Posts Tagged ‘denver’
Posted by Richard on February 8, 2007
Today was the 49th day on which Denver officially had at least one inch of snow on the ground. That puts this streak into third place for longest continuous snow cover. The streak began on December 21, the day after our pre-Christmas blizzard began. The official measurement (which still takes place at the old Stapleton Airport location) is made once each day in the morning, so the foot or more that fell during the day on the 20th doesn’t count.
We’ve still got 8 inches on the ground, and it’s getting colder again, so the streak continues for now. But we’ll probably need some fresh snow soon if we’re going to get to first or second place — 63 and 60 days, respectively.
Of course, our little streak probably just merits a chuckle from folks in western New York, where the lake effect snows have dumped 5+ feet in the last few days. I imagine it will take a while for that to melt, and it will probably be refreshed from time to time. But folks there are used to it, right?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, snow, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on February 6, 2007
Just a few weeks ago, New Yorkers were fretting about the ominously warm weather, folks in D.C. were viewing cherry blossoms with alarm and blaming Bush, and satirists were making fun of global-warming doubters. Here in Denver, where we’ve been measuring the snow with yardsticks and keeping track of the temperature by counting on our fingers, I was neither amused nor sympatthetic.
Now it’s turnabout time! After suffering seven weeks of harsh winter weather, I can’t resist chortling a bit over the reports of heavy snow and subzero temperatures back east. Meanwhile, it’s sunny and around 60° in Denver today. In the last couple of days, most of the ice has melted off the street in front of my house, and the snow in the yard has melted down to just 6 or 8 inches deep.
But I can’t gloat for too long — we’re expecting light snow Friday night into Saturday. Sigh.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on February 2, 2007
Why, yes, we do have another snowstorm in Denver. In fact, it’s 13° and snowing to beat the band. Last week, our regularly scheduled Friday snow didn’t arrive until Saturday. This week, Old Man Winter decided to compensate by bringing it on early. In plenty of time for today’s evening rush hour.
Why, yes, it was slow going. My usual 25-35 minute afternoon commute took over an hour and a half. In first gear for the last 10 or 12 miles. I’m seriously thinking of having a couple or three hot buttered rums for dinner.
Boat drinks. Boys in the band ordered boat drinks.
Visitors just scored on the home rink.
Everything seems to be wrong.
Lately, newspaper mentioned cheap airfare.
I’ve got to fly to Saint Somewhere.
I’m close to bodily harm.
…
UPDATE: Got just another couple of inches overnight, but the arctic air arrived. The low set a record for the date: -18° F., with a wind chill of -37°. By the time I headed for work, the air temperature had risen to -11° (-25° wind chill).
Boat drinks.
Waitress, I need two more boat drinks.
Then I’m headin south ‘fore my dream shrinks.
I gotta where it’s warm.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, snow, weather | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on January 27, 2007
Denver’s official weather reporting station is at Denver International Airport, so the Denver high, low, and snowfall* numbers you’re likely to see are actually for a windswept high plain well east of town. Usually, it only makes a few degrees difference (although the snowfall differences are frequently large). But on Thursday, we had quite a contrast.
The official high temperature at the airport was 36° F. But 24 miles east* west, at the 9News studio near downtown, it was 60° — 24 miles, 24° difference. A weather forecaster’s job isn’t easy in Denver.
The warm spell isn’t going to last. An arctic front moves in tonight, and we’re getting a little more snow Saturday. This will be the sixth weekend in a row with snow. The phrase "winter of our discontent" seems increasingly apt.
* Errors corrected thanks to Anon. See comments.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, snow, weather | 2 Comments »
Posted by Richard on January 19, 2007
The streak is coming to an end! Hooray! Denver’s had snowfall on each of the past four Fridays, going back to the pre-Christmas blizzard. This Friday, we break out of the cycle. It’s going to be clear and sunny all day. We may even be a few degrees above freezing.
Of course, we’ve still got four weeks’ worth of accumulated snow and ice, up to five inches thick on some streets. I heard one TV weather person opine that it could take weeks for all the snow to melt.
