More Fireball Fallout

That didn't take long! Pieces of Sunday morning's meteor have been found in California's Mother Lode.

It seems like I spent more time looking for the story than it took for the meteorite hunters to find the meteorites!

This one frustrated me 'cause it reported the finds, but not the locations. These deals drive me crazy...like those braggadocious Fishing Reports that talk about what good luck and what great a fisherman the report's writer is, but leaves out the location of the catching!

Ha! There's a human angle too...Behold the tweets of the Sacramento CBS station's reporter, @mariaCBS13 :
"We found the meteorite hunter who found the first meteorite from Sunday's sky spectacle! More on #cbs13 at 6 and 10pm! @CBSSacramento"

@mariaCBS13 :
"Oh, and ladies -- the meteorite hunter looks just like brad pitt. Watch at 6 and tell me if you agree!"

It's so refreshing when TV Station Brass let the troops have a little free reign! Yes, Talking Heads are People too... To my eyes, the on-screen talent at Channel 13 seem like "just regular folks" when compared to the other news outlets in the Sacramento market...at ease, relaxed, human.

Clearly, not all astronomy is a nightime, dark sky endevor...which brings me to Solar Astronomy.

The Sun has been on my mind a little more than usual of late, there's an eclipse coming up on May 20th. An Annular Eclipse that will obscure 96% of the Solar Disc, and it's path of totality comes right over Truckee!

I'm taking a break from the keyboard now to watch NOVA on PBS. Tonight's new episode is "Secrets of the Sun" Perfect...

Impressive show...pushing the catastrophic CME crashing the Power Grid possibility...beautiful images and video....but not a word on how the Sun has been so quiet this cycle. The quietest it's been in 100 years...

Stay tuned...

Wild Night

I spent my morning and mid day living vicariously, starting at 0600 with the Armstrong and Getty Show. The Chuckleheads (as I refer to them) were in fine fettle. There's no better way to start my day than chortling before I even get out of bed!

Out of bed...Pot of French Roast...watched the meat of the New iPad Debut...garbage and recycling up to the curb...cleared two inches of snow from the car's windows, hood, and trunk...what's this? Giants vs Rockies streamed for Free at 12:05? Duh...

Getting the MLB.com stream hooked up was a little cranky today, and I missed most of Tim Lincecum's two innings of work...a good thing it turns out, he got shelled by the Rockies' batters. Eight of the thirteen batters he faced made it on base...ouch!

Lincecum, catcher Chris Stewart, and coach Dave Righetti talking it over

Man I love hearing the crack of the bat again! Mysteriously, the stream died in the seventh inning, and it never came back...sigh...I caught the final score Giants-8 Rockies-6 a little later on Twitter.

Out into the cold afternoon sunshine, I warmed up the car, put the garbage can back in the garage, and warmed up the snowblower. The Sun had done it's work on the now almost snow-free car, which I moved to the opposite side of the driveway and blew the last of the snow from my side.

I stowed the snowblower, and off I went.

Sunday and Monday, I failed to find one ingredient, Crème de Cacao, for a homemade ice cream recipe I want to make, in either grocery store, or drug store here in Truckee. I drove Downtown...what's this? The Tourist Club Liquor Store is no more? It's some kind of tony arts n' crafts shop now?

I didn't want to go to Reno with a perfectly good, full gas tank, so I turned right, crossed the tracks and the Truckee River...Next stop Lake Tahoe.

I found the Crème de Cacao in the King's Beach liquor store, and rolled back to town. It was a beautiful afternoon, though it was quite cold compared to Monday's tropical temps. With the bright Sun out, I turned on the A/C, zoned out on the radio, and enjoyed the drive home. It's supposed to warm up Thursday.

After dinner, I scanned for something on TV...nothing but reruns and pledge drive fare. *Ding* I fired up the stereo. I thought about a movie...for all of two seconds...and scrolled through the DVD/CD Jukebox until I found Ronnie Montrose's "Open Fire". I cued it up and turned up the volume. What happened next surprised me to no end! At the vamp between the first two tracks, tears rolled down both of my cheeks. It's been a couple of years since I listened to the whole album.

There's not a single "throw-away" track on the disc. "Open Fire" was one of many late-70s guitar instrumental efforts that were the vanguard of Fusion. Jeff Beck, Miles Davis with guitarist John McLaughlin, Lee Ritenour, Joe Satriani and many others were blazing new trails away from the pure forms of rock, pop, and jazz.

The first track "Openers" is an homage to John Williams' "STAR WARS" themes. This made me curious about the timelines, so I went to the Internet Movie Database and AllMusic.com It was one of those chicken and egg deals...who inspired who?

Though subtle for a guitarslinger's album, "Openers" was recorded after "STAR WARS" lit up the big screen.

AllMusic is a fabulous resource...it reminded me that Ronnie Montrose did all the session work for Van Morrison's amazing 1971 "Tupelo Honey"...the disc was just four slots away from "Open Fire", and I played it next.

"Tupelo Honey" is Morrison's tour de force of love found and going Back to the Land. Again not a single "throw-away" track on the disc.

AllMusic said:
"Tupelo Honey is typical of Van Morrison's early-'70s work in both sound and structure; after dispensing with the requisite hit -- here, the buoyant, R&B-inflected "Wild Night" -- he truly gets down to business, settling into a luminously pastoral drift typified by the nostalgic "Old Old Woodstock." At the heart of the record are a pair of stunning love songs, "You're My Woman" and the hymn-like title cut, one of Morrison's most enduring and transcendent compositions."

These love songs were written by Morrison for his new bride, jazz singer Janet Planet. (see what I did there?) She sings backup and is pictured on the Album Cover.

Like the first single from "Tupelo Honey", I'm hoping for a Wild Night! Our very quiet Sun stirred when huge sunspot active region,  AR1429 erupted in an X5 Class Solar Flare sending a Coronal Mass Ejection towards Earth at 1300 miles per second. We've got a good chance of seeing the Northern Lights with our Full Moon for the next night or two.

Bookmark those links, they're gonna be handy for our new Solar Cycle 24!

Careful What You Wish For

I'm still resetting the ol' BodyClock...forgive my tardiness...

I set the alarm for 0600 so I could hear Armstrong&Getty LIVE...and watch some Blue Canyon LIVE Remotes on Local News Outlets.

Before I drifted off to sleep around 1AM, I scanned the webcams and watched the band of snowfall march up the hill.

Now at 0800, the band of precip is hightailing it East.

Overnight, chain controls were from Drum to the Nevada State Line, they too have marched up the hill and at 0800 are at Kingvale to the Nevada State Line.

The resorts are tweeting 4-6 inches of dry powder.

On the small screen, the Blue Canyon scene was blustery in the wake of the front...no snow was falling and the wind was blowing pretty good, while here in the Inland Valley it's sunny and calm...it's over for now. Chances are another 4-6 inches will blow in over the President's Day Weekend.

Europe meanwhile continues to endure bitter cold and mounting snow while casualties mount. Consider the source, the news is real...the conclusions...well, you be the judge.

There are many sources pointing to Global Cooling in the coming decades, including NASA citing the coming Sun Spot Cycle Prediction.

Chillin'

It's been two days since I pulled 15lb crab pots thirty or so times, and my sacroiliac area is still singing to me. Opting for rest and hydration, I did some digging through the solar and climate science that's recently come down the pike.

While our NorCal weather has been trending dryer and warmer compared  to the forecast models, on our horizon there is a lot of climate and weather science news that bears on our impending Winter.

Back in early Summer I found and blogged about a possible new indicator that might help forecast the coming Winter regime. Scientists believe that the Autumn snow cover in Siberia and Northern Scandinavian Europe is directly correlated with North American winter's severity. The National Science Foundation has a good five page overview of the new metric. It's much more complete than the article I linked in my "Foot Dragging" post.

Today, I went looking for the Siberian Snow Cover Extant to shore up my gut feeling forecast of "75%-85% of average precipitation, and colder than average" My web search lead me to NOAA's National Ice Center where the Europe/Asia Ice Extant images reside. Past years of images are archived here.

This year's images show less snow cover than last year. A simple interpretation of the data suggest that we're in for less snowfall than last winter, however this metric hasn't yet proved to be the be all-end all predictor that we're all looking for. Other forces come to bear on the system, and I've been stumbling over them for a few weeks now.

 All are pointing to cooling trends in the Northern Hemisphere.

First up is the National Snow and Ice Data Center Report that says the Arctic Sea Ice reformed in October 40% faster than the average between 1979 and 2000.

Though the Climate Prediction Center's November 90 Day Climate Outlook Discussion is still a week away, October's Discussion said we've got a good La Niña going, and unlike last year's La Niña, this year's model features Ocean Temperature Anomalies that are much deeper than last year. The cold water extends to 100 meters deep.

There's been some interesting Space Weather lately, some huge Sunspots hurled some high energy stuff at Earth and wowed Aurora Watchers as far south as Tennessee. NASA published it's November Solar Forecast which hints at another 1°C of cooling on Earth by 2013.

A little more than two weeks ago, I blogged about @kcraFinan's La Niña Explainer and wrapped it up with some thoughts on the Sunspot Cycle's possible influence on our weather. Well today, my Sunsopt Ship came in!

I found this paper by Nicola Scafetta that found several solar cycles that correlate with warming and cooling periods in the climate record going back to 1650. Scafetta cites observable Aurora Borealis Cycles of 9, 10–11, 20–21, 30 and 60 years. The Authors argue that the aurora records reveal a physical link between climate change and astronomical oscillations!

In the macro, it's going to take a while for the gravity of this discovery to sink into my Weather Geek Brain. I've been waiting years for evidence of the Sun's hand on our climate...I'm not sure I can accept closure all at once.

In the micro-climates of the snowmaker's world, conditions up in the Tahoe Sierra have turned against the resorts. Warming daytime highs, and a lack of mixing winds have allowed a temperature inversion regime to set in. After almost six days of 'round the clock operations, the guns and fans have been silent for three days now.

Mark Finan's forecast for Friday's storm says it's yet another in this Fall's string of  "Not As Much As Forecast"...did I mention that this system's first name was "Thursday's Storm"?

Yep, a day late and 6 inches short...again.

Sunshine Daydreams

May 2010 Aurora viewed from the International Space Station

What's this? Every day lately, it seems like there's new, confounding news about our Sun. Just this morning I saw a story about the low state of the Aurora Borealis:

"The Northern Lights have petered out during the second half of this decade, becoming rarer than at any other time in more than a century, the Finnish Meteorological Institute said Tuesday."

So, the Solar Minimum has been hanging on for at least two years longer than historical observations suggest it should. Solar watchers are getting encouraged by a slight uptick in sunspot activity, and the associated auroral displays...there's a sweet photo gallery at the link as well.

Darn the luck! I've yet to see the Aurora Borealis with my own two eyes, despite being up all night every Winter these past 30 years! I remember the last time we had a big display of the Northern Lights...

I want to say it was 1997 or 1998. I woke up early, before my alarm went off. I was listening to Art Bell on the radio, and he had callers from across North America calling in relating the awesome show they were seeing.

I live in a densely wooded neighborhood, on the south facing side of a pretty good grade. Before I even got out of bed, I phoned a friend on the Westren Slope of the Sierras, woke him up, and quizzed him about what he was seeing. "Oh...My...God"...was his first response. He said: "The whole sky was red, so bright that the aurora is throwing shadows!"

"Thanks, enjoy yourself, bye!" I replied as I hung up, threw on some clothes and ran up to the street where I could barely make out a dull red tinge to the sky through the forest. It looked like the glow of a far-off forest fire...no movement, no shimmering curtains of color, no aurora overhead in the sliver of sky above my street.

A couple of hours later, I walked into the Groomer's Locker Room, and the Swingshift Crew were lit up like the skies had been earlier. They'd seen quite a show from their perch atop the Sierra Crest! There eyes were a little wider than usual at shift change, and they had a little extra spring in their step. I quipped the next morning that "I was worried that All Star Winch Pilot would trip over his tongue!" That night's Aurora Show was seen as far south as the Baja Peninsula!

These guys aren't Groomers...still, they are driving SnowCats!

I was pretty disappointed that I missed the show, but I was happy for my guys. Hurry up Sun, let's get Solar Cycle fired up! I want to see the show with my own two eyes!

Inside Baseball

A curiously American phrase that one. Perhaps I've chosen a slightly off the mark title for today.

Inside Baseball implies dreaded minutia as it relates to something most can't or don't want to deal with or otherwise relate to.

OK, I can hear the stampede for the doors...I have it coming, I have been going on about September Baseball most of the month...

So here it is. There's just a flood of climate news coming out daily. Most of it huge in significance, too.

It's fair to declare AGW Dead...RIP
Anthropogenic Global Warming isn't happening...period. The Climate Gate Scandal opened the door on reality a little...what with all those leaked emails showing the conspiracy to "hide the decline". That is, to hide the observed global temperature decline while the scientists and the policy makers who fund their research were all shouting "the planet has a fever"

All week long, Anthony Watts' Climate Blog Watts Up With That, has been reporting on climate stories one after another, that all break new ground and show unequivocally than mankind and it's industry are but a flyspeck in the Big Climate Panoply.

Studies cited on WUWT have reported newly discovered Oceanic Cycles that correlate precisely with Europe's weather, and the advance and retreat of the glaciers in the Alps. Cyclic warming and cooling of Atlantic Ocean Sea Surface Temperatures are running on a 65 year periodic cycle, independent of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation! (AMO)

"In the monthly Atlantic SST record, we can observe that the recent warm phase peaked in 2005 and subsequent cooling of North Atlantic started, despite the recent AMO peak as a response to 2009/2010 El Nino. This climate shift is even better visualized in the 0-700m ocean heat content record for the Northern Atlantic. Based on previous records, we can expect the European climate to follow the SST record and to mimic the 1940-1975 cooling trend."

Simple physics says that ocean temps drive terrestrial air temps, not the other way around!  The mass of the oceans is several orders of magnitude larger than the mass of the atmosphere...it's a simple matter to do the math...my endothermics and exothermics are a little rusty, but I remember the core principals 40 years on.

What's going on here? Why is so much climate science showing up that goes against the AGW grain?

It's the law of averages, the pendulum swinging to the other side after 30+ years of alarmist gravy-training.

There's also the little matter of increased computing power, and the scientists who "thought outside the box" rather than succumb to the fashionable alarmist orthodoxy of the day.

As I'm always inclined to, I'd venture that the same mechanisms at work in the Atlantic are also at work in the Pacific. ENSO and the PDO, these cyclic temperature fluctuations will likewise be correlated with our Temperature and Glacial Records once some grant money is ponied up to crunch these datasets.

This past week, peer reviewed papers laid waste to Arctic Ice Loss Alarmism, related new understanding of our Sun and it's effects on Earth's Climate Systems, and reported Solar observations so startling as to defy belief.

That's a lot of good news in my book. The debate will go on for several more years, but we will look back on September 2010 as the beginning of our return to climate sanity, when the Western Liberal Democracies began to let go of our Climate Fetishes, and started to get back on a path towards sanity and growth.

Even some of the Media are starting to report the Climate Skeptics' positions...call it what it is: Progress.

I guess it wasn't all that Inside Baseball after all...

Still Bearing Down

Man, oh Man! The Local TV Weatherfolks are so excited about their "Pattern Change" due next week! Every News Tease mentions the Rainy Weather Next Week. They're selling their broadcasts shamelessly to be sure.

This story is starting to feel like the Sword of Damocles to me...I shouldn't let it get to me, but in my Media Universe it's Everywhere All The Time. I know it's Marketing, and I'm usually pretty strong in my resistance to this stuff, but this story is aimed right at my wheelhouse...right where I live.

My Local NBC affiliate just ended their Noon News Hour saying "Watch out for that rain Tuesday!" They aren't helping...Tuesday is still five days out...but some of that Typhoon's clouds are starting to show on the Wide Pacific Satellite View that TV stations use as background during their Weather Forecast Segments.

My detailed perusal of the Reno NWS Discussion shows the trough coming into the Sierra Monday night now. The Forecaster goes on to reaffirm the High Snow Levels (8500-9500ft) and noting the model ensemble's precipitation guess is for one to two inches of rain well above the Pass Level...and mostly North of Interstate 80...OK so far for My Mountain...Boreal is going to lose their Marketing Patch, though...I must remember this is still Five Days Out...

Other things in my world are holding my attention too. Tomorrow morning at 04:31 PDT, NASA will crash the LCROSS Booster Rocket and the LCROSS Mothership Shephearding Probe into a crater on the Moon. This crater is on the very bottom of the Moon as seen from Earth. Their plan is to blast a plume of Moon debris up into the sunlight so the Sun's energy will help reveal to the instruments aboard the Shepard Probe the chemical make up of the stuff laying about in the perpetually dark and cold crater...They hope to find water. I hope they find water!

If water in useful amounts is found on the Moon, NASA stands a much better chance of sending Astronauts to Mars in my lifetime. NASA is pretty sure they'll find water in that crater. The plume will be visible from Earth, given a 10 inch or larger telescope, and our whole constellation of space telescopes, Lunar Orbiting Satellites, and Earth Based Telescopes will record the event.

