This will be a series of post on the weather from an outdoors perspective. These will be some of my experiences. They may be extreme to some, but they are honest. I fully appreciate there are many with more experience than me. My hope is it will encourage folks to be outside more, even if they choose less adventurous trips.
I have found there are several things that are helpful in enjoying a camping trip. One of those things is expectations. Camping expectations are a situation Joseph Heller would appreciate. You can not know what to expect without experience and without experience you can not know what to expect. I'll take a risk and say you can read about something and gain knowledge, but knowledge is not the equivalent of experience. I appreciate you reading my words, and what I want to convey is a hope that by reading some knowledge will open your mind to what is out there and how to respond...and enjoy places and events where things are less controlled by humanity. So I humbly and confidently present the Chasing the Storm series of post.
2016 was a successful camping year for us. We camped at Galveston Island State Park, Sea Rim State Park, Stephen F. Austin State Park, the backyard, the shop parking lot (in my truck after a 21 hour work day), some family property, Martin Dies Jr State Park, Buescher State Park. I exceeded my goals and I logged thirty nights spent in a tent.
In the Eureka Grand Mana I knew we had a good tent. At Sea Rim we weathered a norther that blew in on the second day of a three day trip.
The cane eased the winds from the norther.
This front had a mildly ominous look. I remember wondering if strong winds and heavy rain would accompany it. Mild winds were accompanied by light rains and sleet.
The next morning was cooler with fog and some frost on the tent and vehicles.
We got a taste of some weather on our February Sea Rim State Park trip. We enjoyed the weather show and changes it brought. Sea Rim State Park is a unique place. Despite its close proximity to industry and cities, Sea Rim is extraordinarily remote and wild. I'll say if you pitch camp in the evening and realize the hot dogs were not packed you'll need to make other plans for supper.
After the fog burned off it was a fantastic day on a Texas beach.
Later that year, on April 17, 2016, I got to see some more strong weather in a tent. I had treated our Mountain Trails tent with three cans of aerosol tent dry and I wanted to test the tent. That Saturday night (April 16) I camped with the cubs in the back yard. We got some winds gust of 20 mph and a little rain. So far, so good.
Sunday (the 17th), I knew a storm was coming. We heard it was fierce, but no one predicted the amount of rain coming. I decided to spend that night, a work night, in the tent. The kids slept in the house. Some of their toys stayed in the tent.
I went to bed late and some storms pushed up from the front arriving. It was mostly wind and lightning. The near-constant lightning illuminated the inside of the tent and made sleep difficult. The wind buffeted the tent hard. The entire tent drifted and popped in the wind. I woke to the sound of the flapping tent. I felt like I was in a strobe light. Intermittent rain combined with the winds and now and again a mist floated through the screen from under the short fly. Just another thing to wake me now and again.
I eventually managed a full hour of uninterrupted sleep. Then the predicted storm struck. I awoke to a couple drops of water hitting my face. It was a little before 1:00 am. The sound of heavy rain on the fly was intense, but there was no wind now. I contemplated toughing it out...but something was different. The air in the tent was damp.
In the beam of my penlight I saw fine mist suspended inside the tent. Thousands of water drops clung to the underside of the fly. A gust of wind and they would drip of the fly, through the screen to douse me. My sleeping bag and I would be drenched. The tent floor was damp with fine, near dust like a layer of unpooled spray. Meanwhile the rain pounded, and pounded and pounded the tent fly. It was loud. I waited ten or fifteen minuets for a break in the rain. It never stopped raining, but there was a lessoning, I made a dash for the house.
I spent the rest of my morning on the couch. Though less disturbing, the onslaught of rain and lightening continued to disturb my sleep. For a while I regretted abandoning the tent but I had my health and work to take care of. As the heavy rain poured on I felt better about my middle of the night move.
At 4:00 am the alarm sounded. A little later I attempted to go to work. I found all roads a mile from my house flooded. With the exceptions of hurricanes Katarina, Rita and Ike I have not been rained out from work. This flood became locally known as The Tax Day Flood. According to local news sources this storm dumped 24" of rain in 24 hours. Unlike so many other storms that flood Houston, the Tax Day Flood was not a tropical disturbance. It was just a very strong storm system that swooped across Texas from the north west to the south east.
