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Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 7:11 am
by madmitch
And they call it a vacation home.

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 3:38 pm
by Ol'fogasaurus
Not a vacation home. Just a place I am allowed to use if I do the work needed.

I tried to get a hold of some people to ask questions of but one showed up the day before I left and had no clue of what I was looking for and the others were either closed or not "refreshed" enough to ask questions of. :roll:

Lee

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2016 9:43 am
by Ol'fogasaurus
At the dunes again to clean-up after the big storms that came through. I am not sure about the Oregon Coast but in Seattle area we set a new record for the wettest October since they have been keeping records. With all the rain fall check the Oregon "Trip Check" sites for mud slides or other obstructions that the roads between Eugene and Florence, Drain, Elkton and Reedsport or 101 between Florence and Reedsport can have this time of the year. A very nice 400 mile drive to get here with one exception: the sun! It is so low this time of the year and add to that the evaporating of water from all the rain fall here so the sunshine was diffused so much it was not only hard to see ahead of you when heading south but the scenery was almost "fogged" from view from the evaporation.

Down to business: The weather here is supposed to be fair with maybe some showers on Friday but... that can change fast too.

There was a lot of activity on the dunes yesterday. Clouded over by the time we got here and this morning medium to high on-shore flow.

On the road between the town of Drain and Reedsport: most of the work has been done. The replacement bridge they have been working on this summer, it was damaged by run-off, is finished and looks and feels good. They also did some "across road work" and that being everywhere there was a water fall they opened up the road and added drainage towards the Umpqua river which is a great idea. I'd say that there was about (+/-) twenty of those fixes but I didn't keep track of the number either.

I'm not sure if the tide was in off the ocean but the Umpqua River was full, almost all the way up the bank; it was glassy calm also as there was no real wind out.

The elk at the viewing area were in two groups, male and female, sitting there chewing their cud or what ever you call it with cars slamming on their brakes to get over to take pictures. I was going past at the speed limit and with that and dodging cars pulling over but I would estimate something less that 50 in the two groups (the job of driving is more important than rubber necking the view).

Lee

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2016 9:11 pm
by chuckput
Living in the low desert of California now for over 20 years I have almost forgotten what real rain looks and smells like. Your report, Lee, took me back in another way. My great-great grandfather migrated west to Oregon in the 1830s. He married Roselle Applegate, the daughter of Jesse Applegate, and settled in southern Oregon. My great grandfather did land surveying with Jesse and was hired by the army during the Modoc Indian War because he knew the country so well and was present at the capture of the Modoc chief, Captain Jack. He was rewarded for his service by President Grant in the form of 40 acres of land between Drain and Yoncalla (hence the tie to your report). Little things like this get me side tracked very easily

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:26 pm
by Ol'fogasaurus
chuckput wrote:Living in the low desert of California now for over 20 years I have almost forgotten what real rain looks and smells like. Your report, Lee, took me back in another way. My great-great grandfather migrated west to Oregon in the 1830s. He married Roselle Applegate, the daughter of Jesse Applegate, and settled in southern Oregon. My great grandfather did land surveying with Jesse and was hired by the army during the Modoc Indian War because he knew the country so well and was present at the capture of the Modoc chief, Captain Jack. He was rewarded for his service by President Grant in the form of 40 acres of land between Drain and Yoncalla (hence the tie to your report). Little things like this get me side tracked very easily
Drain is a very small but nice clean town. The Roadkill Grill is now closed and the building burnt down a few years ago but its hulk is/was marked and is a short way out of town on the way to the coast. The cone shaped burning place where they burnt saw dust and other things is now a hulk (fed burning laws) but I think there is still some lumbering going on there. The businesses in and outside of town are still going. There is a very colorful bed and breakfast straight ahead at the first 90 degree corner coming into town from I-5. I think the wine industry is growing there too.

Elkton, the next town is a very clean area also and there is a winery or two there too. The town of Scottsburg, just before the Umpqua river bridge, looks dead but I am not too sure of it. All three are nice towns to drive through or even stop at and enjoy what they have. (I kind of sound like a travel agent don't I)

Lee

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2016 3:28 pm
by Ol'fogasaurus
The weather is starting to show signs of change. Clouds/overcast started to come in about 1:00 PM today and we are expecting rain either late tomorrow night or Friday for sure. Not sure how hard or how long so check before you leave.

I got most of the storm damage cleaned up now but it was hard work as there was so much to pick up.. several broken and torn blisters :roll: :lol: . No great damage as I think the residual of the Typhoon was a glancing blow and ended up mostly in BC Canada.

I did hear some quads on the dunes today.

Chuckput, it was interesting to hear your family history. My family history, what we know of it anyway, is pretty boring.

Lee

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2016 6:55 pm
by Ol'fogasaurus
Had some rain last night and expecting rain tomorrow and over the weekend. Not sure just how much rain and how big of an area it will cover. Again, check the weather guessers to see what they think. Remember at times parts of January, February and maybe part of March can be nice here.

Lee

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2016 5:21 am
by bajaherbie
What is the annual rain fall in the PNW?

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Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2016 10:35 am
by Ol'fogasaurus
I'm not sure but a lot of it depends on just where you are. As I remember, Atlanta gets more rain than Seattle but it is the time-spread that is important. Atlanta gets theirs in short amounts of time but Seattle get theirs in over a longer period of time. We can get long time spreads (we are talking days and sometims weeks) of grey or gray w/rain days. The Seattle area set a new rainfall record (since they started keeping records) for the month of October last month with a bit over 10" for the month. If you go to the rain forest just north of Ocean Shores WA the rainfall is somewhere between 160" and 200"s if I remember correctly; not sure as I seem to remember different inch spreds as when looking for it.

