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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 4, 2020)
Sports Inside LHS girls swim to victory, 5A Luscious Lasagna, 1B Chiefs win Super Bowl Follow us on the web TUESDAY • February 4, 2020 • $1.50 Eastern to honor Scott Fairley Good day to our valued subscriber Jim Kelly of La Grande Human element vital to forecasting ACE chalks up 2019 as success By Sabrina Thompson By Antonio Sierra The Observer EO Media Group proposed Buffalo Flats project. This would reduce the chance of winter ice jams, such as a 120-yard jam that formed on Catherine Creek in January 2014 east of Union. The jam posed a serious threat to Union but fortunately did not cause any major fl ooding. Knutson said when water backs up behind an ice jam, it causes pressure, and when the water breaks through all at once, it can cause fl ooding. LA GRANDE — As Art Center East prepares for its 2020 season, the gallery and community center re- fl ected on its 2019. With new projects, ACE community outreach coordinator Sarah West said last year was an absolute success. The La Grande art center reported in 2019 it had around 8,000 visitors total for its events, exhibits and general foot traffi c. ACE hosted more than 425 artists through these exhibits and offered 320 classes. “We are a doorstep for the community,” West said. “We often get visitors consider- ing a move to the area who want to know more about the arts and culture scene and everything else.” The types of classes the center offers vary from paint- ing and ceramics and music lessons in voice and several instruments to a wintertime course in wreath making. The gallery displays art cre- ated locally and across the globe, and the center is in- volved in community groups, funding artistic organizations such as the Grande Ronde Community Choir. A selection of the classes are geared toward young students in the area. West said having these programs for the youth in the commu- nity is important in personal development, especially when they start at a young age. “The arts and creative experiences are incredible for developing minds,” West said. “Arts is something that has been proven to increase learning capacity and creativ- ity, which in turn can make you a smarter person.” While there is youth programming on-site at the center at 1006 Penn Ave., the center also participates in the Artists in Rural Schools pro- gram, funding and offering opportunities in local schools for students to develop their creativity and skills. West said the classes at the center are geared toward early edu- cation age range (3-6 years old) as it is an age group AIRS does not reach. “We facilitate community connections through our part- nerships and our program- ming, building understand- ing, growth and resilience,” West said. “We aren’t just one thing, or a static set of people. We are an ever-changing, ever-growing network of ef- forts, aspirations, challenges, possibilities, perspectives, celebrations, skills and plenty of the nitty-gritty work that makes stuff happen.” Amanda Welch, a local mother of four, teaches an art class for children ages 2-6 and See Jams / Page 2A See ACE / Page 1A LA GRANDE — It’s been less than a month since Scott Fairley died, but organiza- tions are setting up long-term tributes in his name. Pendleton Mayor John Turner recently announced the former Pendleton city councilor and Business Oregon officer would have a room named after him at the Pendleton Con- vention Center, but Fairley’s life is also being commemorated outside his hometown. Eastern Oregon University, La Grande, is establishing the Scott Fairley Memorial Scholarship Fund to help provide tuition for its Urban and Rural Ambassadors Summer Institute. According to the univer- sity’s website, the program is a partnership between EOU and Portland State Universi- ty where students from both schools take a 10-day course exploring the connections between the urban and rural parts of the state. “It helps these students understand these different communities where they live and work,” said Tim Seydel, EOU vice president of uni- versity advancement. Fairley died from an aneu- rysm on Jan. 7 while on a trip to Mexico. He was 53. Although Fairley made his home in Pendleton, Seydel said Fairley loved the concept behind the summer institute and worked with Eastern in the past through his job with the Regional Solutions offi ce and Business Oregon. In a statement, Nathan Lowe, the dean of Eastern’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, also said the scholarship fund was a good fi t with Fairley’s goals and achievements. “We will honor Scott’s legacy in Eastern Oregon by continu- ing to develop a meaningful and impactful program,” he said. “The response we hear from students who take the course is that it far exceeds their expecta- tions, and that it has led them to better appreciate the nuances and complexities of diverse communities in the state. This Contributed photo by Marc Austin A geostationary operational environmental satellite launches March 1, 2018, from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Even with advanced technology such as the GOES system, the National Weather Service relies on meteorolo- gists when it comes to forecasting weather, especially with the tricky topography in Oregon. Editor’s Note: This is part two of a two-part story on the