Category Archives: Weather

August 14, 2026 · 22:59

Fighting The Hydra

Cut off one head (i.e., hit one deadline, finish one task) and there are two more being regrown (finishing the anology is left as an exercise for the student).

So take a minute or two to look at the clouds, say hello to the neighbors, walk down to the community mailbox at the corner (still weird to me that we don’t have an individual mailbox at the end of the driveway), get buzzed by the hummingbirds.

With advancing years I find that I truly do not have any fucks to give about certain things – strangers’ opinions of me, for example – but I find it annoying that there are so many things I do still give a fuck about. Doing a good job even though my career is winding down and nearing its end, worrying about the evil that’s taking over out country, wondering if the Angels are ever again going to have a winning season, waiting for the Chiefs’ bounceback season this year and Season Four of “Ted Lasso.”

I’m juggling as fast as I can. And trying to find time every day to see if there are any pretty clouds overhead. (There were.)

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Politics, Weather

August 11, 2026 · 22:47

Hail – But Not Here

The blaring alert on the TV while I was watching the Angels’ pre-game show said there was a flash flood warning combined with quarter-sized hail. Near us? Sort of, but “close” only counts in horshoes, hand grenades, and tactical thermonuclear weapons.

A quick look at the weather radar showed a bunch of large cells popping up, with the really nasty stuff over toward the California / Nevada lines along I-15 on the way to Las Vegas. But there was some pretty good activity about eight miles away, over by where the shooting range is that we visited two weeks ago.

It would be cool to get some big storm cell building up over us, I do love a good thunderstorm. But so far, it’s been hit or miss, primarily “miss.”

Life in the high desert during monsoon season! Gotta love it!

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Weather

August 6, 2026 · 22:51

Boomers In The Distance

It got muggy and it’s been hot, so out here with lots of desert and mountains, that means unexpected pop-up thunder boomers. They stayed out to the east and away from us, but they looked impressive.

(Radar image from the Wunderground app)

Always nice to see that the radar picture agrees with what you can see with your standard issue Mark I eyeballs!

That really nasty, orange blob to the northeast up by Barstow –

Classic form, convection reaching for the next layer of the atmosphere, where it would be prevented from rising further and would break out into the dangerous and threatening anvil-topped shape.

To the southeast, over the mountains –

Not as focused and intense, more spread out, with several smaller cells growing nearby the primary storm cell.

The two biggest dangers from these kinds of storms are flash flooding and lightning-sparked brush fires. Everything is so dry and baked and flammable, any dry lightning turns into 100 acres of fire and growing fast in a heartbeat.

All y’all stay on your toes out there!

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Weather

July 20, 2026 · 23:31

Rainbow At Sunset

As usual, sunset-ish, filling the bird feeders, when WOWSERS!!

The picture doesn’t do it justice, it was bright! And it lasted for at least 15-20 minutes, much longer than normal.

This is where it’s coming from – the Sun in the clear as it set, with some scattered clouds dropping virga for the final rays of sunshine to shine through.

As I was working, and looking at that rainbow over the wall, the hummers were active, buzzing me as I stood near their feeder.

Finally the Sun broke through and started illuminating the nearby water tanks and power lines, while still leaving the rainbow and some drifting sheets of rain.

The rainbow was small when viewed as part of the big picture, but the whole thing with the bright blue sky and bright white clouds with the band of color streaking across it all. With hummingbirds.

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather

July 19, 2026 · 23:12

Looking East At Sunset

I’ve shared plenty of photos of the western sky at sunset, either because it was aflame and spectacular and awesome, or because it had planets and the Moon in it, or both. But the view to the east during those same moments is also gorgeous, if somewhat more sublime.

Directly behind us to the east are row upon row of empty, graded lots for parts of our subdivision that were never finished. That’s a whole long and interesting story to begin with, no doubt to be discussed another day as it seems some developer has bought the empty land and plans of building there in 2027. We’ll see. Beyond that are these three huge water tanks that turn the most subtle shades of pink and orange at sunset. And the power lines coming up from the Mesa and the Cajon Pass. Beyond them, the mountains, dominated by the triple-peaked Pinnacles and the mountains heading up into the Mojave Desert. All purple-ish at this time of the dusk.

