First Freeze Dates for Fall keep happening later each year

(Posted by Keno on October 5, at 1120 pm)

Thanks to our out of control man-made climate change, among other weather events that show our planet is warming at record speeds, locally, our first freeze of fall dates keep taking place much later than they ever did before in the past. For the last 4 years, our first freeze dates have all taken place in October, and also in six out of the last 8 years, too. The first 10 years the stats were take for our area, from 1982 till 1991, 8 times the first freeze was in September and only twice it took place in October! Also, before 2015, the latest first freeze date took place on October 9, 1990. Since them, in the last ten years, we've seen 3 October dates later than that date, including one happening last year in 2024 on October 20, and the now latest date for the first freeze, took place on October 24 in 2015!

As late as the 2014, on average, our first freeze date was around September 15, according to both my National Weather Service records and the records taken by Hal Reinhart, our first official weather observer for the Crestone/Baca. I started taking the official readings in 2002, when I took over for Hal, who took his readings for the NWS from 1982 until 2001. During Hal's 20 years of record keeping, the first freeze only happen in the month of October six times, and in those 6 years, those readings all took place in the first nine days of the month.

Today, in 2025, now that we saw our first freeze of the fall this Sunday morning, October 5, our last freeze day is now not happening until September 29 on average. That's 2 full weeks later than the old average date that the Crestone/Baca used to see its first freeze, and this large change in our local climate's change took place in just 10 years time! Do check out our First and Last Freeze Dates page for lots more on this.

Of course, this kind of stuff is happening all over our planet, and it's not just limited to just our first freeze date of fall. We see a lot less rainfall and even more so, a lot less snowfall each winter here in Colorado alone. Please don't believe the lies coming from our brain-dead president Trump, climate change is totally real and most of it comes from the great increase of mankind burning fossil fuels since the start of the third Industrial Revolution (also known as the Digital Revolution), which started in the early 1950s and continues to this very day in the fourth Industrial Revolution, that started in 2011. We are destroying planet Earth, and those who believe lying politicians, are just as much to blame. I guess I could go on forever about this, and the truth of the matter is, I do know our wonderful locals living in this part of Colorado already known this and we are doing our best to help turn things around. But sadly, in the United States, those in the Red States could care less, and that's a major problem, as there's lots of people living in those states doing nothing to stop this madness. 

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Note: The following next 2 statements are totally non-weather statements and only the third time in 23 years that I've had to write and post such a local statement on this page.

Preamble to what was written below about our POA Land Use Manger and the problems not being addressed by him
by Keno

August 19, 2025 at 405 am

First, what’s written down below will not be removed until either Ross Gary, or the POA, does the right thing and takes action to end the 2 problems noted a few days ago. However, the current link on the Weather page will be removed once the story has been read by enough locals, but what I wrote below will stay where it is until the threats noted, are removed by the POA. New update on Saturday, August 23 at 250 pm: Sometime between Thursday August 21 and today Saturday August 23, the coyote den was filled in! This is of course, wonderful news! Only thing is, I have no clue who filled in the hole. Nobody at the POA ever got ahole of me at anytime about this problem. A couple of my neighbors did, and both were 100% in agreement with my 2 concerns (as were others whom where in touch with me). One who was had suggested that (he or she), might fill in the hole themselves if it wasn't taken care of by this weekend by the POA (as noted here last week, it is illegal, by federal law, to destroy any wildlife habitat unless it is a danger to others [as this unstable hole was] and it could only be done by the landowner). But I received no phone messages from the POA informing me that they finally took care of this problem on Thursday (It was still there late Wednesday). Since I was rushed to the hospital on Thursday by my grandson and wasn't released until late in the day and we got back home after dark, I nor my 2 grandsons were here, so we had no way of knowing if the hole was filled in on that day or not. Friday was a recovery day for me and the grandsons were away most of the day. So it wasn't until early this afternoon that I saw the hole is now gone. If one of my neighbors did fill in the hole, well I would never say whom this person might be, I'm just happy it was taken care of and I thank whoever it was who took care of this possible hazard.

So, one problem is solved and I hope the second one will be taken care of asap.

Ross Gary, POA Land Use Manager
By Keno

August 14, 2025 at 1215 am

I’ve had it with people like POA Land Use Manager Ross Gary, who doesn’t care about the people who he makes his living off of with our way too high POA dues (aka extra property taxes we are forced to pay. After all, taxes are what the POA dues are!)! But before I go any further, I’m not stupid. I know we need people to run the Baca and they need to be paid – but only if they do their jobs! Ross isn’t doing his darn job!

But first, I’m sorry that I may lose my cool here. Most of you who know me, know I’m usually a cool-headed guy.

On the top, what you are looking at is an unstable, abandoned coyote den, and below that is a photo of 2 large water coverts that are located under our main road in the Baca to prevent flooding of the road. Well, you can’t see them in the photo since they have been 100% covered and clogged by harden dirt and debris for 4 full years now. Okay, 3 years, four years ago they were only half covered. So, do you see where I’m going with this now?

