Tehachapi News

All > Columns > Pen in Hand
Our first snow starts the season off right
Topics:
Posted by editor Mon Dec 10, 2007 16:35:30 PST
Viewed 333 times
0 responses 0 comments The first snow of the year blew into Tehachapi on the night of Dec. 7, adding a Christmas look to the landscape and signalling the coming winter in a convincing way.

The storm began as rain on Friday morning and gradually changed to snow as both the sun and the temperature went down. As most of them do, the snowstorm came in from the west, so Bear, Brite and Cummings Valley tended to get slightly more moisture than the Tehachapi Valley and snow accumulated more heavily on the west side of buildings, trees and signs.

Our higher, colder elevations reported as much as 5 and 6 inches of snow while a slight temperature increase of only a few degrees at lower elevations and in town meant that snow barely covered the lawns of downtown Tehachapi.

The slow-release nature of snow means that moisture contained within had the maximum opportunity to soak in rather than run off, so last week’s light snowstorm was even more welcome than an equivalent amount of rain.

Snow also seems to clear the air even better than rain and it melts slowly from the needles of evergreens, so I could almost hear our local conifers — white fir, Jeffrey pine, grey pine, California juniper and others — sighing with relief as the first snow of the new season settled onto their boughs and branches.

Friday night’s mild snowstorm didn’t even result in any highway closures so the populace could hardly complain about inconveniences associated with it. It was just a great way to begin the precipitation season, since all of our water, one way or another, falls from the sky.

By the way, I like to encourage people to shop in Tehachapi, but if you are buying something you can’t find locally from Amazon.com, please go to the website of the Tehachapi Mountains Birding Club first — it’s tmbc.info.

If you click on books and access the Amazon.com website that way, the bird club will receive a payment for whatever you buy, from vacuum cleaners to movies. Amazon sends us a check and it won’t cost you anything or raise your purchase price a single penny, but the local non-profit bird club benefits.

It doesn’t matter where in the world a person is online, if they access Amazon through our TMBC website, we receive a donation from Amazon for anything that is purchased, so please tell any out-of-town friends or relatives that they can help support Tehachapi’s only environmental organization by simply accessing Amazon.com by going to TMBC.info first. Thank you kindly!

Have a good week.








 

Send to a Friend

Report a Violation