Oh, yeah, and that snowfall that’s not coming Friday? It’s expected Saturday afternoon.
If Al Gore showed his face around here droning on about greenhouse gases and polar bears, I’d punch him out.
I suspect there’d be a line.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, snow, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on January 4, 2007
SkyFOX, the KDVR-31 traffic helicopter, captured some pretty cool video of an impressive meteor breaking up in the Denver sky this morning just before dawn. Check it out. Try to ignore the less than brilliant commentary.
UPDATE: It wasn’t a meteor, it was "space junk" — part of a Russian SL-4 rocket that re-entered the atmosphere.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: astronomy, denver, science, television | 2 Comments »
Posted by Richard on December 28, 2006
We were just about over last week’s big storm (see my pictures here). Tuesday and Wednesday, Denver and the state Dept. of Transportation made visible progress. Some of the previously-unplowed lanes were finally cleared, and the interstate entrances and exits were much improved. Delivery trucks were having an easier time, grocery shelves were being refilled, and the Postal Service had almost caught up.
Then the next storm started.
It started snowing about 11 AM today, and it’s coming down heavily now. Depending on which forecast is right, it won’t be over until Saturday morning, Saturday evening, or Sunday morning, and Denver will get somewhere between 10 and 24 inches. Right now, there’s not much wind, but that’s supposed to change later tonight. Blizzard conditions east of Denver are likely, and maybe in Denver, too.
There’s not a snow shovel to be had in the entire metro area. Last night and this morning, people poured into the grocery stores and carted off all the milk, eggs, bread, meat, and the like that they could carry.
Contact FEMA, and have them start emergency deliveries of snow shovels. And rye bread. For some reason, there’s no rye bread!
OK, parrotheads, sing it with me!
Boat drinks. Boys in the band ordered boat drinks.
Visitors just scored on the home rink.
Everything seems to be wrong.
Lately, newspaper mentioned cheap airfare.
I’ve got to fly to Saint Somewhere.
I’m close to bodily harm.
Chorus
Twenty degrees and the hockey games on.
Nobody cares; they are way too far gone,
screamin’ "Boat drinks," somethin’
to keep them all warm.
This morning I shot six holes in my freezer.
I think I got cabin fever.
Somebody sound the alarm.
I’d like to go where the pace or life’s slow.
Could you beam me somewhere, Mister Scott?
Any old place here on Earth or in space.
You pick the century and I’ll pick the spot.
I know I should be leaving this climate.
I got a verse but can’t rhyme it.
I gotta go where it’s warm.
Boat drinks.
Waitress, I need two more boat drinks.
Then I’m headin south ‘fore my dream shrinks.
I gotta where it’s warm.
I gotta go where it’s warm.
I gotta go where it’s warm.
I gotta go where there ain’t any snow,
where there ain’t any blow,
’cause my fin sinks so low.
I gotta go where it’s warm.
— "Boat Drinks" by Jimmy Buffett, from Volcano (1979)
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: blizzard, colorado, denver, snow, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on December 25, 2006
If you watched the Broncos squeak past the Bengals by the skin of their teeth (24-23, thanks to a bad snap on the potentially tying PAT), you saw the big fat flakes coming down, at times heavily. Yes, we got a little fresh snow today.
It looked more intense on TV than it really was — at least here at my house, where it amounted to less than half an inch.
Nonetheless, it cheered me to see it. For one thing, it just looked pretty and White-Christmasy. For another, it "freshened up" all the snow left from the blizzard, which had begun to take on that dingy, dirty "used snow" look. Now it’s all clean and spruced up for Christmas.
Speaking of which, I hope you all have a very merry one. If you’re not a Christian, do what I do and celebrate anyway! Any holiday on which people exchange gifts, eat, drink, and make merry deserves to be celebrated, don’t you think?