local work of the Na- tional Weather Service. The fi rst part ran in the Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, edition of The Observer. By Phil Wright The Observer LA GRANDE — The Na- tional Weather Service relies on cutting-edge satellites, advanced radar technology and computer modeling of weather to help forecasters. But as impressive as the tech is, there are limits. Marc Austin, the warning coordination meteorologist at National Weather Service in Pendleton, said the station’s dual-polarization radar captures weather systems in three dimensions, except for the “cone of silence.” The radar scans a few degrees in elevation at a time to create the imagery that appears on forecaster computer screens. But the radar cannot scan the space directly above it, thus leav- ing a blind spot at the top. The crew at the Pendleton offi ce recounted a story of a forecaster who reported all described as an extremely detailed “vertical profi le” snapshot of the atmosphere — something that much more sophisticated devices, such as orbiting satellites and the Doppler weather radar, can’t deliver. The balloons determine, among other things, the freezing level, which affects at which elevation snow will fall. Computer models also have improved steadily over the past couple decades. That’s due in part to technol- ogy such as the Geostation- ary Operational Environ- mental Satellite system, which vastly increases the amount of data the super- computers chew on before spitting out their predictions. The $10.8 billion project is launching four satellite into stationary positions over the Earth from 2016-24. Austin said just fi ve to 10 years ago, weather forecasts beyond four days were sus- pect, but the technology has stretched that to perhaps seven days. Still, the models have gaps. “What the models tend to overlook is the topography,” Austin said. clear when a storm de- scended due to misreading that spot. And while the satellites can track a storm forming in the Pacifi c Ocean days before it drops 6 inches of snow in Eastern Oregon’s Blue Mountains — a tem- pest sprawling thousands of square miles is tough to miss from a vantage point 22,300 miles — they might not detect a local temperature inversion. So twice each day, according to the Weather Service, staff at almost 900 sites worldwide simultaneously release weather balloons. The balloons are latex or neoprene and fi lled with hy- drogen or helium and carry sensors to about 100,000 feet up. Jay Breidenbach, Austin’s counterpart at the National Weather Service offi ce in Boise, which covers Baker, Malheur and Harney coun- ties in Oregon, explained those sensors record and relay temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction and more that help meteo- rologists fi ne-tune forecasts. The balloons yield what he Austin said he has worked in four Weather Service offic- es across the nation, and out of the four, Eastern Oregon is the most difficult to fore- cast. The massive Cascade Mountains through central and western Oregon, the Blue Mountains and Eagle Caps in the east, the long Columbia River Basin, all combine to make predictions challenging. Eastern Oregon’s arid nature also plays a big role. “You get more extreme weather with drier air mass,” he said. Models also fail to capture the local effects of weather. The Grande Ronde Valley appears broad if you drive through it, but on a geograph- ic scale, the valley is small, too small for the graphic resolu- tion of the models. A weather system this week predicts some high winds over the Grande Ronde Valley, Austin said, but the model is likely to downplay the severity of the winds, which gain momentum as the high pressure moves through the narrower channel of the land. Austin said the forecast- ers in the Pendleton office See NWS / Page 2A See Fairley / Page 2A Project takes aim at reducing ice jams By Dick Mason The Observer UNION — The ominous sight of ice jams on Catherine Creek and Little Creek just east of Union may some- day be less frequent. Mike Knutson, a hydraulic engineer for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said the formation of ice jams on the two creeks will be reduced if the proposed Buffalo Flats Restoration Project becomes a reality. Speaking Thursday at a presentation in Union, Knutson said the project would widen portions of both Catherine and Little creeks to help reduce ice jams. The work along Catherine Creek would re- move a section of Medical Springs High- way and replace it with a reconfigured roadway. Such a step would allow a nar- row portion of Catherine Creek’s channel to expand. He noted the creek would push large ice blocks into this floodplain, reducing pressure in the creek. “They would melt in the fl oodplain,” said Knutson, the engineer for the INDEX Classified .......4B Comics ...........7B Crossword .....4B Dear Abby .....8B WEATHER Home .............1B Horoscope .....4B Lottery............2A Record ...........3A THURSDAY Obituaries ......3A Opinion ..........4A Sports ............5A Sudoku ..........7B CONTACT US Full forecast on the back of B section Tonight Wednesday 27 LOW 42/40 Snowy late, 3-6” Wintry mix, 1-2” CCNO BRIDGES GAPS IN SERVICE 541-963-3161 Issue 15 2 sections, 16 pages La Grande, Oregon HAVE A STORY IDEA? Call The Observer newsroom at 541-963-3161 or send an email to news@lagrandeobserver.com. Online at lagrandeobserver. com
