The emergency alerts on the phone for being in a flash flood watch zone went off three times last night. Tough night. There was flooding out in Ventura County, but nothing near here. Better safe than sorry, I guess.
What’s responsible for the weirdness for the rest of the day? Who knows? The weird sleep detritus? Leftover ions from the hurricane? Leftover aftershocks from the earthquake? Mercury in retrograde?
Filed under Photography, Weather
We’re fine. In our particular neighborhood we haven’t had anything particularly threatening going on, fortunately. Other folks in other areas have been less fortunate, but overall, so far, it seems as if the impacts have been within reason. I haven’t heard of any fatalities or serious injuries due to the storm beyond a couple of traffic accidents probably caused in part by the rain – but that happens any time it rains in SoCal.
I got going early this morning and went out to get our weekly groceries and our Sunday breakfast. It was just starting to rain here, even though it had been raining for several hours further south in Long Beach, Orange County, San Diego, and Mexico.
By late afternoon it had started raining much harder and the wind had come up, but again, nothing disasterous. We got a bit over two inches of rain so far (it’s still raining and expected to continue for the next 10-12 hours) and we saw winds in the 20-25 mph range, but none of the 50-80 mph gusts that were possible. No power outages. A few flooded intersections around town, but we weren’t going out! The National Weather Service said “Stay!” and I did my best golden retriever imitation and stayed!
Of course, in the middle of all of this there was that magnitude 5.1 earthquake about fourty miles from us that rattled me from side to side for about ten seconds and shook up some stuff on the shelves behind me. Who had that on their SoCal Disaster Sunday bingo card?
Meanwhile, there’s street flooding and swift water rescues going on out in Ventura, some very near Camarillo Airport where I’ve spent so much time over the last few years with the CAF SoCal Wing. Today was supposed to be the second day of the Wings Over Camarillo airshow out there (do a search, there are a dozen more posts full of pictures over the years from that show), but that got cancelled last night. Out in the desert and in particular around Death Valley National Park there was some massive flash flooding, but the park had been evacuated over the weekend so no word of any casualties. It might just have the park closed for repairs for a while.
All in all, it could have been a lot worse. And while it still is unstable out there and could still be worse tonight, I think the odds are that SoCal dodged a bullet on this one. I just doubt that it’s going to be another 84 years before it happens again.
Filed under Los Angeles, Video, Weather
The clouds were starting to roll in by sunrise this morning, and it’s been mostly cloudy all day.
Just around sunset, enough clouds broke up to let some amazingly golden rays through.
The storm track has continued to shift a bit to the east, so while we’re still under an official Flood Watch and a Tropical Storm warning, we’re now expecting about 24 hours (roughly noon tomorrow to noon on Monday) of high (but not hurricane force!) winds and a decent amount (3″-ish, probably on the higher side) of rain over that time.
We won’t flood, we’re on top of the hill, but it’s possible there could be some local flash flooding. But we’re not going anywhere, so that shouldn’t be an issue. The biggest threat that I see might be a power outage, but spoiled freezer and refrigerator contents are the worst consequences of that.
Inland in the deserts? Flash flooding is a huge possibility. Places like Death Valley could get more rain in twelve hours tomorrow than they normally get in three years. Flash floods in the past have taken out bridges over dry riverbeds on the interstates heading toward Arizona and Nevada, so that’s a concern. Lots of folks are stuck living near burn areas from brush fires, and with these kinds of rain mudslides are a possibility and they could cause significant damage. Storm surge could cause serious coastal flooding and damage along the coast and out on Catalina Island.
In short, it’s a BIG area and I don’t expect too many issues HERE, but Hilary is a major, powerful, HUGE storm and elsewhere in SoCal it could get really nasty. Let’s hope that it doesn’t.
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather
Up in the mountains and high desert (not so much down here in the LA Basin and the valleys that are close to the ocean) humidity (monsoonal moisture) plus heat (over 100ºF today) gives rise to thunderstorms. So today to our north, toward Mt Pinos and the Coastal Range (on the left), the Grapevine (center) and the Antelope Valley (on the right), we saw this:
(It’s a good sized image – click on it to see it full sized!)