I have my alarm set, but I'm pretty sure we'll have a marine layer providing cloud cover over the Ancestral Digs. Plan B is TV and the Internet.

The Space Weather Website has all the Resource Links.

The Other Skynews

The other bit of Weather Business that I follow regularly, is Climate Science. There's been quite the flood of Scientific Papers on Climate published lately, much of it citing the Sun's behavior and it's influence on Earth's Climate.

Remember "The Hockey Stick"? That's the graph featured by Al Gore in his Oscar winning movie "An Inconvenient Truth", and wielded like a Broadsword by the Climate Chicken Littles at the United Nation's IPCC to push massive changes to World Wide Markets to "Stave off Global Warming"

Did you know that the Hockey Stick was thoroughly debunked a few years ago? Did you know that the UN's IPCC abandoned it this week? I didn't think so. You see, the Mainstream Media across the Western World have committed the "Sin of Omission" on this story. It's not the only story on Climate Science that's MIA either.

The story of the Quiet Sun and the influence of Cosmic Rays on Cloud Formation is also getting overlooked. Interestingly, Iran's FARS News Agency has the story.

This study could mean that the Sun's diminished magnetic influence on Near Earth Space will allow increased cosmic ray activity to raise the Earth's cloud cover. More clouds reflect more Solar Power back into Space, Cooling our climate...good news if you're worried about Global Warming! Satellite data shows we've been cooling since 1998, further cooling is coming too...it seems likely from the science cited in the Literature. Anthony Watts of course, had the story in real time on his Climate Blog.

Is it just me, or are the Big Media outlets missing yet another important story? Perhaps they're not the Impartial Reporters they tell us they are. Is it any wonder that their stocks' value are in the dumper, and their readers and viewers are deserting them in droves? I think not.

All thing must pass sang George Harrison, and all these stories will resolve eventually. I'm waiting...and I'm watching with half a smirk on my face.

Up All Day

When Ski Season is about to begin, or is in full swing, I'm up all night. During my Off Season, I join the masses...sleeping at night, in the dark, as God intended. I'm up right now, like the Sun.

There's been a little more chatter about our Star these past few months than I usually hear...Granted, my interests are more Sun-Centric than your garden variety Everyman's. I dig Radio, I have since I was just a little boy. Once I became a Groomer, radio took on a more important place in my work life. Groomers communicate by radio, and groomers listen to radio to enliven our workspace. The state of the Sun has much influence on radio here on Earth. Every band can be affected by Solar Activity. When the Sun is hyperactive, say near the peak of it's Sunspot Cycle, radio waves can carry Worldwide with very little radiated power. The Sun, when really churning, excites the Ionosphere, turning it into a mirror for Radio Waves.

Over the years, I've heard Low Power Ham Radio stations from the other side of the world as clearly as if they were a 50,000 Watt "Blowtorch" AM Station in the next town. I heard a sailor by Ham Radio, transmitting aboard his small sailboat from South of Tahiti, using his Backstay as his antenna. I listened to him over a space of four or five days, as he worked the local (to him, in the South Pacific) cruiser nets.

Cruiser Nets are Ham Radio or Marine SSB Networks of boats cruising waters across the world. Every Sea popular with Cruising Sailors has one or more Radio Nets. Baja California, for example, has several Cruiser Nets, where cruisers check in daily to report on their location, the sea state, local weather observations, and other data of interest to cruisers in the area. These nets meet every day at the same hour, and often feature a detailed weather report. After the weather report, and once everyone on the net checks in, then specific traffic between boats on the net is arranged to pass communications between themselves and land stations, or make telephone calls over the air using a radio/phone patch.

Before I got on the internet, I would monitor the Sonrisa Net from Baja as part of my annual run-up to our October Baja Fishing Expeditions. Tango-Papa, a Ham from SoCal did the Weather Report daily from his van parked in the parking lot of his place of employment. Tango-Papa was deservedly a legend in Ham and Cruiser circles. He was quite the character, and a joy to listen to. He's been written up several times in "Latitude 38", San Francisco Bay's Free Sailing Monthly.

