Category Archives: Weather

February 4, 2024 · 23:39

Heavy Rain

I got out reasonably early today and got the weekly groceries and Sunday morning breakfast before it got too wet. That didn’t last long.

We’re fine. Up here on the hill we worry a tiny bit about mudslides and power outages, but all of the rain just runs down the hill to be someone else’s problem. (Not being snarky – that’s why there’s a big flood control basin down there which starts Bell Canyon Creek, which in turn becomes the headwaters of the Los Angeles River about a half-mile downstream.)

We have a couple of spots with some ponding of an inch or so, but then it goes into a drain. As long as I keep those drains clear, we’re golden!

Other parts of California are not so lucky. Locally we’ve have had a lot of local street flooding, and some canyon areas are being evacuated, particularly those below brushfire burn areas.

The expected rain totals for the whole five or six day storm have been upped from 6-7 inches here to 8-9 inches, with most other areas also getting an increase in the estimates. We’re a desert, our drainage system just isn’t designed to handle that much rain that fast.

Stay dry out there!

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Filed under Los Angeles, Photography, Weather

February 3, 2024 · 23:19

No Context For You – February 03rd

We have snacks & beer & wine & chips & cookies & margaritas for next Sunday’s party. We have survived (barely) Costco on the first Saturday afternoon of the month. (If I have to endure that experience, at a minimum I should be able to bring home a Sony 85 Inch Mini LED 4K Ultra HD TV X93L Series: BRAVIA XR Smart Google TV with Dolby Vision HDR, but nooooooooooooooooo…)

Now we hunker down and hope the power doesn’t go out over the next couple of days. The notices coming out of the National Weather Services for Central and Southern California are using unusually alarming language. Better to be forwarned, but Jeez Louise!

Plan for the worst, hope for the best!

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Filed under Photography, Weather

February 2, 2024 · 23:12

Respite

Two days of moderate rain, today’s it’s the bluest of blue skies.

Tomorrow the rain starts again and is supposed to be hard and last for days, most of the week. We’re getting warnings about potential power outages, local flooding, mudslides, and reminders about emergency precautions. “Assume a downed power line is live.” “Don’t run a generator in the house.” “Don’t drive into standing water.” That sort of thing.

We live at the top of a previously mentioned freakin’ huge hill so flooding in the immediate area isn’t a concern, but it could keep us trapped if there’s flooding in the catch basin down at the bottom. Power outages could leave us cold and bored, but we’ll live. I don’t plan on going anywhere, so I don’t plan on tangling with water whether it be standing, sitting, running, jogging, or flying. Mudslides? Well, I guess it could happen, but we’ve never seen any signs of it near here.

We will deal with whatever comes along. The biggest personal impact might be in our Superb Owl party preparations, but the official Joe’s KC BBQ supply arrived today, so we should be good!

Wherever you are, stay safe and enjoy the weekend!

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Filed under Photography, Weather

February 1, 2024 · 23:37

Ghost Clouds

February arrived wet in SoCal. A little under 2″ of rain in the last 24 hours. It’s been a fast-moving storm, so we’ve gotten heavy showers and then sun, followed by more showers, sun, showers, stars…

It’s odd going out to take a lap around the back yard. Sometimes it’s cold and clear with spooky ghost clouds scudding about but huge chunks of the sky crystal clear and starry, Orion and Jupiter bright above.

Then thirty minutes later I can go out and need to pick up an umbrella to take trash out.

They’re already warning us that after a sunny respite tomorrow, the weekend all the way into Wednesday and Thursday next week is going to be stupidly wet and cold and floody. We’re expecting 6″ to 8″ of rain here and there are mountain communities that are expecting 15″ or more. Let’s hope some of it’s snow, we need that even more than we need the rain.

But the long-range forecast for the 11th looks good. Let’s hope. We’ve got some partying to do!

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Filed under Los Angeles, Photography, Weather

January 25, 2024 · 23:17

I Wanna Be A Thunderstorm When I Grow Up!

Just a touch after sunset, so there’s just a hint of pink still showing in with the grey. (And I’m talking about the cloud, not my skull…)

But what really struck me about this tiny little bit of aerial condensation was how it was out there hovering over West Hills.

All. By. Itself!

The sky was about 99% clear and cool, but right *there* conditions were right to start forming a cloud.

I wish it luck! I sensed that it had grand ambitions. It was going to grow up to be a thunderstorm, a cumulonimbus monster topping out at 50,000 feet, pummeling the Midwestern plains with baseball-sized hail and attacking the landscape with lightning and thunder like Thor on a three-day bender!

Truly, the sky’s the limit!

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Filed under Photography, Weather

January 9, 2024 · 23:51

Launch Delay

There was supposed to be another Starlink launch out of Vandenberg on a Falcon 9 tonight about 21:00 local time.