More to the northeast tonight there were layers of clouds heading up toward Barstow, the higher ones still almost still white but getting the lightest tinge of pink, with the lower, closer clouds already entering into night’s shadow, with every shade and level of illumination in between. And more power lines and water tanks and vacant lots. Welcome to the southwest corner of Hesperia!

It does make a most lovely, pastel backdrop for refilling the bird seed feeders!

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather

July 17, 2026 · 23:47

Cloud Lighting

That’s “lighting,” not “lightning.” There was some of that way further out, but nothing here. It really drove home the point of just how stinking GINORMOUS San Bernardino County is, 20,104 square miles. For comparison, that’s bigger than ten US states, including Vermont and New Hampshire combined. So when we get a flash flood warning and notified about closures on the interstates, that’s out in Needles on the Colorado River, hundreds of miles away. No sweat here. Just puffy white clouds for me to take pictures of.

Backlit clouds are dramatic!

Sunset clouds are beautiful all the time, except when they graduate to stunning.

 

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Filed under Photography, Weather

July 16, 2026 · 23:01

Heat Plus Moisture

A bit of monsoonal moisture and temperatures in the mid to upper 90’s here and well over 100°F out over the desert give you … convection!

Due east of us is Johnson Valley and the vast, hot, barren stretches of the Mojave Desert.

Swinging around to the southeast, on the other side of those mountains you’re looking at Palm Springs, Yucca Valley, and the Coachella Valley.

Here, it was hot, but mostly clear overhead. Over the desert, thunderstorms building.

We say we live in “the high desert,” but compared to the Mojave, we’re just “desert adjacent.”

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Filed under Photography, Weather

July 14, 2026 · 23:55

Proof Of Life – July 14th

Ridden hard…

…and put away wet!

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather

July 12, 2026 · 22:24

Hot & Humid Incoming!

After recent, massive “heat dome” events in Europe, Africa, the US East Coast and Midwest (and probably dozens of other places), it’s apparently now going to be the turn of the US Southwest. As in, “us.”

Upper 90’s and triple digits (35º to 40º C) for the next week, and it’s probably not going to be that “dry heat” that we’re always bragging about. More like that “Florida swamp-ass” heat.

We dodged any rain today, but radar was showing a huge line of rain from the San Diego suburbs, up over Palm Springs, all the way to Lake Havasu in Arizona.

All we got was some beautiful, high, textured, lumpy clouds, with a few spots of virga (rain that you can see falling, but it evaporates before it hits the ground).

Tomorrow our odds of rain are up to about 25%, but I still don’t think we’ll be lucky enough to actually get any. We shall see!

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Filed under Photography, Weather

July 10, 2026 · 23:54

Summit Fire

It’s hot, it’s dry, and there are brush fires everywhere. We currently don’t have anything like the MASSIVE fires going on in Colorado, but we have “smaller” ones by the dozen every day. Anything in city limits gets pounced on pretty fast and gets limited to just a handful of acres. Anything out in the boonies can get a lot bigger fast.

I get notices all day long on the Watch Duty app, so that in and of itself isn’t terribly noticeable. SoCal is a BIG area so 99% of the fires are way off yonder.

But one popped up today that was closer, almost due west of us about 20 miles (so no danger to us), and the notices I was seeing were warning that it was growing fast. So I went out the front door to peek.

Yep, that would be it. Lots of smoke, but the winds were carrying it off to our north, up toward Victorville and Barstow.

300 acres. 600 acres. 1,300 acres. Almost due west, so I knew that sunset would be good.

I wasn’t wrong!

The C-130s, the water bombers, and the firefighting helicopters were all active. It looks like the helicopters were going to the nearby California Aqueduct to dip their buckets and refill fast, staying close to the fire’s location.

Sunset came, and as predicted, it was smoky and colorful.

At 20:05 there was supposed to be a SpaceX launch from Vandenberg, but I thought it was still too light to see from here, and I thought that the orange & brown clouds of smoke would be an additional hazard.

Nope! Blind luck was on my side. I was taking pictures of the C-130 which had just refilled its water tanks at San Berardino Airport and was headed back to make two more drops on the fire. It wasn’t until just now that I noticed that sharp, white streak on the left side. Falcon 9, with the planet in its rearview mirror!! Some days it’s better to be lucky than good.

 

 

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Filed under Los Angeles, Panorama, Photography, Space, Weather