SPORTS A5
TODAY A3
THURSDAY
Seahawks
dominate Detroit
A look at new laws that took
eff ect January 1 in Oregon
GO! Magazine
Weekly arts and entertainment guide
IN THIS EDITION: LOCAL • HOME & LIVING • SPORTS
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
12 COVID
cases on
first day
of 2022
QUICK HITS
—————
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Daryl
Robertson of Baker City.
BRIEFING
—————
Republican
gubernatorial forum
postponed
Highest one-day
total since Nov. 18
The Republican
gubernatorial candidate
forum set for Tuesday, Jan.
4 in Baker City has been
postponed due to a winter
storm. The forum will be
rescheduled, according
to the Baker County
Republicans.
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Baker County seeks
volunteers for
committees
Baker County is seeking
volunteers to serve on
several committees, boards
and commissions. These
include:
• Baker County Planning
Commission.
• Natural Resource
Advisory Committee.
• Eastern Oregon
Coordinated Care Local
Community Advisory
Committee.
• Compensation Board
• Northeast Oregon
Economic Development
District Board.
Anyone interested must
submit a volunteer form.
Forms are available online
at www.bakercounty.org/
commissioners. More
information is available
by calling the county
commissioners’ offi ce
at 541-523-8200 or by
emailing Heidi Martin at
hmartin@bakercounty.org.
WEATHER
—————
Today
32/25
Snow likely
Wednesday
35/23
Morning snow
Full forecast on the back
of the B section.
The space below is for a postage label
for issues that are mailed.
JANUARY 4, 2022 • $1.50
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Kyle Sullivan, 16, and Johnathan Sullivan, 11, unload Christmas trees at Wade Williams on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022. Every year, the Boy
Scouts collect trees as a community service project.
Pitching In
BY LISA BRITTON
lbritton@bakercityherald.com
Trees
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
David Blair and his son, Asher, 11, toss more Christmas trees on the pile at Wade Wil-
liams on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022. Boy Scouts and their parents divided Baker City into
four sections to collect trees set by the curb.
Storms bolster snowpack
Water content
in snow above
average in
some places
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
The Elkhorn Mountains seen from near Dooley Mountain sum-
mit on Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022.
TODAY
Issue 99
12 pages
Classified ....................B2-B4
Comics ..............................B5
Community News.............A3
COVID
2022 off
to subzero
start
Boy Scouts brave
weather to collect
Christmas trees
Kyle Sullivan has helped collect
Christmas trees with the Boy Scouts
for about six years. On Sunday, Jan.
2, he had one word to describe this
year’s collection:
“Cold.”
But at least Jan. 2, when Scouts and
their parents drove the streets of Baker
City to pick up discarded trees, wasn’t
quite as frigid as Saturday, Jan. 1.
Even so, the temperature was only
about 15 degrees, causing fingers and
toes to quickly go cold during the annual
tree collection, which is a community
service project for the local Scout troops.
“Sometimes people come out and
say hi, and give us a donation,” Sulli-
van, 16, said as he pulled a tree from
the trailer and tossed it on the pile.
The new year started with
the highest one-day total of
COVID-19 cases in Baker County
in six weeks.
The Baker
County Health
Department re-
ported 12 cases
on Jan. 1, 2022.
That was the
most in one day
Staten
since 13 cases on
Nov. 18.
Whether this indicates that omi-
cron, the much more contagious
variant that is responsible for a sig-
nificant jump in cases in Oregon
over the past two weeks, has ar-
rived in Baker County isn’t certain.
The Oregon Health Authority
(OHA) doesn’t list case numbers,
by variant, at the county level.
But there’s no doubt that omi-
cron will be here, if it isn’t al-
ready, said Nancy Staten, director
of the Health Department.
A series of storms in the
final week of 2021 pushed
the snowpack above average
in some parts of Northeast-
ern Oregon.
And although this vital
source of water for irriga-
tion, recreation and munici-
pal supplies typically doesn’t
peak until late winter or early
spring, the solid start to the
snowpack raises the prospect
of at least some relief from the
drought that has plagued the
region for more than a year.
Snowpack is measured not
by the depth of the snow but
by its water content.
The latter figure, which is
based on the weight of the
Crossword ...............B3 & B4
Dear Abby .........................B6
Home ......................B1 & B2
snow, more accurately esti-
mates the amount of water
held in the snowpack.
A foot of powdery snow,
for instance, holds consider-
ably less moisture (and thus
weighs less) than the same
depth of slush.
Overall, based on Monday,
Jan. 3 readings from 13 sites
around the region, the water
content was exactly average
for the date.
But readings at individ-
ual sites vary widely, from
31% below average at An-
eroid Lake, in the Wallowa
Mountains south of Wal-
lowa Lake, to 65% above
average at the County Line
measuring site in the Blue
Mountains between La
Grande and Pendleton.
There is a wide difference
in the snowpack even over a
relatively small geographic
range.
See, Snowpack
Horoscopes ............B2 & B4
Letters ...............................A4
Lottery Results .................A2
Baker County had an arctic
end to 2021 and an even more
frigid start to 2022.
But neither the last day of the
old year nor the first day of the
new managed to set a record for
the lowest temperature.
With skies clearing and winds
subsiding late on Friday, Dec. 31,
conditions were ideal for what
meteorologists call “radiational
cooling” — meaning that any
heat near the ground could ra-
diate back into the atmosphere,
causing temperatures near the
ground to plummet. The fresh
coat of snow also contributes,
since snow reflects heat rather
than absorbs it.
The temperature dropped to
14 below zero at the Baker City
Airport before midnight on Dec.
31. But that was well short of the
record low for Dec. 31 — 25 be-
low zero, set in 1978.
It got colder still in the first
hours of 2022, dipping to 20 be-
low zero at around 6:30 a.m. But
that didn’t threaten the record
low for Jan. 1 of 27 below zero, set
in 1979.
Though no records were set,
Jan. 1 was the coldest day at the
airport in almost five years. A
record low of 24 below zero was
set on Jan. 5, 2017. That was the
coldest reading at the airport
since Dec. 22, 1990, when the low
was 25 below zero.
Other low temperatures on
Jan. 1 in Baker County included:
• Hereford: 27 below zero
• a weather station in Baker
Valley near Haines: 26 below zero
• Unity Dam: 24 below zero
• Mason Dam: 22 below zero
• a station in Baker Valley be-
tween Baker City and Haines: 23
below zero
• a weather station on I-84 at
the Medical Springs exit, Mile-
post 298: 21 below zero
• a weather station along
I-84 at North Powder, in Union
County: 25 below zero.
News of Record ................A2
Obituaries .........................A2
Opinion .............................A4
Senior Menus ...................A2
Sports ..................... A5 & A6
Weather ............................B6