It’s been grey, gloomy, drizzly, cloudy, and overcast here for days, but I started watching our western horizon about sunset and we’re looking great!

See those two tall, thin, phallic Italian cedar trees on the right? Falcon 9 will rise just to the left of the left-hand tree, arc up at about 45º behind that stand of palm trees, have first stage cutoff, stage separation, and second stage ignition just to the left of the palsm, and  then go over that telephone pole about halfway between the top of the pole and the top of the picture. From there it will arch back all the way to the southern horizon off to the left.

Double checking after sunset, we’re looking spectacular. T-3:00:00!

And then they scrubbed for unknown reasons and re-scheduled for tomorrow night / Thursday morning, with the window opening just about 01:00.

I don’t even have to check the weather forecast to know what that means.

Clear all day tomorrow…until about an hour before the launch window opens.

Some days if it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all!

 

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Filed under Photography, Space, Sunsets, Weather

January 3, 2024 · 22:43

2024’s First Rainbow

Gotta love rainbows!

Gotta love daughters that send a text saying, “Dad, can you see the gnarly rainbow outside?” I had not seen it, being at my desk with the start of the new work year being somewhat “Set SCE to AUX!“-ish.

She had been watching for a bit from closer to Downtown LA and had a spectacular view of a full 180º rainbow. I later saw that others posted pictures on social media of  a full 180º double rainbow over West Hollywood.

From our yard in the west San Fernando Valley I could see a bit of it through the trees. Nothing like a full 180º, but very bright. But…trees.

So I took off down the backside of the hill we’re on to where the street turns in that direction and I could get a clear view.

It was starting to fade, but it was still worth the effort. Happy 2024 Day Three!

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December 30, 2023 · 23:49

2023’s Last Gasps

It’s odd how we have placed into place such an imperfect, almost totally arbitrary system of numbering the years and months, and yet we simultaneously tend to put such importance on that same system.

Days and years are based in reality, the rotation of the planet and its orbit around the Sun, things that existed long before humans did and will survive long after we’re gone. But seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, and months are all artificial, as are the starting points of the year.

There is a loose association with the “new year” occurring about the time of the winter solstice. The days get shorter, the nights get longer, winter comes, and early humans start to get hungry and die with no knowledge or assurance that the Sun will return along with spring and summer. But then the days DO start to get longer. That right there is a known, measurable point to start the year. And perhaps it did at one time lost in the passage of time.

But the year isn’t exactly an even number of days long and over millenia the beginning of the year drifts away from the solstice.

Nonetheless, we stick with the system now and choose this not-so-special “special” day to reflect, to sum up, and to look forward. We make resolutions, vowing that on January 1st we’ll be better humans than we were on December 31st.

Sometimes we actually are.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Weather

December 29, 2023 · 23:45

Skyscapes – December 29th

It’s been wispy.

That was the last two days, with fog in the morning. Tonight the fog is already here and we’re expecting rain by morning, all the way through Monday morning.

The aforementioned “Monday morning” would be January 1st, 2024. There are a few local activities which have only been rained on once or twice in their 100-year-plus history. Some people are freaking out a bit.

I expect the parade itself to be fine, and the football game definitely will be dry. Or at least dry-ish. But all of the tourists camping out on the sidewalks in Pasadena on Sunday night into Monday morning, trying to reserve that perfect spot to watch the parade, might be a bit soggy by the time the B-2 bombers fly over.

The Pasadena Home Depot stores and Lowe’s stores might see a run on plastic sheeting this weekend.

Good times!

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Filed under Photography, Weather

December 22, 2023 · 23:26

Backside Of The Storm

For two days or more we’ve had long bands of rain coming up from the south off of the ocean and streaming up into Ventura and Santa Barbara. This happens as the low rotates and the cloud bands spin around it.

First thing this morning the convective activity was building up over Ventura as the Sun heated up the humid, unstable air.

Directly overhead was this ugly, dark thing and when I heard thunder I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, so I went inside rather than get fricaseed by one jillion electron volts.

Later I went out to get the trash cans and saw these twin thunderstorm cells. It looks like they’re over the coast out in Ventura County.

Close enough. What was really interesting was that when the radar was put into motion, all of these cells were now moving almost due north to due south, the exact opposite of how they’ve been moving earlier in the week. Not surprising to anyone who’s gone through a direct hit by a hurricane, but unusual to see it this graphically demonstrated in this part of the world. The center of the low had moved inland to our east and we were now on the opposite side of that circular rotation.

By sunset it was getting mostly clear and the gradient at the horizon was lovely, but there were still enough clouds out there showing a touch of pink coloring to make it spectacular.

It looks like we’ll have a dry-ish Christmas, then another system comes through at the end of the week before New Year’s Day. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain on the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game. I think that’s against the law!

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather