Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Two days of high winds have finally subsided. I'm glad that I'd fully stocked the wood supply on the front porch, because it meant I didn't have to go far to get more firewood. Today it finally calmed down enough that I could bring more wood from the big box to the porch box without being blown all over the place.

Yesterday it rained most of the day, and last night the temperatures were below freezing, making for an icy porch and sidewalks. Today we had intermittent rain and wind. Now I know the weather has been much worse for many other people, with blizzard conditions back east, but it's really unusual for us to get this much rain over a day or two. Or if we do get that much rain, it will happen all at once, with 20% of our annual precipitation falling in an hour.

During a break in the rain, Lisa moved wood from the large wood box to the small one on the porch and also filled up the smaller box in the living room. I offered to put on my work clothes and help, but she said she'd do it, as I'm still not supposed to do heavy lifting for a while. I've been carrying only two logs at a time rather than four, and that's still up from one log (they weigh around 3 kg each) when I first came home from the hospital.

Last night, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and had a look out the front door. The forecast snow had arrived, a few hours later than originally predicted.

( Light Snow Day )

This was the first precipitation of note in about a month. Yes, Fernley is on the edge of the Forty Mile Desert, but much of what precipitation we get is in the form of snow. Last year around this time, we got the largest fall I can remember since we moved here in 2011: 40 cm in one night. This winter we have near-drought conditions, and it's worrisome. We need lots of snow in the Sierra Nevada, for Fernley's water ultimately depend on the Truckee River, which flows out of Lake Tahoe through Reno/Sparks and into Pyramid Lake, with a considerable amount siphoned into the Truckee Canal, which feeds much of Fernley's groundwater supply.

Pre-pandemic, something that Lisa and I did semi-regularly was to go to the Chinese restaurant buffet here in Fernley on Christmas Eve. Last night, we thought we'd revive that tradition; however, we discovered that they're now closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas, as are most of the other restaurants in Fernley. We ended up going to dinner at the Ranch House Restaurant in the Silverado Casino.

Continuing that theme, I'd initially intended to have breakfast at the Wigwam this morning, but unlike past years in my memory, they are now closed on Christmas Day. I still wanted some breakfast, so I ended up going over to the Denny's at the truck stop on the far side of town.

Getting going this morning was difficult due to the frost. (I bought a can of de-icing spray at the truck stop, but that didn't do me any good getting away from the house.) I still can't find any of the frost scrapers that I'm sure we have around here.

( Returning to the House )

Now I need to clean up the living room in preparation for our holiday feast later today.

Someone unexpectedly (I didn't see it in the weather forecast), we got a tiny bit of snow overnight.

( Light Dusting )

The forecast for today is to stay pretty cold, although it should eventually get above freezing for a while. The chance of snow is <5% for today and tomorrow.

After a warm spell (albeit not the heat wave that hit parts of California a week ago), we're having the first real cold snap of autumn, with temperatures going down below freezing tonight. Having put away the swamp cooler a few days ago, I today got out the space heater and set it up in the living room.

Meanwhile, over in Iceland, Lisa is not feeling well and has spent most of the time there in her hotel room taking advantage of the bathtub and the geothermal hot mineral water there. Tomorrow, she and Chris fly to Chicago, and unfortunately neither of them were able to take better advantage of their time in Iceland.

Me, I'm going to bed early and putting an extra blanket on the bed.

The short burst that soaked me yesterday was followed by a short clearance and then a longer and heavier rainfall. Lisa recorded it from underneath the shelter that covers the travel trailer.



As is the way of desert living, it felt like we got about 10% of our annual precipitation in about ten minutes. It did cool things off, and it did create a bunch of standing water, but most of it is now gone, leaving higher-than-usual humidity in its wake and returning heat into the mid-30s C.

Unfortunately, the person who "fixed" the gutters along the upper roof didn't do it right. He left a gap between the two pieces of gutter (so rain drips through the gap) and didn't cover both ends of the roof line (so rain drips there instead of running through the down-spout and into the dry well I dug for this purpose). We need to fix it eventually, but we don't think it will happen this summer because of our planned travel. It's not exactly dangerous, but it is a nuisance.

If I understood this correctly from the radio news, this storm was the combination of a low pressure system that came down from the north mixing it up with the last of the water from tropical storm Alberto, which apparently came though the Gulf of Mexico, crossed Mexico into the Pacific, then formed back up again, albeit not back up to tropical-storm strength.

Just over a month ago was the last time we used the fireplace. Two days ago, the heat hit: highs around 37°C (that's human body temperature), with the living room getting up to 27°C (I consider 20°C ideal). It was time to break out the cooler.

( Welcome to the Swamp )

I dislike the heat much more than the cold. While the swamp cooler is generally pretty effective in our low-humidity climate in making things more tolerable, I can never seem to get it cool enough to be actually comfortable. It was hot enough today that after I ran over to Walgreens for a small errand, I took a much longer way home than usual that took me up the freeway to Wadsworth and then back to Fernley so that I could run the Astro's newly-refurbished air conditioning at max for a little while. (It doesn't work very well at low RPMs.)

As the first warm spell of the year moves in, I'm staying indoors a lot. Today was not bad, but the rest of the week includes forecast high temperatures in the high 30's C. We'll probably have to break out the evaporative "swamp" cooler and set it up for the season. I do like that we'll be spending a significant chunk of this summer away from home going to places like Iceland and Scotland where it's not so likely to be as hot as it here at home.

Although we didn't get any rain or snow here in Fernley, it wasn't far away.

( More Spring Snow )

I-80 over Donner Summit was closed most of last night. Snow reached the western edge of Reno. Here in Fernley, all we got was wind and a lot of it. It was pretty cold wind as well. Temperatures got to near freezing, and between the wind and cold, neither Lisa nor I felt like tackling more of the yard work.

The wind did slacken off just enough this morning that I could run over to get some milk and other perishables without feeling like the Rolling Stone was going to be blown off the road. Also, for a short time this afternoon, Lisa and I could sit on the (slightly sheltered) front porch watching birds making their way back to the feeder. However, it was not long before the cold drove us back indoors. If it stays this cold any longer, I'm going to have the restart the fireplace again.