Closer to home, I've come to rely on my "Police Scanner" during the season. Properly named "Wide Band Receivers", scanners are radios that can search for radio traffic in the Business Mobile Bands, like Ski Resorts and Towing Companies use. Local law Enforcement, Fire Departments, Local Municipality Snow Removal Crews, Rail Roads and CalTrans Operations can all be heard in the clear once you know their assigned frequencies. This is instant, up to the minute intelligence, that makes getting to and from work during Storm Periods much less hassle.

My little hand-held scanner can listen to 500 stations at a time, tuning in the station that's active now, and returning to scan mode once the frequency is clear of traffic. I can listen to the NWS Weather Radio too, though I don't Scan the frequency because weather Radio transmits non-stop, so I wouldn't hear any other Comms. I turn the scanner on when winter weather begins, and turn it off once the season winds down. During the off season, I'll turn it back on if there are any wildfires nearby.

To recap, the long distance comms like the Cruiser Nets are High Frequency (HF) also known as Short Wave. The scanner listens to VHF and UHF bands, and these comms typically are short distance, line of sight services. The HF Comms depend on the Sun to excite the Ionosphere, so the 100W or less signal can skip around the world by "bouncing off" the ionosphere.

The Sun can on occasion, have an effect on local VHF traffic too, especially in the Tropics. When the Sun heats the tropical waters in local Summer and Fall, lots of thunderstorm-style clouds build. These banks of thunder storm clouds sometimes act like an excited ionosphere, reflecting radio waves over long distances. The phenomena's is name "Tropospheric Skip", and radio waves from very low powered transmitters sometimes are heard thousands of miles away from their source.

So what about all the Solar Chatter I've been aware of lately? The Sun is quiet...too quiet. After a couple of Sunspots transited the face of the Sun last week, the Sun is once again without Sunspots. Scientists say 2009 is Seventh on the list of Least Annual Sunspots. Of the past 100 years, 2008 ranks #2 and so far, 2009 is in 6th. I haven't fired up my Shortwave radio lately, but I doubt I'd be hearing anything from the other side of the planet. These are probably frustrating times for HF Hams.

Climate Scientists cite another effect of the Quiet Sun, the Sun's Magnetic Field is way down too. The Sun's Heliosphere deflects most of the Cosmic Rays that find their way into the Inner Solar System where we reside. This Study reports the Cosmic Rays reaching Earth are up 19% over the past 50 years.

Cosmic Rays are responsible for cloud formation world wide, and increased clouds result in a cooling climate World Wide. Increased Cloud Cover may be responsible for a Dramatic Cooling Event in 2007/2008

Now that you don't need to learn Morse Code to get a HF Ham License, I hope we're not in for a serious Solar Minimum. When I get my HF Ham Ticket, I want to Talk Back to that Cruiser in the South Pacific!

Good Morning!

The Sun Awakens
What's this? Sunspots visible on the Earth-Facing side of the Sun? Not one, but two Earth-Size Sunspots are visible today. The Solar Community is abuzz...Is the Solar Minimum over? Is this the true start of Cycle 24? There are two spots visible for the first time in more than a year. Two sunspots don't officially end the deepest Solar Minimum in a Century, but thankfully Sun Watchers are no longer bored to tears. I really want a decent Solar Telescope.

I know it doesn't have a thing to do with the heat in the Ancestral Digs tonight...still it's keeping me up later than I want owing to the physical work I've scheduled for the morning. Finally I'll finish the driveway rehab. SturgeUrge will be happy, he's got a long punchlist for me to work through!

This morning was sweltering by 10AM, dry heat thankfully, but baking hot after some cool Sierra nights over my weekend. I waited for the Sun to get low in the West before finishing the driveway prep. In nylon shorts with no shirt, I couldn't overspray enough water on myself to cool off...thank God that's done! I'll finish applying the Asphalt Seal Coat before the Sun starts really baking, and do a good watering...it's not a day on the Bay, but it'll do.

Fall Back
Fall began this afternoon, and we'll have the heat all week. There's still "Indian Summer" due for the Bay Area, though it hasn't seemed as reliable these past few years. I saw on tonight's Local News about a new fire in NorCal that was started by Spontaneous Combustion! The News Reader didn't give the ignition specifics, but I thought: "It's sure hot enough for a heap of oily rags to cause trouble"

Southern California has some new fires today too, with the 100F temps, single digit humidity, and the Santa Ana Winds to make them volatile. The State can't seem to get a break. The NWS says another three days of this, anyway. Red Flag Warnings continue.

