Winter is Coming!

Saturday as I was walking the dogs, I saw a Southern Rocky Mountain Junco sitting in the pine near the swingset. It was singing, "Winter is coming! Winter is coming!" These birds come down from Colorado at the beginning of the winter season. That evening, when I took the dogs for their pre-bedtime walk, there was a ring around the waxing moon. It was 55 degrees and warm. "What winter?" I wondered.

But this morning as the sun rose, altocumulous clouds blew rapidly across the sky. Definitely the sign of an upper level disturbance and weather coming in. It was 36 degrees just before dawn, but by 9 AM it was only 31. Today the temperature never rose above 36.

This afternoon, as MLC and drove over the mountain to Sandia Mountain Ranch to look at a house on the Parade of Homes, we noticed low cumulonimbus clouds sweeping across the plains of Estancia. "Looks like snow," we both said together. And it was. A few hours later, back home, I caught the picture above as the snow fell around the swing set.

It had been snowing rapidly as we looked through a house over on Sedillo Hill. As we drove home, we saw the deer heading for the woods.

And then one, two, and many white flakes came out from the clouds, feathering down past the still bright leaves on the scrub oak above the driveway.

I stepped out the french doors to the back patio to catch this picture on my camera. Here I used the sports photography setting to catch moving objects. The timing makes the snowflakes look like white threads falling past the clearstory window.

The Aspen tree, so gold last week and now faded to brown, is reflected in the glass.

A few more good days of wind and those leaves will be gone!

Funny thing, but the last time we had snow showers was in early May, at Lag b'Omer, when MLC ran the 5K Run for the Zoo race. She ran in a sweatshirt in May, on a blustery morning with clouds racing across the sky. We saw the last snow showers of the season that afternoon

Today she ran the Duke City Marathon on a blustery morning. And lo, and behold! The first snow showers of the season.

This evening, it snowed some more while we ate dinner. And when I took the dogs out for their last walk it was 31 degrees. A dusting of snow covered our metal roof, the car tops and the grill. There was a ring around the moon and to the west I saw more snow clouds making their way up the valley.

Winter is coming!