Images courtesy of CatStuff — all the cat graphics you need.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: broncos, colorado, denver, football, snow, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on December 24, 2006
In the aftermath of Denver’s holiday blizzard, three people died from shoveling snow. I’m not one of them — although I think I came closer than I’d like. I went through a lot of ibuprofen after clearing my sidewalk and digging my car out. I haven’t even tried to get out the back door to shovel the long walk to the alley.
Driving isn’t too bad on the main roads, except that the right-hand lane occasionally disappears because the plow drivers, for no apparent reason, swerved to the left. The entrance ramps on the interstate are a bit of a problem. Many are still somewhat snow-packed, and the "acceleration lane" is plowed clear for at most 30-50 yards. That makes merging into 60-mph traffic a bit of a challenge. Some of the exits are problematic, too. I saw a guy blocking an exit ramp completely. He’d obviously tried to exit too fast, lost it on the snow and ice, and buried the nose of his car into a 4-foot wall of snow.
It’s not a good time to go grocery shopping. The parking lots are a disaster. Inside, the shelves are a disaster, too. The supermarket I went to today had had its produce section practically stripped bare, and the milk coolers held just a few forlorn cartons of fat-free, 2%, and soy milk. Couldn’t find any egg nog at all, dammit.
Enough bitching. Here are some snapshots. Apologies to those of you on dial-up — but I tried to keep the file sizes reasonable (~30-40KB each).
As soon as the snow slacked off, my neighbor began shoveling her driveway. It took her all afternoon.
The snow cornice on the back of my Pathfinder is evidence of the strong winds.
Here’s the depth in the middle of my front yard, under a big maple tree. It’s probably a bit deeper in the back.
Looking out the back door at my deck. There are three steps under the snowdrift at bottom center.
Looking across my back yard to the alley. At some point, I’ll have to shovel a path to the dumpster.
It drifted up against the gate a bit in the side yard.
The neighbor kid shoveling the walk. He wasn’t very good, but maybe I should have tried to hire him.
That’s enough — you get the idea. Hope your Christmas is merry, but not quite as white!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: blizzard, colorado, denver, snow, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on December 21, 2006
It’s shaping up to be the worst winter storm to hit eastern Colorado in many years. At 6:30 AM, it was snowing moderately, and my 20-minute commute (18 miles, almost all interstate) took 40 minutes. Mid-morning, the snow became heavy and the wind really picked up. As I headed for home around lunchtime, the Dept. of Transportation imposed the chain law (requiring chains on commercial vehicles) in the Denver metro area. I can’t remember the chain law ever applying to metro Denver. The plows on I-25 clearly weren’t able to keep up with the heavy snowfall. My trip home took an hour and a half. In a 4WD SUV.
It’s been snowing easily an inch per hour all afternoon, and it’s expected to continue at least through tomorrow morning. Just about every highway in eastern Colorado is shut down in one or more places, including I-70 and I-25. The Postal Service suspended mail service. RTD is suspending bus service and limiting light rail. The governor declared a state of emergency. And tonight’s Nuggets basketbrawl game has been canceled.
For most of the day, Denver International Airport management, which insists that the multi-billion dollar facility is an "all-weather airport," maintained that they were open for business. But, um, they really didn’t recommend trying to drive to it through the whiteout blizzard conditions east of Denver because, um, well … you’d probably end up sleeping in the terminal for a couple of days because … um, well … there was this lack of takeoffs and landings … but the airport was still open! Honest! Well, they’ve finally given up and closed down until Thursday evening. I think that officially makes this a Monster Storm.
Those of you in milder climes who want to experience it vicariously can find lots of stories and photos at the 9News, CBS4Denver, Rocky Mountain News, and 850 KOA websites. It’s definitely going to be a White Christmas in Denver — ho, ho, ho!
UPDATE: The entire length of I-25 from Wyoming to New Mexico, including through Denver, is now closed. Hasn’t happened before in the 23 years I’ve lived here. Somebody call Al Gore and tell him we need more greenhouse gases — pronto!
