Smoke from the Sand Canyon fire is rising at the far left, about 20 miles to our northeast. The smoke plume has today blown more to the south than to the east and it covers much of the Los Angeles Basin and beach areas. Once it hits the onshore breeze, it’s scattering back along the coast to the north and west.
Here you can see the brown & orange cloud stretching all the way around to our west. So far the fire has covered over 20,000 acres and is only 20% contained.
Filed under Los Angeles, Panorama, Photography, Weather
Simple. It’s been a long couple of days with a growing plumbing disaster, which might actually be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Which will be great if it’s not actually an oncoming train.
To make up work & try to hit deadlines (or at least not miss them by that much) I was at the office late. When I came out, to my right, due east, was:
A honkin’ big full moon tonight, rising over the hills that protect Woodland Hills from Winnetka. (A little humor there, Winnetka – ha, ha! Repeat after me – ha – ha! Very good, Winnetka!
But if I spun around 180°, changing my orientation and my perspective, I saw this:
Clear and a million, accompanied by an almost perfect gradient effect from zenith to horizon and back again..
Filed under Astronomy, Los Angeles, Space, Weather
She had a wonderful time taking the day off work and going shopping for my gift to her. Turns out I got her some lovely diamond earrings that were just exactly what she was looking for!
Meanwhile, after a lovely dinner, the sky decided to put on a more than decent display for the first time in a while.
While only about 100°F today instead of 111°F, the humidity was up along with the arrival of the pretty clouds. No yin without a little yang.
Does this formation mean that Malcolm McDowell is up on a mountaintop nearby with a rocket launcher?
The light was fading fast, as I am now.
Filed under Photography, Ronnie, Weather
Boy, did THAT day get away from me!
Wanna see how hot it was here on Monday?
Yep, it’s all that anyone was talking about. At least we weren’t Phoenix.
Wanna know what happens in SoCal when it’s 111°?
This was about fifty miles away. It was at about 2,000 acres at the time, got up to near 5,000 the last I had heard, and was still only about 15% contained as of this morning.
But it was only a balmy 92° or so today, so that should help knock down the fire.
Filed under Los Angeles, Weather
There’s a very large brush fire burning into its third day about 100 miles to the northwest of here. Dozens of houses have burned, whole towns are in the fire’s path, Highway 101 between Southern and Northern California has been shut down with flames on both sides of the road, and the “sundowner” winds have been gusting every night, fanning and spreading the inferno. As of tonight it was 20% contained, but there were concerns that it could get completely out of control again if the winds didn’t die down.
This morning, with the winds shifting from the north, LA was brown and smoky, over 100 miles away. I guess that’s not as surprising as it might have been a few weeks ago, when we saw that huge fire in Canada spreading smoke all the way to Atlanta.
As if that isn’t enough, it’s going to be a scorcher all over the US SouthWest this weekend. We’re expecting 94°F tomorrow, 104°F on Sunday, and 109°F on Monday. Up there in the fire zone, aside from, you know, the radiant heat of thousands and thousands of acres burning in your face, it’s only supposed to be 97°F.
On the other hand, in places like Phoenix, Arizona, it’s supposed to be 119°F on Sunday, and I notice that the forecast there is for the highs to be 112°F or above for the next nine days, as far as the current forecast goes out. There are whole swatches of this part of the world that are expecting the highest temperatures EVER RECORDED at those recording sites. Not the highest temperature on that day in history – the highest temperatures ***EVER*** recorded at those spots.
Then I saw the news that the very last recording station on Earth that was still seeing CO2 levels under 400 parts per million has finally reached that symbolic level. It’s in Antarctica, about as far away from anything human as they can put it. The last time the CO2 levels hit this height was over four million years ago. From this point onward we almost certainly will never see any spot on Earth recording less than that in our lifetimes. Or our children’s lifetimes, or their children, or their children…
All of that made me think that, in an effort to be totally transparent and up front with everyone, I should let y’all know:
If you ever, EVER come to my site, my timeline, or my face wanting to tell me that CO2 isn’t causing climate change (100% bullshit), that human activities aren’t driving that CO2 increase and climate change (unbelievable 100% bullshit), that scientists haven’t really proven that there’s climate change (you’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me 100% bullshit), that it’s “just a theory” (bullshit 100% ignorant of any clue what the scientific method is or what the word “theory” means), or anything along those lines, I will as politely as I can ask you to piss off and never darken my door again.
If you’re stupid enough to ignore that request (and I’m betting you are if you’re spewing any of the aforementioned bullshit) then I will do everything I can to show the world what a moronic, ignorant, clueless, illiterate, uneducated, imbecilic, cretinous, witless buffoon you are. I don’t for a second think that any of the mountain of evidence and facts that I’m going to shower on you will change your mind, but the rest of us will have fun laughing at you and pointing.