The big threat for the next few days however is from the south, off of Baja. Tropical Storm Hilary is building off of Cabo San Lucas and is expected to be a full-blown hurricane tomorrow. It’s expected to travel more or less due north off of Baja until it slams into Southern California and Arizona over the weekend.
It’s all still three or four days out so who knows what the weather gods will actually deliver – just based on our luck, we’ll get missed entirely and Las Vegas and Phoenix will get flooded. Still, the current model from NWS Los Angeles says we’ll get somewhere between 2-5 inches of rain, so I’m hopeful.
Filed under Los Angeles, Panorama, Photography, Weather
Yesterday I pointed out that we had a chance of getting some monsoonal rain, but I wasn’t optimistic that it would come to pass.
In fact we got about three minutes of rain, enough to stir up all of the dust and turn it to mud, and give us a whiff of petrichor.
But that was it!
Filed under Photography, Weather
Some moisture moving in.
They were talking about a 40% chance of rain for the next three days, but now of course, it’s down to just a 24% chance on Thursday and 11% chance on Friday.
The odds of winning tonight’s $1.55B Lottery are starting to look better and batter in comparison. But at least the passing clouds are cooling it down out of the high 90’s into the low 80’s.
Any port in a storm!
Filed under Photography, Weather
Yeah, I know that it’s August NOW. But yesterday it was still July, and in addition to that great full moon, around sunset we had a surge of monsoonal moisture pass through.
Of course, WE got zero-point-zero rain.
I guess we should have been grateful for the humidity. At least for a couple of hours the sun wasn’t frying the vegetation and sucking every last drop of moisture out of every leaf.
And the sunset was definitely beautiful, even if it was restricted to shades of yellow. No oranges, reds, or purples for us today.
That’s okay. It was a good end to a so-so month. I’m trying to learn to take what we’re given and make the best of it.
Check back with me later and see how that goes…
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather
As the pilot said the other day when they shut down MSP due to weather when we were on final approach and we had to go circling for a while when we were already well over two hours late – “We just can’t catch a break!”
Not sure if it’s that Nexus thing from “Star Trek: Generations,” the portal that the Ghostbusters opend up for Zuul, or something new. I haven’t been keeping up on my paranormal interdimensional portal identification classes.
It was actually very pretty, but I’ve always suspected that the end of the world will be visually stunning.
At least, I hope it will be. It would be so boring and blase to have 8 billion folks being sent off into the afterlife by something tedious, boring, and mundane.
You know, like, say, the oceans boiling off due to our own stupidity and killing all of the plankton and sea life so that there’s no more oxygetn being generated, with a side effect of weather patterns becoming obscenely unstable, the temperature rising to the point where nothing bigger than ants and cockroaches can survive, and then starving to death while gasping for oxygen. (Wait…what?!)
Instead let’s split the sky, have legions of alien spacecraft pour through (or demons, or dragons, or dinosaurs) and then just have to deal with the Apocalypse. Given how bravely and intelligently we’ve dealt with COVID, alien spacecraft piloted by dinosaurs should be a piece of cake.
Or, and hear me out here, it might just be a weird contrail left behind by some unknown aircraft, probably something really big and really fast.
How droll.
Filed under Photography, Weather
Went on some sightseeing quests around the city today.
Found flocks and flocks of the dreaded Cobra Chickens!
Came outside after a wonderful anniversary dinner and found thunderheads punching their way toward the stratosphere. Five hours later (i.e., now) there are lightning bolts all over!
Trying to get over being jet lagged – that’s a young person’s game. Delays, trying to clear Customs after midnight and then funding a cab to the hotel didn’t help.
A couple of showers, a bit of sun, some convection, and overall a very pleasant day to try & get my circadian rhythms back on an even keel.
Filed under Photography, Travel, Weather
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 