12/21 UPDATE: The sun came out late this afternoon, so the storm’s over. It looks like it will go in the record books as the fourth-worst snowstorm in Denver history, with over 2 feet. Totals around the metro area ranged from about 20 to over 40 inches. I measured 21.5 on the level in my front yard. Drifts in the back looked about 3 feet deep.
Flights in and out of Colorado Springs resumed about noon. Jefferson County airport reopened in the afternoon. Denver International? They’re still plowing runways. They plan to open at noon Friday. I’m sure that some of the 5000 people who were stranded there overnight were a bit bemused to learn that the nation’s most modern, multi-billion dollar "all-weather" airport might be the last one in the state to resume operations.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, travel, weather | 6 Comments »
Posted by Richard on November 15, 2006
One week after the election, the Denver Election Commission is almost finished counting ballots. That means we may soon get official results for two state-wide races and a local referendum that have been up in the air.
The referendum is Mayor Hickenlooper’s "kiddie tax" to fund pre-school, about which columnist Peter Blake said, "you know they won’t finish counting until John Hickenlooper’s pre-school tax passes." It looks like Blake was right — it trailed after election day, it continued to trail all week, but lo and behold, as we approach the end of the count, it’s miraculously surged ahead by a thousand votes.
The statewide races are at-large Univ. of Colorado Regent and Secretary of State. Actually, the candidates for the latter didn’t wait for the official results — today, Democrat Ken Gordon conceded to Republican Mike Coffman, and the two pledged to work together to prevent future recurrences of this year’s voting fiascos, of which there were plenty. In Douglas County, the people who stuck it out didn’t finish voting until after midnight. In Denver, the wait was up to five hours because it took poll workers on laptops up to 20 minutes to connect to a central server and validate each voter.
Denver’s counting problems were largely the result of misprinted bar codes on 70,000 absentee ballots, requiring them to be sorted by hand. Pueblo reportedly also isn’t finished counting, but no one there offered an explanation. Denver had a host of other problems, including multiple ballot errors discovered before the election and the incorrect postage amount printed on absentee return envelopes. Then there were thousands of ballots that the Commission said "weren’t filled out right," so they’re being "copied" to new ballots to be scanned. Yeah, right…
Denver’s Clerk and Recorder, who is the appointed member of the three-person election commission, resigned today. He was supposed to be the "technology chief" to guide the two elected commissioners, but it turned out he’d padded his resume.
The ballot errors, bar code problems, and dysfunctional software are all courtesy of Sequoia Voting Systems. Nope, they’re not associated in any way with Diebold. They’re apparently closely connected to the government of Venezuela. That’s right, moonbat conspiracy theorists — if anyone screwed with Colorado’s elections, it was your commie hero, Chavez.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, elections, politics, vote fraud, voting | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on October 27, 2006
So, you saw the national news stories about the snowstorm in Colorado and want to see more snowy scenes? A couple of Denver TV stations have pretty sizable collections of viewer-submitted digital photos you can peruse.
First, take a look at the slideshows at CBS4Denver.com — they have thumbnails you can scroll through and click on if you don’t want to look through a whole long slideshow. Then, check out the big 9News.com slideshow — no thumbnails here, just titles/descriptions to help you pick and choose among the 119 images. Some titles are pretty descriptive — Coyotes at play (19 KB); others not so much — Bailey 09 (27 KB). But showing the file sizes is a nice touch.
The biggest snowfall totals were south and west of Denver. Since it was 70° F. Wednesday, much of what fell melted when it hit the warm ground. Nevertheless, we had about 3-5" on the ground in town. Here’s a shot (from 9News) of Washington Park, about 3/4 mile from my house:
If you drive south from my house down Broadway about 7 or 8 miles, you hit the suburb of Highlands Ranch. It piled up about 10-15" around there. Here’s what somebody’s deck looked like by mid-morning (from CBS4Denver):
Further south and in the mountains, some places got two feet or more. Actually, the mountains have been pounded every few days for the last couple or three weeks. If you’re a skier, start making plans for a great season. At least two of the big destination resorts are opening on Nov. 3 (Copper and Keystone; rumor has it Winter Park will, too), and they have beaucoup snow already!
