Sign in Subscribe

Topic

Weather & Climate

A collection of 289 posts

The Gathering Storm: A Preview of a Potentially Historic Week of Weather

As those of you who have been following the blog regularly know, 2009 was our third consecutive year of drought. Among the drought's other impacts, we have seen yields decline each of the three yields, and in 2009 will make nearly 40% less wine than we did at

A great photo of a fair-weather winter sky (a.k.a. "transitory ridging")

We're enjoying a period of what our meteorologist calls "transitory ridging" -- as I understand it, high pressure that moves over an area in between two low pressure systems rather one that establishes itself in an area and diverts low pressure systems around it. It has

Crescent Moon over Tablas Creek

When I left the vineyard today, at the time of day when the sky is lighter than the ground but not so much that it's not photographable, the crescent moon was hanging over the Tablas Creek winery building. I grabbed the camera, and got a shot I liked.

Winter Sunset Panoramas

The winter sunsets in Paso Robles are often spectacular. The current weather pattern, with a mix of clouds and sun, captures the red glow of the setting sun. In summertime, when humidity levels are very low and clouds rare, sunsets are long-lasting but usually subtle. In wintertime, the sunsets move

A paean to rain (and a phone call to Mabel)

I'm sitting here on a Saturday evening, kids in bed, listening to the rain come down. It's an incredibly sweet sound, both because I've always loved the sound of rain at night and also because I know how important it is that we have

A Change in the Weather

This morning, you could feel a change in the quality of the air. After weeks of dry weather, the air feels softer, the sunlight, filtered through the moisture, less intense. The hillsides around Tablas Creek are almost impressionistic, each range layered more dimly than the next. It's a

Harvest 2009 Evaluation and Recap

The 2009 harvest is done. In the barn. Finally. At 64 days (beginning September 1st and ending November 3rd) it was our second-longest harvest this decade. The only longer harvest, 2004, also saw the end of the harvest delayed by rain. The weather during harvest was challenging, to say the

October 13-14 Pacific Storm Recap and Assessment

So, we're picking up the pieces at Tablas Creek after a storm that dropped an amazing 9.6 inches of rain on us in a little more than 24 hours. To try to contextualize how unusual this storm was for us: * This is more than half the rainfall

A truly scary weather forecast

We've been fortunate with our weather during harvest for the last four years. Each year starting with 2005, whatever the conditions during the spring and summer, we've had beautiful autumns, without serious heat spikes and without any significant rain. That's one of the major

Harvest, Week of September 28th: A Change in the Weather and Worries about Yields

If you've been following our 2009 harvest report, you'll know that we'd been hoping that the vintage would turn out to be a little more plentiful than the last two drought-reduced crops. Perhaps this was wishful thinking, given our third-consecutive below-average rainfall winter. But