Category Archives: Weather

Wispy With A Chance Of Straight Lines

The squirrels hate it when I go out into the back yard to look at the clouds. The fact that sometimes I also refill the bird feeders hasn’t impacted their barely multicellular brains. The birds aren’t a whole lot more happy with my presence.

They’ll live. It’s my yard.

Today we met a significant reporting deadline, the looming presence of which has made the last two weeks or so a nightmare. But it’s done, for better or for worse, and now on to the next crisis de jour. Next week will be a short one as we take a couple days off for a birthday trip to MLB Spring Training. The impending “major, ends-in-a-zero” birthday has been messing with my head, but it’s helped to be making plans to see three games, see “Project Hail Mary” on a monstrously huge IMAX screen, and just relax for a few days. There are a couple of secret and non-so-secret things that are on my wish list – I’m hoping for some results.

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Weather

Has The Moon Risen? Is It Too Cloudy To See?

Both questions answered quickly as the timing was perfect, about twenty minutes after moonrise.

No windswept moors or hounds, just dusty desert and coyotes.

And owls. There were a couple hooting back and forth out there, very cool.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Weather

Cloud Zoom

It sounds like a new online, distributed video conferencing platform, but it’s much more simple. There was one odd cloud up there, I had my new iPhone, and the camera on it has 1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x zooms by default. So…

1x

2x

4x

8x

If only I could be a hawk… (Who else read the “Animorphs” books with their kids?)

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Purple Streaks In The Sunset

This whole “stress dreams on top of nightmares combined with having to get up to pee every 90 minutes” thing just isn’t as much fun as it sounds like. My watch says I got two hours of sleep last night. I’m glad that one of us thinks that’s true.

There’s a meme going around that says, “What’s something you’ve never tried in the bedroom bur really want to? ME: Sleeping a full eight hours and waking up actually refreshed with a will to live.” Yep.

At least there was a very pretty sunset tonight!

Just enough clouds to create a canvas for the colors to soak into, not enough to make it gray and gloomy.

Where the Sun had just vanished we got some great yellows, reds, pinks, and oranges.

And off to the north (and a little bit to the south), some deep purples, which were glorious to see in person.

That’s a big “Yes!” checkmark on the plus side ledger for today. Little victories – take ’em and celebrate ’em when you can!!

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather

Paul Gets Quicker, Catches Two Quarters Of The Rainbow

No snow. Not unexpected in the end.

However, when the rain was starting to taper off I noticed that it had gotten a little bit sunny. I scrambled to check.

Never saw the full rainbow, must have been some cloud blocking the middle part above us and back behind us. But I got the two ends.

Individually they were nice and bright.

It was however, COLD. Never even got into the 40’s, and the wind was howling.

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Weather

Snow Level Down To 4,100 Feet Ish

After this latest storm, I can assume that Mt San Antonio is well covered in snow – all of the roads heading up there are closed, so that’s your first sign. I haven’t been able to see the mountain in the last three or four days due to all of the clouds.

What I could see today were the mountains to the east. Mt Butler was well covered, way off in the distance, but we’ve seen that before.

What was new, this being the coldest storm so far since we’ve moved in, was the snow on The Pinnacles just at the east end of Victor Valley.

The Pinnacles go up to 5,646 feet and we, out in the valley floor, are at about 3,585 feet, so with the snow line being about a third of the way down, I’m guessing it’s at about 4,100 to 4,200 feet.

Even some of the peaks and ridges off to the side of The Pinnacles had some snow on their tops.

We’re at 34°F now, and all mention of flurries or snow has disappeared from tomorrow’s forecast, so while there may be more snow up on the peaks, I have doubts that we’ll get any down here on the valley floor. I’ll be watching, but I think this snow storm crapped out for us.

I’ll still be waiting…

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Weather

Rainbow Too Quick, Paul Too Slow

Between yesterday’s downpours and todays, there were a few minutes this morning with partial clearing, some blue skies and sunshine, two squirrels back in the yard, light showers overhead, and a tiny little sliver of rainbow. I ran outside with my phone, spooking the squirrels. (Sorry, guys!)

I missed. All of the elements (Sun, rain, alignment) were all still there, along with a howling wind, but the colors that had been there ten seconds earlier were gone and never returned.

The clouds, however, were spectacular!

I guess that was the prize for getting out there right at that moment. A half hour later (and all afternoon) it’s been grey, windy, and wet.

The forecast for some snow flurries keeps getting pushed back and getting to be less and less likely, but I’ve got my new snow shovel at the ready, just in case!

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Weather

Night Horizon With Storm Cloud

The rain has paused for the moment but there was a single odd-looking, weirdly illuminated cloud off over the horizon.

Normally on a longer exposure photo with my iPhone I would rest it on top of the backyard wall, but that wall isn’t cinder block, it’s that pre-fabricated vinyl stuff and with the wind howling it was moving all over the place. In addition, it’s cold, as cold as I’ve seen it here in the almost seven months we’ve been here. 38°F and falling.

There’s still a slim chance of some snow on Thursday they say – I’m skeptical, but in a secretly child-like hopeful way!

(Image from Wunderground app)

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Weather

Timing Is Everything

Both good and bad. Going out at the right time and you find an amazing selection of overcast textures.

Later, while taking out the trash barrels, I was apparently about ten to fifteen minutes too late to see what must have been an amazing sunset. I just got the dregs, which were still intriguing.

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather

Proof Of Life – February 02nd

Wow, after the utter shitshow of January, following pretty much ALL of 2025, I had hopes for a bit more calm in February.

HA!

That might have been delusional.

My bad.

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