Sunday, April 5 - a shower or two, about enough to get the pavement wet.
No big deal. This blog was 'sposed to be about skies!!.. but it's turning out to be about drought! Bummer!!April 6 - 'Sposed to get a front moving thru later this evening, but @ 6 PM? I ain't holdin' my breath for much of anything.
But these systems and radar data can easily fool me, the amateur meterologist that i am. I woke up at midnite, and it was pouring. And the same at 6AM when i put some sausage in the frying pan, made coffee. But the time i went to work (8AM or so)? All had passed by. But the backside of these systems still hold some punch, and mid-afternoon, a quick but strong shower passed thru.
But this single frame above doesn't give the larger picture - which this panorama does - things surge in off the ocean, from west to east - in this image, from right to left. Ain't hard to see the power being unleashed, is it?
Another front approaches, 4/24:
Predictions are for some rain, starting at mid night, ending by 5 AM.
I ain't holding my breath.
Waking up at 11:40 PM, it's raining cats, dogs (and other small mammals).
Here's an umbrella you can buy thru the newyorker.com, w/ cats and dogs on it! What a hoot!
This umbrella might work fine in NYC... but out west it tends to get windy, and this thing might just be wrecked in no time flat.
A couple of times during the month, a front moved thru (below - you can see the 'wave') with no hope for rain.
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One thing this drought has inspired? - lots of discussion about water in the west, a huge topic, long history, and the suggestions to save water range from 'stop eating almonds and psitachios!' (which grow on trees that still need to watered when they are not producing) to... no more lawns! or golf courses!
I live in an apt., so no lawns works fine for me. No golf courses works fine for me too - my dad loved the game, tried to teach me, but i threw too many clubs into the water hazard in frustration. He gave up on me, and well he should have. Golf was an interesting game when it came about in scotland, but the american version? is too 'cleaned up' = 'sissyfied'. If that isn't a verb, it should be.
And in spite of the drought, a few people can find a silver lining:
http://geotripper.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-fleeting-spring-in-sierra-nevada.html
But you'll notice the writer says: ....'fleeting' spring...
Agriculture eats up about 80% of our water here in Ca, and with that we produce a clear majority of the fruits and veggies that feed America. So here's a boatload of links that discuss the issue.
The opinions on this are all over the place, differ wildly. Recall the old saying - 'opinions are like ass holes - everyone's got one'. Yep.
One thing humans do not have when it comes to figuring out things like climate change, droughts, earthquakes among many others is perspective. Recorded history only goes back a few thousand years. Sure there's scientific analysis of rocks, land, tree rings, fossils but these are remnants, scarce remains. And science is always re-analyzing based upon new discoveries and technologies, and coming up w/ new conclusions.
So get out your reading glasses and open your mind - here goes, many links!
"California’s main challenge is not technological, but economic and political. One thing to keep in mind is that the state still has plenty of water. It just doesn’t have enough for every possible use, no matter how inefficient and wasteful."
Here's the NYT article the quote is from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/business/economy/in-parched-california-innovation-like-water-has-a-limit.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/science/beneath-california-crops-groundwater-crisis-grows.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/us/california-drought-tests-history-of-endless-growth.html?_r=0
News: MarketWatch By David Weidner, MarketWatch
UPDATE: Why the California drought will be worse than everyone thinks
http://news.morningstar.com/all/market-watch/TDJNMW2015040743/update-why-the-california-drought-will-be-worse-than-everyone-thinks.aspx
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Many side effects of all this 'change'. I really like a tin of sardines, in oil, 'lightly smoked' - yes, i think that's artificial smoke, but never mind, it tastes good.
http://news.yahoo.com/feds-likely-shut-down-sardine-fishing-west-coast-143416124.html
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http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Critics-say-agriculture-unfairly-left-out-of-6178208.php
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http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/04/the-american-west-dries-up/389432/
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http://www.water.ca.gov/wateruseefficiency/agricultural/
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http://www.waterefficiency.net/WE/Articles/Agricultural_Water_Use_in_California_17438.aspx
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http://www.planetnatural.com/agricultural-water-use/
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http://californiawaterblog.com/2011/05/05/water—who-uses-how-much/
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/opinion/the-many-droughts-of-california.html?
http://graphics.latimes.com/food-water-footprint/_r=0
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A Future as Clouded as Their Past
(About the Anazasi = 'ancient one's - the theory is that a serious drought made life here impossible, so the moved on, and left what they couldn't carry.)
By GEORGE JOHNSON SEPT. 22, 2014 in the NY Times.
(How the Anazasi came and went. A topic well worth much thought.
I've been to the White House ruins in AZ, and Cyn. De Chelly.
It all takes your breath away, and makes you feel very, very small, as it should be. )
Above, White House Ruins in the canyon.
Below, the canyon itself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/science/a-future-as-clouded-as-their-past.html?_r=0
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http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/california-drought-matters-more-just-california
California delta's water mysteriously missing amid drought:
http://news.yahoo.com/california-deltas-water-mysteriously-missing-amid-drought-152006674.html
It's been a lot worse... a LOT.
http://sierranaturenotes.com/naturenotes/paleodrought1.htm
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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2015/04/16/399958203/how-almonds-became-a-scapegoat-for-californias-drought
after i read this, i backed up to the root url
" 'The salt' - WHAT'S ON YOUR PLATE"
and that's pretty interesting:
In my browser there was alotta nothing at the beginning of the page....
(if this happens to you, just give it a scroll.)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/
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For Drinking Water in Drought, California Looks Warily to Sea
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/science/drinking-seawater-looks-ever-more-palatable-to-californians.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/us/mighty-rio-grande-now-a-trickle-under-siege.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/science/californias-history-of-drought-repeats.html?_r=0
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As an aside/interesting tangent, while google searching for 'american southwest desert skies', here's what i found:
(Weldon Heald coined the term "sky islands" in 1967 to denote mountain ranges that are isolated from each other by intervening valleys of grassland or desert.)
http://www.skyislandalliance.org/explore.htm
http://www.pbs.org/program/sky-island/
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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/desert-southwest-may-be-first/
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Wordpress does not treat this content very well... but this person is as avid a sky watcher as me:
https://weatherwild.wordpress.com/
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Above, Lake Powell, about ten years ago - now every picture I see shows a bathtub ring of white stone.
http://www.laforetvisuals.com/
http://vimeopro.com/laforet/laforetvisuals
There was a lot of history drowned, and a lot of protest, when Lake Powell was created. The drought has brought some unintended things to light:
https://www.hcn.org/wotr/a-world-beneath-lake-powell-is-being-resurrected
Interesting blog post about hiking around Lake Powell:
http://www.rainer-grosskopf.de/travelogues/blog/reflection-canyon-en.html
Nice photo gallery here:
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/7/9/lake-mead-recordlowwater.html
http://www.npr.org/2015/04/17/400377057/as-lake-mead-levels-drop-the-west-braces-for-bigger-drought-impact
Recent photo, Lake Mead, above, thanks to the NPS.
That's it for this month. I could do another one of my 'cyber-rain-dances', do you think it would help?
(These clouds have the latin word 'undulatus' in the name - the english word is undulate, of course.)
...but let's face it, ain't no chance of rain for months, 'til september at the earliest. Perhaps the focus of the next few posts could be coastal fog...?
I dunno, we'll see.
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