Where we are is about 7 miles north of the towns of Coos Bay and North Bend; the weather here can be different than in the two towns when driving in; e.g., it can be OK there and raining here or vicea-versa. The same with the two main camping areas: Horsfall (the spelling is correct) in the southern part of the dune area and Spinreel at the northern end. There are several other camping area in-between the two ends of the 7 mile long stretch that also can have different weather... depending. Florence weather can be way different at the same time (~30 miles) and Sand Lake even more so (closer to Portland).

A lot of storms make shore contact in this area. We have been down by the bar (a shallow area in the floor of the ocean is a less than an accurate decription but close enough) at Coos Bay and had stormy weather then went in-shore not too far and the sun was out. The northern CA, Oregon and Washington coast lines can be like that but when you cross the hills (The Cascade mountain range) you are in high deasert and completely different weather patterns. The coastal mounntain range that I think goes into northern CA but is in OR does make a bit of a difference to weather in Western OR. The Olympic Range with Mt Olympus (volcanic) changes the WA weather patterns a whole lot. Seattle is in what is called the "convergence zone" where the weather patterns re-converge when going around the tall Mt. Olympus reforms so when the weather comes in-shore from the ocean in different directions the convergence zone can move north or south... depending.

Right now the weather guessers thought that rain was coming in today but as I write the weather is high clouds with an on-shore overcast under it. There is still a lot of time today for a weather change so they still could be right. The wind right now is so calm that you can both see and hear a mosquito fart.

Heading home tomorrow and expect to hit a lot of traffic starting at the "Nisqually Crawl" (just north of Olympia WA) and going through the construction in Tacoma then going through the traffic jams in Seattle. We don't even try to take "the Kings Highway" [I-405] anymore as the tolling has made it stupid to try unless you are rich.

I know it doesn't answer your question completely but I hope it does explain.

How are your vinyards going? The wine industry here on the coast in OR nd WA is getting bigger and bigger faster and faster.

I was told a long ago that the difference between a win-o and a conisour (sorry about the bad spelling but for some reason spell-check is not working) is that the wine-o doesn't bother to take the bottle out of the paper bag.

Lee

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2016 3:28 pm
by bajaherbie
2 extremely late freezes, 4 years of drought and the deaths of a nieces baby, a brother, his wife, and a sister has taken it toll. My brother and I tried but soon realized we can't do it.

On the plus side, the plant in my backyard netted over 50 lbs of grapes[img]//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016111 ... 49bf47.jpg[/img]

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Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2016 3:50 pm
by Ol'fogasaurus
I'm sorry to hear about all that. My best to you and your families.

Some wine growers in WA have had losses too or so I understand but in other places not only are grapes growing but hops too. There are a lot of fruit wines being made on the pennsula, mostly on Hood's Canal (I can't have alchol due to meds (I never was much of a drinker in the first place) but one of the "Canal" wineries makes the best Rhubarb wine. You don't taste the Rhubarb that much and it is good and smoothe.

Hops were an old commodity in the eastern part of the state that had somewhat gone a way I heard but now, based on things I've heard lately are back and growing well.

We've had two fog banks pour over the hill in front of us only to pull back. I do think the rain is comming in soon as the overcast is thinning and the clouds are looking stronger.

Lee

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2016 7:34 pm
by Ol'fogasaurus
Back home from the dunes. When we left it was overcast but a couple of block down the road, just before hitting Highway 101, we ran into rain. Not just heavy rain but similar to but harder than the type of rain you get when going through the mountain passes... where you are driving through the low hanging clouds. My wife was checking the weather on he phone and they were saying no rain where we were but since the clouds were "on the deck" (in-other-words they were at sea level) the radar could not see what was going on inside of the clouds. I had the wipers almost at their fastest speed just to be able to drive safely.

We beat the rain into Reedsport but it was close behind us. We ran into periodic rain showers on I-5 up to just below Portland.

Anyway, saw some SXS being trailered into the coastal region. The sand looks to be very heavy right now because of all the rain the last few days. We could see the off-road vehicle tracks in the sand and they were deep and dark... e.g., heavy sand and a bit hard to get up on top of.

Lee

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 2:53 pm
by DeMinimis
bajaherbie wrote:What is the annual rain fall in the PNW?
Varies a lot. We once lived on the west side of the Coast range: 120"yr.
Were we live now: 11.45" yr.
Both places in good ol' Oregon.

I'll take what's behind door #2.

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Thu May 18, 2017 9:38 pm
by Ol'fogasaurus
Had a good trip to the dunes today. Ran into ground fog based on all the water we have had here in the PNW. The sun was out today along with high clouds. The weather should be like this into next week.

Got some bad news! One of the guys who used to ride down here known as "Philbert" passed away a while back. A memorial will be had either in Memorial day or the fourth of July; now sure which. He was lucky enough and smart enough to get a ground water lake named after him on the dunes. A long funny story based on what I was told.

Lee

Re: Report from the southern Oregon Dunes

Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 3:53 pm
by Ol'fogasaurus
Nice and warm day today; did a lot of work.

The wind,, out of the North, started to come up about noon today and about 3:30 pm the wind was up several hundred feet the clouds were racing by over us almost as fast as the Coast Guard helicopter and then dropped down to sea level.

A couple of guys went out in the RZR and got some riding in but when they tried to get to the ocean but, because of all the rain here in the PNW, the water table was so high that the paths to the beach were under water. They tried several difference entrances with the same results. One was a maybe but they didn't risk it.

Weather to be OK through the weekend with the winds in the mid-teens.

Lee