Letter From Iraq #09

Another week has finished here in Iraq and a quiet week it’s been.  The big excitement was that we finally got some measurable precipitation here.  On Saturday it rained on and off throughout the morning.  For the most part it was very light and only lasted for brief periods but none the less it was rain.  This indicates that summer is on its way out and we are getting closer to the rainy season of winter.  Of course it wasn’t only us weather folks that were excited about the rain.  Most of the Army people that I have talked to thought that it was a nice change from the normal dry weather that we see every day. 

The one downside to the rain is the mud.  Now three hundredths of an inch of rain isn’t going to make the ground really muddy but the problem is that it makes it so that the dirt is just sticky enough to stick to you boots and then you leave it everywhere you go.  It really makes a mess.  One of the upsides to the rain around here is that the day gets warm enough to evaporate all of the rain that fell and by the afternoon everything is back to it’s normal dry dusty self.  Usually when it rains back home like it did here my parents would usually say that it was just enough to settle the dust.  Here we can’t really say that.  I was hoping that the rain that fell would at least wash some of the dust out of the air and make it a little easier to breathe, but in reality it actually kicked up more dust than it washed out.

While I am on the subject of the weather, I would like to answer the question that I received from Cindy Maher.  Mrs. Maher would like to know how many months of the year the weather here is hot and how cold the winter gets.  This is a slightly complicated question just due to the fact that it is completely left up to perspective.  For most of us North Dakotans 32°F doesn’t exactly qualify as cold.  At most we would settle with calling it chilly.  Now when you get to a warmer place like Iraq, 32°F is freezing cold to most people here.  Now on the other hand a temperature of 95°F is a welcome site here in comparison to the higher temperatures that can be felt.  In North Dakota 95°F is seen as pretty warm but we have our air conditioners to keep us stay cool and is therefore manageable.  Now in Washington, my other home (for the time being), a temperature of 95°F would make most people feel like they were dying.  This is partly due to the fact that we don’t see temperatures that warm there that often due to the cooler temperatures off of the ocean and partly due to the fact that most Washingtonians in the western part of the state don’t have air conditioning in their homes.

But to answer your question Cindy, it get’s hot here by anybody’s standards.  A weather summary that is available shows that between June 2003 and August 2006 the maximum temperature that was reached was 120°F, which is by far not the hottest temperature felt on the planet but it’s still warm.  During the hottest months of June, July, and August, the average high temperature is between 103° and 109°F.  Every other month outside of those three has an average high temperature below 100°F.  So basically this area sees three months of +100°F temps.  During those same three months the temperature at night only gets down into the mid 70’s to low 80’s.

Now on the other hand of the spectrum are the cooler temperatures that we see here in Iraq.  I use the word cooler because of the fact that the average minimum temperature seen here in Mosul is still above freezing.  During the coldest month of January the average low temperature is only 39°F with both December and February still in the 40’s.  Now, having said that, I feel it necessary to tell you that just because the average low temp is near 40°F during the coldest part of the winter doesn’t mean that we don’t see subfreezing temperatures once in a while.  During the same period there have been at least a couple of days with temperatures as low as 27°F, which still isn’t cold by North Dakota standards, but cold enough to make people grab their coats.

One of the nice things about the temperature getting below freezing is that it allows for the possibility of snow.  Snow is rare around here but it isn’t completely out of the question.  On average between 2003 and 2006 the Mosul area saw little more than seven tenths of an inch of snow and that was all in one day, which is also the total average yearly snowfall around here.  The maximum amount of snow seen here during that period, and also the maximum yearly snowfall, was 1.1 inches.  These numbers are small time in comparison to Bismarck. 

Well Cindy I hope that answers your question.  I would like to mention that the climatological information I’ve given is only from a three year periods and isn’t a complete representation of the weather here, but it is the best that we have.  Thanks again for the letter (it was an actual letter, not an email).  It seems like no one takes the time anymore to send letters through the mail.  As a person who loves to get mail, it was a nice change from normal.  Thank you for the family update and congratulations on Miranda’s engagement.  I wish I could attend the wedding but I will still be here.

Before I depart for another week I would like to extend a special thank you to the staff at the Rehabilitation Unit at St. Alexius for the Halloween decorations.  The squishy sticky body part key chains and eye popping skulls are truly disgusting but a nice addition to the weather station.  We put up some of the decorations in the weather station and shared some of the others with the folks up in the Air Traffic Control Tower.  I am planning on taking a couple of pictures and then posting them on a web page that I maintain.  When I get the pictures posted I will make sure to let you all know the address to see them.  Thanks again for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers and for all that you do, because we all know that you keep my mom from worrying too much and going crazy.

If you have a question that you would like to ask or just want to say Hi feel free to email me at john.iraq@hotmail.com.  If you would like to write and send the letter through the post office my mailing address is:

SSgt Ferderer, John B.

F Co. 5-158 AVN (AF Weather)

FOB Diamondback

APO, AE 09334

Until we meet again, Have A Great Air Force Day!