THEN AND NOW – THE WEATHER

 

At Christmastime in 1933, the weather was terrible. My dad, Vance, decided not to travel home for Christmas and stayed with friends in Seattle, but Aunt Lynn was braver. Of that trip from Portland to the family farm at Gilbert, she wrote: The train was five hours late into Lewiston and we used all the tracks north and south bank, but still I got in in plenty of time to catch the stage to Orofino. Ed Ingram came for me and we had a hard time making it in from the highway. Six inches of snow on top of soft roads. – Myrtle Dobson, Dec. 29, 1933

Writing two days later (Dec. 31, 1933), Grandma Ina reported: The snow is all gone off in a rain and dreadful reports from California over the radio last night – 12 inches of rain in 30 hours, lives lost, damage to houses, bridges, roads, etc. We never had such work before at this time of year. – Ina Dobson

Two weeks later, Grandma Ina wrote: No one here can recall such rain and floods at this time of year ever and we had such high winds for a week or more. June’s old bean house blew down onto grass separator damaging it a good deal. One big branch of my “Corot tree” was broken out. It was the big olivet cherry, if you remember. Dad cut the tall pine just back of the house. It had become dangerous, but there are still others back of it to shelter the house. He also cut the group of small pines just northwest of the hog house. Some were dead and now it gives us a beautiful view of trees and mountains to the north and east. We hated to cut them but are glad to be so we can see out and we have such lovely changing pictures. – Ina Dobson, Jan. 14, 1934

On the same date (Jan. 14), Aunt Shirley wrote, also from the Gilbert farmhouse: This is such a strange winter. We had a skiff of snow Friday night, but today it is all gone and the ground quite soft though I believe not all the frost has gone out of it. It rained a bit yesterday up here and quite a little in town. People are surely sick of it, but it does help those who are too poor to have much heat, when it stays so warm. Seems colder tonight and is somewhat cloudy so it may snow.

Then, on Feb. 8, 1934, Ina wrote: Weather like spring – fields and hills are greening.

Here we are nearly 90 years later and again, we have reports from California of devastating storms. Not here in the Pacific Inland Northwest, though. “The snow is all gone off” but because of warmer temperatures rather than a torrent of rain. We don’t even get rain when it’s predicted. I’m sure there’s still snow in the upper country, though. We don’t have to go many miles to find winter as long as we travel upward. KW