It's In the Air

When I crested the hill above Blue Canyon Monday, I could see the pall of smoke from the Chips Fire hanging to the North.

While not really watching "Mornings on 2" KTVU2's 7-9AM news, I caught a teaser citing this fire season as "the worst fire season since 2006" This evening I went to KTVU's site and found the story.

There's still a third of Fire Season ahead of us. Lightning strikes continue to bedevil fire crews up and down California, as well as the rest of the West. "While the number of fires is down from the 10-year average of 54,209 as of Aug. 22, the acreage was well above the average of 5.4 million acres, said Don Smurthwaite, a NIFC spokesman. "NIFC is the National Interagency Fire Center.

"Let's be careful out there" only goes so far...tonight I was enjoying the San Francisco Giants game on TV. They were playing the arch rival Los Angeles Dodgers in LA. You could see huge thunderheads growing east of the San Gabriels...just the kind that start lightning fires...

All this dry winter/bad fire season stuff reminded me to check on the ENSO discussion. Last month the Climate Prediction Center was saying an El Niño-style winter was likely...this month they say it's even money either way. I thought the El Niño call was a little premature because the Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies were way west...Mid-Pacific, not off coastal South/Central America. We'll see, most of the other temp cycles are still on their cold sides.

Oh yeah...the Giants swept the Dodgers...at their house! True, the Dodgers did it to us at our house last month...but we're Number One (for now)! We lead the NL West by 2 1/2 games.

Good night...SturgeUrge and I are gonna be on San Francisco Bay Thursday...Salmon and halibut are the quarry...America's Cup Racing is the distraction!