I have a purpose for writing the next bit. I grew up in the outdoors and I am able to face most weather conditions. It is a rare exception that I abandon a tent. I have only done it 1-1/2 times. The first time (which I really shouldn't count because we slept fine, we just had to break camp without breakfast) we broke camp because the river rose withing a a couple feet of our tent...another time.
Anyway, over the years I have been blessed to go camping with friends from time to time. Most of the trips went well. A few trips stand out, where others were caught unprepared and had some miserable nights. These trips had low temperatures in the low fifties and I slept like a rock. My companions the next tent over had a very different experience. For me, the weather is something I constantly monitor. I worked outdoors in all weather fair and inclement for thirteen years. I'll get to my point.
Watch the weather and understand what the forecast is suggesting. If someone has an office job and they are used to climate controlled environments the varying temperatures of day and night might be surprising. The high temperature of 72 degrees during the day will generally fall about 20 degrees right before dawn the next day. 52 degrees can be brisk if your summer bag is not as fluffy as it used to be and you don't have anything to throw on top of it.
Another notion I run across is a "warm tent." I have looked into Arctic Oven tents but for most campers I come across, well Texas is not Alaska. Anyway, tents are not warm unless the weather is also warm. Don't expect the tent to do anything but keep the mosquitoes, rain and wind off you.
There are other ways to beat the cold, but the details below are how my then eight year old son and I slept peacefully and soundly.
I hope this helps.
The 2017/2018 winter was an unusually cool winter for Coastal Texas. Some of the coolest nights were well below freezing.
Clay and I took the opportunity to figure out how to comfortably sleep in this kind of weather.
By the time the above picture was taken I had five or so nights in a tent with frosty mornings. Two of those were at a deer camp. Being prepared for the cold weather helped.
What Clay and I did for sleeping in the cooler weather was as follows.
1) We dressed for the cold. That means we wore wool socks, thermal underwear and a sock caps.
2) We layered our sleeping gear. Our first layer was a self inflating air mattress. Atop this was one or two wool blankets, a "regular" rectangle sleeping bag, and two or three wool blankets on top of the sleeping bag. This method works but it does require some degree of diligence. Saying this, the cold air is a strict disciplinarian!
We don't get weather like this much. In the picture above a late evening mist/sleet that froze to the tent fly overnight. The ice weighed the fly down some. It was curious to watch and listen to the tent react to the breezes that shifted over. Frozen as it was, the fly sort of moved as a solid piece suspended over the tent poles. It sounded like thin plates of cast iron lightly clanging.
Anyway, I learned the key to keeping warm in a tent is layers and layers. Sometimes thinner layers are best. One asset is to keep air from getting in through the top of the sleeping bag. I can see where a mummy bag would be an advantage.
One thing I confirmed was my preference of a a rectangle bag with a cotton lining and cotton outer shell. The reasons are...
...in a cold sleeping environment,
1) synthetic linings are just cold. Even though my bare skin is not touching the lining the inner lining is just something else I have to warm. If you shift around you have to warm up that area of the bag.
2) Synthetic shells allow any covers to slid off in the night. Wool does not readily slide off the cotton outer shell
3) I realize many fine sleeping bags, maybe the best ones are mummy bags. For me, I am a large man and I like the room a rectangle offers. I like to turn around inside a rectangle bag, not turn side to side in a mummy bag. Should I use a mummy bag suited to most of my camping I doubt I could keep the extra layers atop.
I do not want to buy a sleeping bag I will use once every couple years. I have not done an in depth study but I suspect the better cold weather sleeping bag performance decreases as time passes. I imagine using a sleeping bag packs the filler down. Proper storage of a premium sleeping bag seems a challenge. Likely there are a lot of readers more knowledgeable on high end sleeping bags than me. Some day I will look into this, but for now a sleeping bag rated for below freezing temperatures is not an investment I will make.
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