Snowstorms Continue in Canyonlands and Moab, Utah - 2011

In 2006, I began working and writing in Moab, Utah. Then, and for several years thereafter, conventional wisdom held that it rarely snowed in Moab. Most locals said that when it did snow, the weather would soon warm up, melting the snow within a few days.

 

Then, along came the winter of 2009 – 2010. It snowed often in December and again in January. Even with partial thawing between storms, there was still snow on the ground well into February. As 2010 drew to a close, our friend in Moab, Tiger Keogh offered hopeful reports. Her emails indicated dry weather and daily high temperatures above forty degrees. Between Christmas and New Year’s, her sunny reports ended. On December 30, 2010, it snowed in Moab and has snowed several times since.

 

One of the benefits of deploying webcams in several locations is that we can check the weather all around Moab every day. Since this winter’s snow began to fall, our Canyonlands Field webcam has shown whiteouts overnight, followed by snowplowing the following day. Our webcam, located at the Moab Rim Campark and Cabins has shown heavy snowfall in the La Sal Range. In early January 2010, during a respite from the storms, I observed a sublime alpenglow-sunset over the Spanish Valley.

 

While viewing different locations in Grand County, Utah, I sat 800 miles away, in Simi Valley, California. From my remote location, I captured a series of images from the two webcams. Since each webcam updates every three seconds, I saved several image sequences. Once I had a series of images saved, I open a “GIF Animator” program and then compiled the sequences into “digital filmstrips”. I then saved each filmstrip as an “animated GIF”.

 

In an age where we can stream high-definition video to mobile devices, the animated GIF image seems quaint. CompuServe first developed the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) in the 1980s. With the slow-speed modems and dial-up networks then available, creating motion online was quite a feat. In order to show animated images, CompuServe applied “lossless compression” to each image. Restricted to 256 colors, not the millions of colors available in a high-definition video, animated GIFs offer impressions, not details. Even so, an animated GIF that shows spectacular scenery and at least some action can have a charm all its own.

 

Illustrating this article are three animated GIFs. The first shows snowplows working on the tarmac at Canyonlands Field. The second shows the Spanish Valley and Sierra La Sal Range, ending with an alpenglow after sunset. The third shows nightfall at the airport on January 8, 2011. I hope you enjoy the action and the scenery as much I enjoyed compiling these animated slideshows.

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By James McGillis at 04:54 PM | | Comments (0) | Link