Somehow, today was busier than yesterday.
More, NEWER cloud pictures from today!
In about 50 minutes the SpaceX Crew 11 spacecraft will be re-entering to splash down off of San Diego, and we might be able to see it. Let’s hope we get lucky.
Category Archives: Weather
Proof Of Life – January 13th
Oh, crap, look at the clock. I’m still here – that has so many potential interpretations, both good and bad…
Have some more pretty cloud pictures, it’s all I have time for at the moment.
Filed under Photography, Weather
Evolution Of Some Weird Clouds
This probably doesn’t mean much, but I thought it looked cool, and I’m easily amused. And it’s my site, so I’ll post whatever I want.
At 11:52 we came out of the restaurant where we were having our normal Sunday morning breakfast and I saw these odd clouds. It was striking how the three in a row each had such sharply defined edges on the side facing us. Almost like lenticular clouds, but those tend to form over some sort of object (like a mountain) that’s sticking up high into the atmosphere. These were out beyond the dry river bed.
They caught my eye, looked weird, I took pictures.
Fifteen minutes after that, at 12:07, we had gotten to our grocery store and this whole cloud mass had shifted over toward the Sun and started to merge into one blob, but still with the sharp edge on the side closest to us. Plus there were some airliner contrails.
It still looked weird, I took more pictures.
Groceries obtained, as I was emptying the car and bringing the grocers in at 12:49, the cloudy mass had stretched out into a wide pair of arms that looked a bit like one of the later “Star Trek” ships, maybe the Enterprise-D or the Titan. There’s the saucer section and bridge right beneath the Sun, with the body and engine nacelles off in the distance and stretching off to the right…
I looked cool and weird. Guess what I did?
Filed under Photography, Weather
Fast, Lacy Clouds
It was a matter of layers.
I was wondering what made that straight line splitting the lower layer of lacy clouds – probably a small plane, but it could be something natural. Or a really freakin’ huge bird…
The solid clouds were pretty stationary, and up at probably 3,000′ or so. The thin, lacy ones were much lower, probably about 1,000 feet or so, and moving like a bat out of Hell toward the north.
Keep looking up! Keep your eyes and your soul open to some of the ordinary and beautiful things up there.
Filed under Photography, Weather
Proof Of Life – January 05th
THERE WAS A GIANT, YELLOW BALL OF LIGHT IN THE SKY TODAY, ALL DAY LONG!
There were still a few clouds floating around, but for the most part there were lots of blue areas and the giant yellow ball of light. When I stood in the yellow light it was warm and comfortable.
When I stood in the yellow, warm light I didn’t want to curl up in bed and cry any more. (Okay, let’s get real, two seconds of reading the news made me want to curl up and cry, yellow warm light or not, but that’s a different topic.)
Maybe if we say nice things and make small sacrifices on a rudimentary altar, nothing fancy, just a chicken or two, then the giant yellow ball of warm light will come back tomorrow.
It will be my friend. I think I will name him “Ra.”
Filed under Photography, Weather
2026 Arrives
First of all, my undying thanks to everyone who continues to follow this site and my photos and writing and blaterationings. I appreciate all of the likes, comments, and suggestions, and will always appreciate any and all feedback.
We got a bit of a break from the rain, but while I was out refilling the bird feeders it was drizzling with the sun out, which means rainbows. It wasn’t the brightest one in the world, but you can see the arc out there.
To the south you couldn’t QUITE see the mountain under the clouds, except for a couple of spots where, if you look really close…
The clouds were rolling through FAST, with chunks falling down from the base, indicative of some serious turbulence up there. A good day to not be flying.
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Weather
Mountain Under The Cloud Deck
Solid overcast today as the next storm moves in overnight, but for a few minutes this morning there was a perfectly positioned thin spot that let some sunlight in to illuminate Mount San Antonio and its fresh layer of snow.
With everything else darker around it, the effect was stunning.
The new incoming storm isn’t supposed to deliver nearly as much rain as last week’s storm did, but we’re still being warned of possible flash flooding and mudslides below the burn scar areas from earlier this year. (We’re not in one of those areas.) I’m not too worried about this one personally, but it will be damp and cold pretty much every day for the next week.
Probably no ice cream trucks showing up for a few days. And anyone camping out on the sidewalk for the Rose Parade in Pasadena down the hill might be miserable. But we’ll be warm and cozy here – not going anywhere!
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Weather
Christmas 2025
For those of you who celebrate, I hope this was a peaceful and pleasant holiday. For those who do not celebrate, I hope you had a quiet Thursday without too many inconveniences caused by everything being closed due to everyone else taking the day off.
