Roof Drift

[liralen]

Roof Drift
Originally uploaded by Liralen Li.

This is a south-west facing roof, and the snow drifted up there. I took this around 3:30 pm here, and it's grown considerably as it's snowed steadily all day and into the night. The snow is STILL coming down.

We only get heavy snows when we get what's called an upslope condition, when there's a low either here or to the west of here, and it pulls the winds west from the east and pushes the air into the mountains. When the air is forced up, it gets wrung out and all the moisture comes out. In the winter, it comes out as snow.

With the jet stream above us heading from the west to the east all the time, this is a rare occurance on this side of the mountains. But when it happens, it *really* dumps. Wow.

Comments

[rephetibel.livejournal.com]

Good heavens. It looks as if the snow could peel off your gutter! How long is this storm expected to last? Are you well stocked with food?

Re: Your discussion with Jet about houses built of different materials.

I would like to try building something (a garden shed, maybe) out of cob. Just to see how well it works. There are cob houses in England that have lasted for centuries.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

We're all well stocked. :-) And here the power doesn't go out in a blizzard, thank goodness.

Also, the snow is a little deceptive in that it's SO cold out here that the snow is the light, fluffy stuff, not the Cascade concrete that falls out in the northwest. So the big drifts are relatively light and while the drift is now probably half again as big, the gutter's holding up fine. The trees are doing fine eventhough they're covered in a good foot of snow.

Ooo! A cob house! That would be cool to see. :-)

[rephetibel.livejournal.com]

Here is a picture of a neat cob house.

http://www.chicobco.com/

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Ooooo! That's absolutely gorgeous!! I love it and I bet it insulates very well.

Wow.