Then I will block your ass and take whatever measures are necessary to never hear from you again. Life’s too short to spend it putting up with the intentionally ignorant.
For those who think this is a policy which stifles a free exchange of ideas – get a clue. Look up “false equivalency” for starters. Put simply, if I say 5+5=10 but you think that 2+8=10 and someone else says 15-5=10, we can discuss how each of us got to ten. On the other hand, if I say 5+5=10 but you say 5+5=37.89927837128 because there’s a conspiracy founded by some secret society and the aliens are really running the whole thing, then we have nothing to talk about and it’s a waste of breath for me to do so.
I just wanted y’all to know!
Filed under Disasters, Freakin' Idiots!, Los Angeles, Politics, Weather
It does this in Southern California. First there’s “May Gray,” followed by “June Gloom.” Then it will be 104° in the shade and we’ll burn.
Wait for it.
Filed under Photography, Weather
The day, she was chilly and damp and cloudy. It didn’t matter that much since I was indoors with no windows, trying to make the best of my one regular day per week at the hangar. All of those number things and bank things and statement things and moths in the purse things, don’cha know.
When I was getting ready to leave, having assumed that it had gotten dark long before (it was a loooooong day playing catch up) I was surprised to see that the setting sun had finally found a way to peek out from under the persistent cloud deck. It probably had to go all the way past Santa Barbara to do it, but there it was.
As it got closer to the horizon, a bit more illumination crept through and showed that the clouds were actually breaking up just a touch.
I wanted to boogie home, but before I left I walked out to the edge of the taxiway for the pig bicture.
(As always, click on the image to get the full-sized version.)
Filed under CAF, Panorama, Photography, Weather
“Heart Of The Cutoff Low” is going to be my new Don Henley tribute band.
Remember the leading edge of the low pressure system that gave us such pretty clouds two days ago? That system is now parked over us for the second day in a row and doesn’t look like it will move out until Sunday or Monday.
Tomorrow’s going to be a bit of a mudder. (No context for you!)
From the parking garage at sunset, pretty much every direction looked ominous. (There’s not THAT much rain in this system, it just looks cool.)
To the west. I actually did get a little bit of rain on the drive home and the trash cans had an inch or so of rain it them. (It was trash day and the lids get left open when the automated truck picks them up and flips them.)
To the north. There’s that big hospital-like-looking building over there, I wonder if I know anyone there?
To the east. Way off in the distance, just poking up over the hill are some big cells firing up, bringing some thunderstorms to the desert.
Not good flying weather. At least two Southwest Air flights from Burbank to Las Vegas were cancelled this afternoon due to the storms.
Tomorrow’s going to be a long, long day. Stay dry, y’all!
Filed under Photography, Weather
There’s a large but relatively weak cutoff low pressure system approaching the West Coast, which has some potential to make our weather spotty for the next three or four days. That’s the thing with cutoff lows – most systems, high or low, get carried along with the jet stream and keep moving, more or less east to west. (I say “more or less” because it’s not terribly uncommon to get weather maps that look like this, and there you’ll have significant north/south components to the motion in addition to the generally easterly direction.)
But tonight, about an hour before sunset, these waves (and they really are caused by ripples in the atmosphere) of puffy clouds were moving through.
I had been hoping for a spectacular sunset, but in the end we just got a tinge of pink at the last moment.
Filed under Photography, Weather
At least, that would be your conclusion if you were wandering around Woodland Hills on Ventura Boulevard this evening.
Among Los Angeles many bizarre (and occasionally endearing) qualities is the way that locals react to dips in the temperatures. Tonight after work I took a quick walk down the block to the bank. The sun was still up, but the wind was starting to gust to 15 or 20 knots and the air had started to cool.
It had “cooled” all the way down to 65°F. The horror!
Walking back to the office I passed one person after another, more than a dozen total, who were bundled up like they were going to the South Pole. Ski jackets, woolen hats, scarves, gloves, and even then there were people hugging themselves for warmth while they stood waiting for the light to change.
I swear, it was noticeable enough that I started to wonder if I wasn’t somehow in a little bubble of thermal discontinuity, separated from reality by some unseen barrier that was fending off the horrible fate of freezing to death right there on the Boulevard at the end of April.
Not a single person in sight was walking around in a T-shirt, cargo shorts, and flip-flops. That’s one of the other bizarre things you’ll almost always see in Los Angeles, even if it truly is down below 40°, blowing a gale, and raining sideways. But not tonight.
When it gets so odd in LA that you have to stop, look around, and wonder what in hell’s going on, that’s a good day.
Filed under Los Angeles, Weather
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 