some of the top elevations also qualify as temperate rain forest (although not in spades like Olympic).

Testy , aren't we? Sounds like you jumped on your ass to try and save the world from something evil on the horizon.

I said nothing about the wind, that's your addition. Tilt away in ignorance, or look up what I told you. If the mist blows away, they're not/can't be misting well enough to hold the dewpoint. Simple enough even for you?

You quoted what I wrote, but obviously read what you wanted to see.

Indeed, the technique of spraying to ice the surface is used to prevent the more dangerous formation of ice crystals in the cells of the blossoms or fruit, where lower temperatures are required due to the depressed freezing point caused by solutes.

Yep, the reason for the abundant rainfall is the elevation and cooling of moisture-laden air - can't be colder than the dewpoint without raining - by the mountains. Spills into the gaps with enhancement.

Then there's the rain shadow on the other side extending through the intermountain region.

We get 240 inches per year too, but it's snow. The areas of squalls south of the lake (Superior) are easily predicted by the direction and velocity of the wind, and influenced by the lay of the land.

More common where the rain is a result of sudden downdraft from storms, versus frontal activity, which spreads for miles. I imagine everyone has experienced the sudden cooling prior to a thunderstorm, and many of those who fly have felt low altitude microbursts. Lot of airports are putting in Doppler now to warn aircraft close to the ground of their potential for becoming part of it.

True - Sequim (pronounced squim), a little town on the northeast side of the Olympic peninsula is in the shadow (aka banana belt), and get about one third of the rainfall as Seattle.

- Doug

Just to add some fuel to the fire: I was *told* when touring the Ocean Spray facility in Plymouth, MA that the reason they flood the cranberry bogs in winter is to protect the plants. Apparently they can withstand being in frigid water or encased in ice, but frost will damage them.