Category Archives: Weather

October 31, 2022 · 21:55

And Then The Halloween Sunset Came

There were a few clouds moving in this afternoon, a tiny chance of rain for the next day or so (and by “tiny” I mean non-zero, but so close to non-existant it’s not really funny), and when I went out I saw this quarter moon floating up there through a thin layer. “That’s a nice photo for my blog post today!” I thought. And it was.

An hour or so later, just before dinner, I saw a glow and decided to check it out.

The Halloween sunset had come and it was loaded for bear!

These rows of low hanging virga were lit up like nothing I had ever seen before.

And where the sun had gone down, it was shades of orange and red that looked like they came straight from Armageddon.

No editing on any of these. No filters. No fiddling with the hue or saturation. All straight out of the camera.

WOW! Perfect for Halloween!

And then, because of the huge hill we live at the top of, for the fourth year in a row, not a single trick-or-treater came by.

Tomorrow… November.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets, Weather

October 26, 2022 · 22:45

Skyscapes – October 26th

It was a good morning for playing this game!

Oh, to be a hawk and go dodging in and out of those fluffy white expanses just for the pure joy of it!

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October 23, 2022 · 23:29

Texas Thunderstorm

It was a dozen years ago, a cross-country trip, somewhere on I-10 in Texas.

Big clouds. Bright white from a distance, convection reaching for the heavens.

Getting darker and darker underneath, heading toward black punctuated only by lightning. Lots of that, small hail, winds that might or might not have been a tornado or at least tornado-adjacent, and sheets and sheets of rain.

It was an experience!

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Filed under Photography, Travel, Weather

October 17, 2022 · 23:26

Autumn Splendor, SoCal Style

Those vistas horizon to horizon of golds and reds and oranges and the occasional evergreens mixed in? Maybe up in the Sierras, but not down here in the the brown, desert wastelands.

One of our fruit trees (which has NEVER had any fruit on it) is kinda sorta maybe turning a little. Most leaves are turning straight to brown, but a few are giving it the old college try. (I don’t know what old college they attended.)

If you’re fond of building a huge pile of leaves in the front yard and then running full speed and diving into them? Here you might get a big enough pile for one of the popcorn fence lizards to take a dive into, but that’s about it.

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Filed under Photography, Weather

October 12, 2022 · 23:48

Neat Clouds – No Rain

I guess that’s not 100% true – some folks got rain, up in the mountains and Antelope Valley.

We got dramatic clouds…

…and a couple of peals of thunder. No lightning that I could see, but it had to be there somplace.

Eventually we had mammatus clouds sailing overhead…

…which would indicate that we were on the bottom side of something turbulent, but it never led to anything.

Still dry.

I heard that there were Qanon lunatics trying to claim that “the libs” were using weather control technology to steer Hurricane Ian toward Florida to “punish” the Republican government and followers there. I know it’s a stretch to use logic and facts when dealing with that crowd, but did it ever occur to them that if “the libs” had that kind of technology, California wouldn’t be in a historic multi-year drought?

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Filed under Photography, Weather

September 29, 2022 · 23:02

Pillars Of Sunlight

A different job, a different life in many ways. It was way, WAY too early on a day that was going to be way, WAY too long.

But at least at the beginning, there was this bit of beauty and spectacle.

It’s always there if you look for it.

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September 28, 2022 · 23:49

Keep Color In Your Life

One thing I noticed in watching all of the news coverage of Hurricane Ian slamming into Florida as a Category 4 storm was the lack of color in most of the scenes. The clouds and rain are white and gray and the lack of sunshine makes everything that does have color seem washed out and pale. The sea not only turns angry and threatening, but it turns gray and black with the whitecaps showing up as the winds explode.

Colorful signs and storefronts and home turn to debris, brown, gray, black, with occasional splotches of color which are quickly spun away and scattered by the storm, to be sunken into the brown and black storm surge.

I think that’s a good analogy for the way our lives are going right now. We want life to be colorful, filled with blue skies, green fields, yellow sunshine, white clouds, multicolored flowers. Instead, some days so many things feel like a hurricane going through our lives, leaving everything broken and reduced to various shades of white, black, gray, and brown.

Keep the color in your life. Fight for it. Cling to it. Share it with others. And if everything’s gray and black and white and brown for you, ask others if they can share some of theirs.

 

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Filed under Art, Deep Thoughts, Photography, Weather

September 19, 2022 · 23:10

In Search Of A Little Green

We started restrictions on lawn watering back in June (or was it May?) and between that and several solid weeks of 100+ºF days every single day, the back yard has taken a beating.

But abour ten days ago, just after we got back from Chicago, there were some hurricane remnants wandering through and we got a tiny bit of rain here. Other places out in the mountains and deserts inland, out beyond Palm Springs and into Nevada and Arizona, some isolated spots got enough rain to cause some flash flooding and mudslides, but here we got maybe 0.2 inches of rain over a 24-hour stretch.

Plus, since then it’s been mostly in the mid-80’s every day instead of 100+.

Did it help?

I’m going to go with a resounding, “Maybe?”

I’m not sure how much of it is wishful thinking and how much is actual recovery, but it seems to be a tiny little bit more green than it was.

I’m not talking about those tall, long desert grasses on the right, it’s the standard issue monoculture lawn grass on the left hand side of that barrier that I’m wondering about. Maybe? In spots? Kinda?

At this point, I would be happy to have the lawn hanging on in a “less dead” state than even bothering to hope for “thriving.” Let’s manage our expectations, folks.

This would be another benefit to owning our home instead of renting. If we owned I would be ripping out the wanna be putting green and putting in some low water, desert vegitation and flowers, along with some succulents, cactus, rocks, pathways, and lots of fancy gravel or decomposed granite in between everything. It would look great, be very low maintenance, and have ultra low water requirements. Maybe a bench or two, a birdbath, some bird feeders…

I think we’ll probably be out of the drought via natural causes and a couple of consecutive El Niño years before the owner will be doing that. Brown and dusty might be the new norm. With just the slightest, semi-hallucinatory bit of green mixed in…

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Filed under Castle Willett, Photography, Weather

September 9, 2022 · 23:45

Full Moon Through Storm Clouds

After months and months of drought and an almost total lack of rain here in Los Angeles, tonight we have the outer bands of a Pacific hurricane sweeping over us. The worst of it is in the deserts and mountains inland toward Arizona, but we’re at least getting enough rain here to water the lawn a bit. Which is great, because with the water restrictions the drought has mandated, it’s been a while since there was much water out there, and it’s been well into the low 100’s every day for weeks.

Last night, as the 99% full moon was high (not a “supermoon,” but the “averagemoon” gets lousy press) it was visible coming in through the leading edge of the storm clouds.

Good thing Halloween is coming – this was spooky looking.

It was actually gorgeous, but “spooky” has had the same PR agent as “supermoon” for years, and it sells better than “gorgeous.”

Tonight, still a full-ish moon, but the clouds are way too thick to see anything. We’re just grateful for the rain.

 

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Weather

September 6, 2022 · 21:31

Skyscapes – Central Illinois Plus Trains

Out of Chicago for a day before going home, on a mission from God, as they say. First, in a small town, found a train moving some cars around the sidings, blocking the road for a long, long time.

I watch the trains on Virtual Railfan and I know that when they stop or start it’s loud, but until I was standing there I had no clue just how loud.

Later, a bit of convection started building up, making these fairy castle cloud castles.

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Filed under Photography, Travel, Weather