Let me talk about the coyote den first. Note, this part of my statement has now been removed since the work has finally been taken care of (see note in the preamble above about this). The following text has been edited a bit to what still applies.

So, please let me get back to the 2 now totally buried culverts that I started to talk about up above. Way too many years (6, maybe 7) have passed since they were last cleaned. I was told all the culverts under our main Baca road are like this, but I have no clue if this is true or not. What matters, is the very large and long dry creek that runs downhill and under our main Baca road at this point. The creek totally fills to its rim whenever we get very heavy rain. I’m talking heavier than normal heavy rain and lucky for us, we haven’t had such a storm in about 19 or 20 years in this end of town. We are now due for a 20-year flood to hit, and the 2 culverts are again, 100% clogged. I did call the county about this years ago and they told me it was the POA who handled this and yes, I have spoken to them, including Ross, many times. Yet nothing has been done to uncover and reopen the old curlverts! Just what are our yearly dues going to? Just what does the POA take care of that’s more important than keeping our roads safe? A car trying to get through moving flood waters on the road there, will easily be swept away, plus depending on how bad a flood takes place, the road could be torn apart! Who do you think pays for repairing this kind of damage?…. We do/will! But if the POA would keep these culverts cleaned regularly (as is suppose to be done), none of this will ever be an issue, unless maybe if a 100-year flood hits, perhaps. I don’t know if those 2 tunnels under the road are rated to carried such a flow of water, but my guess after seeing two 20-year floods hit this same very area in a 2-year span years ago, I don’t think the dry creek could hold that much water in it and we would be having a lot of other problems when such an event happens.

So anyway, please, give Ross a call at the POA landline number 719-257-4171 ASAP and let him know that the two culverts need to be cleared and reopened for the safely of the our community!

Okay. I apologize if anybody takes this wrong, but then again, as far as the 2 culverts goes, I do know the weather in the Baca better than Ross knows it, or anybody else in the Baca knows it. I am the local weatherman and also official reporter for the National Weather Service, after all; been doing this job here for almost two and a half decades now. I do love my community and all the good people who live here, and I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the local weather. When the next 20-year flood happens, will we be ready for it? Well, where these 2 culverts are located under the main road, one block south of the Baca Firehouse, our POA is totally failing us on stuff like this. If you live anywhere south of the firehouse, and most of you reading this do, you have to use this main road to get to and from your home. But, if said road is destoyed by a flood that shouldn't ever happen in the first place, you will be affected by this! So again, please give Ross a call and ask him if maybe he could do his job that WE pay him to do!

I thank you for reading this, now please, take action since as one single person, I can’t fight city hall alone, and that’s what the POA building where Ross works is, our city hall! I do believe that it’s well past time that we close down the POA and form a real true town of our own – that, or see if the locals in Crestone will take us in and let us join them as the one big town we already are (unofficially). Doing that would save us a lot of money both here in the Baca and in the town of Crestone, too, since if we had no choice but to start a new town on our own, Crestone would become deserted, since the Baca would then have to build a new downtown with new stores to serve our new town for itself to thive. Oh wait, I just remembered, some oldtimers in Crestone don't want us visiting downtown Crestone daily anymore, anyway. So maybe I should just stop this talk here and now, but I still believe forming a true town and putting an end to the POA would help out our area - big time!

I hope you all have a great day and now I’ll just go back to being your weatherman 7 days a week, 365 days a year (nope, I don’t get any days off doing this work, I even work it  when I'm away out of town). Yep, I'll just keep doing it, that is, until my time is up, which at my age should be sooner than later. Somebody needs to step up and be ready to take over this job from me when that time happens, as our isolated town needs a local weather person, yet nobody seems willing or wanting to do this kind of work, not 7 days a week anyway. Guess we need two locals to take over this job, that way the seven day reporting may not get in the way of things.

Keno

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Close out and Wrap-up on the 2024 - 2025 Snow Season
(posted by Keno on July 2 at 445 am)

As all folks who keep weather records know, and as most Crestonians also know - since I always remind you once a year of this, June 30 marks the last day of the snow season all over the globe. Looking back on our last season, well, you guessed it if you realized that once again, we saw well below average snowfall this past and now last season. For the 2024-25 snow season, we only received 40.6 inches of snow, yes, that all folks! Our yearly average, which is 62.6 inches, has been falling steadily for the last 20 years plus now - 100% thanks to man-made climate change.

In a nutshell, the snow total we saw this past snow season, is the sixth lowest snow season ever seen in our area and now for our all time Top 10 least snowless years (or if you prefer, "snow seasons"), 9 of the 10 least snowless years for our area have taken place since 2000, including the Top 9! Only the 1995-96 snow season, sitting in 10th place, took place in the last century. During the last 12 months, only twice, in November 2024 and last January, did we see above normal snowfall for the month.

That my friends, is very sad indeed, and even more terrible than many realize, as it isn't just here in the greater Crestone area where this out of control madness is happening, but this is taking place everywhere on our planet Earth. As the great Stevie Wonder once stated, "If we don't change, the world will soon be over".