I just hate it when the Ventura County Gateway to Hell opens up, especially when the wind is blowing from the west.
The smell of sulphur and brimstone can be horrible!
It was, however, a very cool looking effect for about two minutes at sunset. Timing, as always, is everything in life.
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather
All week they’ve been promising our first rain of the season for tomorrow – they lied. Or, at a minimum, they’ve reneged. Apparently the remnants of a tropical storm that fell apart off of Hawaii got sucked into the jet stream and sent our way, but it’s going to go more north.
We still get some nice, high, wispy clouds to ogle, but the chance of any actual raindrops is quickly approaching zero.
Of course, those nice, high, wispy clouds turn pink at sunset, so that’s nice also.
Enjoy the weekend! Don’t forget to take a moment to ogle the clouds!
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather
Probably not. But it sure looks like it wants to.
There’s more going on than just the coastal low clouds and fog moving in. Through some of the gaps in the clouds it looked like some significant cloud building and cumulus clouds rising up in the afternoon heat. But no rain.
Driving home I could see virga falling from the cloud bases in a couple spots, but nothing was hitting the ground.
Our last measurable rain was in April, which is normal, and the forecast says there’s a 50%+ chance of a third of an inch or so on Saturday. That would be nice.
But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting. We’re not to the rainy season around here yet.
Can’t wait!
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather
Week after week after week of “clear & a million” when Comet A3 was in the morning sky and then rounding the Sun and unable to be seen at all.
Now, we’re a day or two away from it coming out from the Sun’s glare and popping up above the western horizon just after sunset and the clouds have started rolling into SoCal.
It’s all very pretty, I love clouds, and the high, wispy ones are very delicate and beautious, but…
…with all due respect, can I politely request that they GO AWAY for the next week or two?
Which god’s dog did I kick?
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets, Weather
We’re getting some moisture in, which on top of the late summer/early fall heat wave (it was 111°F here the other day and it’s not supposed to cool off into the 80’s until at least Thursday next week) means it’s humid and we’re getting some high, chunky clouds.
I came out for air and brief walk just a couple minutes after sunset and there was still just a touch of some spectacular sunset color right at the horizon. But everything above that was no longer illuminated and was just gray and lumpy.
The security camera confirms that just ten minutes before this, there was a lot of color in the clouds. Maybe not the best ever, but pretty good.
No way to go back, no way to get a second chance tonight, no time machine. No Tardis, not even that huge black & white spiral thingie that I was talking about the other day from “The Time Tunnel.” As they say, timing is everything in life.
Fortunately, the Sun will rise tomorrow. Presumably, so will I, and tomorrow evening there will be another chance. I’ll try to be more mindful of what’s going on outside.
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather
Too many deadlines, coming at me like freight trains…
It’s also getting windy, so that won’t help the two huge fires burning up in the mountains. Nowhere near us, but up around Big Bear and down in Orange County it’s getting ugly.
Speaking of ugly, I just noticed how the flags are beating the crap out of the paint on the roof of the Volvo. At 13 years and 90,000 miles, that’s the least of that vehicle’s problems.
Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Weather
As with much of the country (and the world these days), it’s been HOT this summer. Here in LA it’s getting up above 100°F for the next couple of days, and I was thinking that it would help to “think cool thoughts.”
That got me to thinking, “When did I last see snow?”
I’m not talking about seeing it on the mountains off in the distance – that happens a couple of times every winter here, even in SoCal. (Mountains going up well over 10,000 feet will help that process. That’s why there are ski resorts within an hour’s drive of downtown LA.) I’m talking about seeing it right there, where I can make a snowball.
The first thing that came to mind was April 2018, when we went to Toronto for the FilkOntario convention and I got inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame.
And then it occured to me that we had actually seen snow falling at a slightly more recent date, even if it hadn’t been enough to stick.
A couple days after Christmas 2018 we were in Kansas City for the Chiefs game (after having been in Seattle for the game there on Christmas Eve) and we saw some flurries. The rest of the weekend was clear(-ish) and just COLD.
So think cool thoughts, know that the snows and fall and flannel will return, and know that 2018 had a LOT of great adventures!
Filed under Fandom, KC Chiefs, Photography, Travel, Weather
The sky was almost stupidly blue and cloud-free, except for one broad north-south band that had to be at a different temperature or moisture content or something, since little puffy clouds where there and as jets went through it the left little contrails.
As is not uncommon, there was a rumble and yet another cargo 747 was headed from LAX to Asia. It may have been 11,000+ feet up, but the deep almost subsonic thrum of those four big engines is pretty easy to identify.
(Image from FlightRadar24 app)
I moved a bit so that I could see it through the trees. Can you find it overhead to our north?
This will be one of the things that I miss at the Forever Home, wherever that might be. In Apple Valley and Hesperia there are a couple of small airports, and one of the houses I’m really interested in lies just a half-mile or so from the end of one of the runways, but we won’t see any big jet traffic like this, more like the light, private aircraft that go in and out of Whiteman, where I learned to fly in Pacoima.
Filed under Flying, Forever Home, Photography, Weather
We had some high-level moisture moving through today, but no rain and none in the forecast for the next ten days.
It’s not like there are spots in the next ten days where there’s at least a 10% chance of rain, or a couple hours where we have maybe a 20% chance.
It’s 0.00% every second of every day for the foreseeable future.
We could use the rain, especially up in Northern California where we have some HUGE brush fires going on.
But we’re on our own, no divine intervention on the horizon.
Filed under Photography, Weather
Lots of nice, pretty, high clouds today – no rain for us.
I was hoping we might get a colorful, gorgous sunset with these clouds around to be a canvas for all of the colors, but they were gone by then, and we just got a nice gradient effect. Nice, but not spectacular.
We all could use a little bit of spectacular right now.
Filed under Photography, Weather
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We Love The Stars Too Fondly 