Meanwhile, in Denver it will all be just a memory by the weekend — the forecast says sunny and near 70°. You could go up to Loveland in the morning for a half-day of skiing, and then come back to town and play a round of golf or take a bike ride in the afternoon. 🙂
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, skiing, snow, weather | 2 Comments »
Posted by Richard on September 1, 2006
Hooray! Colorado’s notorious Saudi slaveholder, whose arrest and conviction I blogged about, was sentenced Thursday:
CENTENNIAL (AP) – A man convicted of sexually assaulting an Indonesian housekeeper and keeping her as a virtual slave was sentenced Thursday to 28 years to life in prison.
Homaidan Al-Turki, 37, denied the charges and blamed anti-Muslim prejudice for the case against him. He said prosecutors persuaded the housekeeper to accuse him after they failed to build a case that he was a terrorist.
…
Prosecutors and FBI agents said Al-Turki and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, brought the woman to Colorado to care for their five children and to cook and clean for the family. An affidavit said she spent four years with the family in the suburban Aurora home, sleeping on a mattress on the basement floor and getting paid less than $2 a day.
Here’s the money quote from the story, though (emphasis added):
Al-Turki said he treated the woman the same way any observant Muslim family would treat a daughter.
"Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit," he told the judge.
"The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution," he said.
That was a rare moment of openess, revealing the ugly, barbaric truth behind the civilized facade of the Saudi brand of Islam. Women are chattel, and men treat them — use them — like cows or goats.
I’m going to repeat yet again what I said last year and this past July because it can’t be said often enough:
Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, and radical Islam in general should be all the evidence anyone needs to demonstrate the moral bankruptcy of the leftist multicultural BS about no culture being better than any other. These people still defend and practice slavery, and we’re supposed to worry that making a jihadist uncomfortable might bring us down to their level??
Yes, we had slavery in this country. And our society is still paying the price today. But look at the historical context: Slavery existed and was accepted as normal in every human society throughout history — until the 18th century, when voices in the United States and Great Britain were raised against it. Those voices spoke of liberty and natural rights and free will, and they proclaimed slavery to be a moral outrage.
In a hundred years, those ideas and moral values had swept through the Western world and made people ashamed of a practice they’d accepted for thousands of years. Those ideas and values are part of — are fundamental to — Western culture. And, by damn, it IS morally superior to the barbaric 8th-century culture that still enslaves people, that declares women property, that flays people’s flesh for dancing, that imprisons Christians for praying in their homes, that saws people’s heads off with a dull knife for being Jewish.
No, it doesn’t bother me that interrogators at Gitmo may have failed to show sufficient respect for the beliefs of their jihadist captives. It bothers me that they haven’t expressed contempt for those barbarous beliefs.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: barbarism, colorado, denver, evil, human rights, islam, islamofascism, justice, liberty, saudis | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on August 25, 2006
Lola is a young kitten — six or seven weeks old — at Denver’s MaxFund animal shelter. Lola has a severe deformity and possible partial paralysis of the hind legs. Lola has developed a unique way of compensating. 9NEWS reporter Chris Vanderveen has the story. Be sure to click the link to the video under Additional Resources. You just have to watch Lola walk on her "hands."
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: cats, denver, kittens | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on August 24, 2006
Honestly, sometimes I don’t know where my head’s at. I meant to post a link to the official announcement of Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash 5.5 about 3 weeks ago — and RSVP, too. Oh, well, it’s not until Friday — plenty of time.
Here are the details: it’s Friday, Aug. 25, about 6ish, at the Moon Time Bar (formerly Minturn Saloon), 846 Broadway, Denver. David J said it’s "Open to bloggers, commenters, significant others, and random passers-by." I think that means you’re invited. Go to the official announcement to see who else is attending and to RSVP.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: blogger bash, blogging, denver, drinking, rocky mountain blogger bash | Leave a Comment »
