Discover Astoria » Weather

Living on the edge or living off the grid during Astoria’s first hurricane?

Jennie — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:24:18 +0000

A random series of events has awakend my inner green self. All disconnected events really. But the sum of all has changed how I think of my daily routine . When I first heard the phrase living off the grid I thought it was some new hip expression that my teenager had for a dangerous/crazy lifestyle. It was around that time that I saw the documentary Kilowatt Ours ( the documentary channel is my current PVR addiction) all about energy consumption. Enter the Advent Storm (really a hurricane but don’t tell the rest of the world that). Seven days with no power, no phones and all roads closed off allows for a lot of thinking without the normal everyday distraction. Thinking about power or the lack thereof for sure! We have a generator but its not large enough to run heat, lights, fridge, TV, computers, etc. We found ourselves making decisions on what was necessary. It got me to really thinking about reducing our consumption of energy. I have challenged my family to reduce our power bills by 50% over the coming months. If you want to see what the energy vampires are in your house go to an online energy audit site. Here’s a good one. A friend recently told me about geothermal heatpumps. I think this may be my first step into un-gridlike living. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, in an attempt at reducing our landfill contributions, I’ll go back to potty-training my son. Talk about living on the edge!

April in Astoria is not to be confused with April in Paris!

Jason — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:14:16 +0000

This spring is sure to be remembered for it’s cool temperatures and snow advisories. Our entire area saw snow fall this weekend and this morning. Everyone from Safeway to Starbucks was saying “this is so strange” to ” how unusual” and “it must be global warming”.

Then some visitors from Wisconsin came into our office and needless to say they were quite suprised by the weather they encountered when they arrived Saturday afternoon. They informed me that the weather in Wisconsin is actually warmer than Astoria right now! That was quite a shock to me, until I looked outside and saw snow flurries as I looked across Youngs Bay.

But the weather certainly didn’t deter the hardy souls from Wisconsin… no indeed, they went to the beach this morning in shorts, sandals & sweatshirts! They did wonder if we needed to shovel snow in the winter….to which I replied “no never”. But in the back of my mind I wondered…….maybe next winter we will, afterall, the weather is so unpredictable and unusual!

Beautiful & Unpredictable

Jason — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:46:54 +0000

That about sums up spring here on the North Coast. Saturdays weather was such a welcome change!!! Dry, warm and sunny! (it was actually hot out in God’s Country!) These kind of days always are such a blessing and seem to bring out thoughts of gardening, bbqing and the lazy days of summer.

Neighborhoods were a flurry of outdoor activity. Mowers, weed eaters & squealing children echoed down the streets. Sweatshirts & Xtratuffs were replaced with tee shirts, shorts & flip-flops. But alas, we would become spoiled and unappreciative if those kind of days lasted, which they seldom do!

Sunday dawned gray, damp and cool and remained so all day. It was hard to believe that just 24 hours earlier the conditions were a complete opposite. It was a little bit of a bummer, but left me all the more thankful for the previous day!

NOAA’s forecast for this coming week is rain, rain & more rain followed by SNOW!

Yes, you read that right. Snow is forecasted for Saturday & Saturday night due to unseasonably cool temperatures and even lower snow levels. However, given the fact that our weather is so unpredictable, perhaps we’ll see another sunny, warm hint of summer instead!

Spring Break at the Beach

Jason — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:40:00 +0000

A time for bikini’s, beach volleyball and ……….snowmen? While typically we would expect to see rain with an occasional sunny day, this spring break was not at all typical. Easter Sunday ushered in the week with cool, wet, gray weather. However, on Monday the temps continued to drop and by nightfall we were at the freezing mark.

The rest of the week saw a continued drop in temps that eventually combined with the ever present rain and brought snow to down to sea-level . There were reports of 2-4inches on the higher hills and a white dusting all the way down to the surf.

It was beautiful but left young and old alike looking forward to the sunny warm days of summer.