We had two of the three kids (plus the one son-in-law) here, and we had a Zoom with the out-of-town daughter. The Long-Suffering Wife made our traditional Christmas feast featuring Joe’s BBQ from Kansas City, and there were a gazillion calories to be consumed. It was wonderful.
It was cool (mid 40’s) and windy as Hell, with the next band of rain (not as bad as yesterday) hitting after midnight tonight. Because everything’s already saturated with areas of flooding (nothing too bad near us) we’re back on a Flash Flood Watch. It will be be fine. At least our yard, interior courtyard, and garage no longer have any standing water. Let the healing (i.e., the drying out) begin!
This whole weekend storm has taught us that the City of Hesperia and the County of San Bernardino are aggressive and efficient about communicating about potential hazards. I didn’t necessarily expect that, but I most certainly appreciate it.
Technically tomorrow’s a day off at work, but I’ll likely spend most of the day trying to get caught up on paperwork and data entry. That’s going to be my Christmas gift to myself, spending that time to buy myself a little peace of mind and freedom from some of the usual time pressure. Put on some music or a football game or five, get some snacks, check a dozen or so things off the to-do list from Hell… Golden!
Adulting…
It sucks, but it’s probably better than most of the options.
(Oh, Khan’s gone from the wreath on the front door. Someone twenty miles downwind is going to find that picture in their front yard and I can only imagine what they’ll think about it. KHAAAAAAAANNN!!!!!)
Filed under Christmas Lights, Forever Home, Photography, Weather
The Great Christmas Eve Flash Flood Of 2025
Standing in six inches of freezing cold water in a downpour with a bucket, desperately shoveling water into a large, rolling trash container so that it didn’t flood into the shiny, new, amazing Forever Home was NOT how I expected to spend Christmas Eve. But here we were!
They said we were going to just get a bit of this storm, nowhere near the worst of it. Either they lied, got it badly wrong, or Jeez Louise it must have been really, REALLY bad down by the coast.
It was a long, long night between the winds and the rain. Hey, did anyone else know that the cover on the flue to the fireplace in the master bedroom sounds just like a snare drum in a Neil Peart solo in a deluge?
(Image: Weather Underground app)
The yellow spots weren’t so bad after some of the orange and red blobs. And the City of Hesperia and County of San Bernardino do an extremely thorough and efficient job of notifying us of flash flood warnings, flash flood watches, tornado warnings, and tropical storm warnings by text, voice mail, email, and phone calls. Even in the middle of the night…
The problem in the back yard was annoying, but not much of a threat. It was when we noticed the rising water levels in the interior courtyard that things got exciting. There’s a drain, but it was apparently blocked by leaves. There are doors on all four sides, three of which lead into the house, particularly into my office, the hallway by the dining room, and the living room. Fortunately (by accident or otherwise), the fourth door is the lowest by about two inches and it leads into the garage where there was minimal damage to be suffered. Not a crisis, just a mess.
So out I go into the deluge and the ankle deep, ice cold water, to clear the leaves, set up a sump pump, and grab a bucket to help get the water level down faster than it was going up with all of the runoff from the gutters.
The joys of home ownership! Althought, to be honest, even if we were renting, I still would have been stuck doing this.
After about four hours we finally got the upper hand and the flow into the garage stopped. When the rain finally slacked off to just a Level 8 instead of an 11, I was able to get some warm and dry clothes again.
Being Christmas Eve, while I was bailing and pumping, The Long-Suffering Wife was cooking our first holiday dinner of the weekend. It was wonderful.
A quick check of the Christmas lights shows a couple of strands down on the ground due to the winds, but they all seem to still be on. No short circuits, no water damage. I love it when a plan works!
And we all lived happily ever after. Except, of course, for the mess that I still have to dry out and clean up in the garage. But given the fact that there’s rain expected every day for the next week, maybe we’ll just hold off on that.
Filed under Christmas Lights, Forever Home, Weather
The Atmospheric River Slouching Toward Bethlehem
Okay, so it’s more “roaring” than “slouching,” with another HUGE rain event expected (along with the accompanying flooding and mudslides below last summer’s burn areas) and extremely high winds.
No snow for us – snow levels are only supposed to be down around 7,000 feet, and we’re at about 3,950. We should miss the worst of the rain as well – that will be down in the mountains rimming the LA Basin where some places will get nearly a foot of rain in the next four or five days combined. We should get 2-3 inches, which is wet and windy, but hardly a disaster.
It does give the lights a nice, dramatic look!
Filed under Christmas Lights, Photography, Weather
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 