I just read tonight's Forecast Discussion, they say a week of Summer Weather at least, with freshening Northerlies. The Coast is getting drizzle in the AM, and not much burn-off, so afternoon temps are Summary 60's.

According to the Discussion, their model runs have them looking for a "Strong System"to come to Far Northern California about a week out, that may bring a "Pattern Change"...we'll see.

I can't make an educated assessment of the Monterey NWS product. I've only just started paying attention to their Non-Marine Forecasts. Based on the past few seasons of Marine Forecasts, I'm going with the High-Sodium Diet. I haven't been impressed over the past couple of years...Always with more wind than they call for, except whe it's so hot and still on the Bay that I'd kill for a cooling breeze...

Tough crowd...

Getting After It

Here it is already Mid-August...the snow should start falling in just inside three months. It's hard during the Dog Days of Summer, to start fixating on the weather three months hence, but "forewarned is forearmed" a wordy somebody once said.

I usually start paying closer attention to the weathermen during Halloween Week. When the Sierra is acting "normal" there's a better than 50/50 chance that snowmaking temperatures have arrived in time for Interstate 80's Boreal Ridge to blow a small patch of ManMade snow. So come Halloween, no self-respecting Sacramento Valley TV News Director would dare miss a Live Remote from the Donner Summit hill, featuring ecstatic skiers and boarders...some in costume, mugging behind the Talking Head who's wearing a new parka replete with the Station Logo...um, Summit and Truckee locals set their calendars by this show.

Donner Summit and Truckee Locals usually are well into their annual firewood program by then, and many Summit dwellers are already burning this year's stash to keep the chill out of the house overnight.

In Truckee, gardens are being put to bed, garages get the clean and organize weekend, so vehicles can fit back inside, without boxing in the snowblower and snow shovels. The last of the straggler campers and hunters have returned to their lowland homes, and the Mountain Folk have their little towns all to themselves again for a few weeks before the Holiday Rush begins in earnest.

Last season, Boreal made their patch of ManMade, but you know that thing about the best laid plans? There was a hot spell that ran several days, and the ground was bare come Halloween...I remember driving over the Summit that week, with the A/C blasting!

This was my life for the last 25+ years too, but I've been spending the last few summer/fall seasons down the hill east of the San Francisco Bay, in the Inland Valley where my youth was spent. My Mother lives here in her spacious Ranch Style with mature trees, near good schools and shopping.

Since my father passed away, I'm the new maintenance guy. I'm more than happy to do it, it's what I've always done summers, anyway...working with my hands, brandishing sharp tools, planning and performing upgrades, remodels, additions and repairs...plus, you get near-instant gratification doing these things!

Here at the Ancestral Digs, I get the added bonus of reliving some of my memories of learning much of my craft from my Dad...even working with some of the same tools that he taught me with. I'm more like him than I ever could have imagined when I was a know-it-all teenaged chuckle-head. I wish I had spent more time with him once I grew up a little, and he magically got a whole lot smarter and cooler!

I'm not going to miss those times with my Mom...before I head home for the season, I plan on teaching her to read CorduroyPlanet on her own computer...after I repair the back fence, the shade screens, update and automate the irrigation, and renew all the faucets, angle stops and water filters, of course!

After the Change
As the days get shorter, there will be more hours to spend boning-up on the Pacific Ocean's New Regime. I found a Paper on the PDO and the Ocean Heat Flow Correlation with Past Climate Anomalies, on Anthony Watts' excellent Climate Blog: Watts Up With That?

In short, the Pacific has "turned over" three times over the last half century, and these PDO regime changes match the climate changes that at the time, seemed "out of the norm" There's been an awful lot of noise about Global Warming, and man's hand in that warming lately...heck, we even have an ex-Vice President winning Emmys, Oscars and Nobel Prizes for his Inconvenient "Truth" telling.

I'm a pretty straight-ahead guy...I usually make up my mind, based on sound evidence, and put my head down and get on with it...damn the torpedoes. Global Warming IS real, after all our Earth HAS been trending warmer for almost Twelve Thousand Years! All that warming allowed the last Ice Age to end, Western Civilization to bloom, and Greenland to get the name a thousand years ago! Pretty heady stuff, wouldn't you say?

All during those 12K years, climate cycles have ebbed and flowed, leaving empirical evidence, for today's clever investigators to find, catalog, compile and analyze. Ice cores, Tree Rings, Sediment Cores and more are used as Proxy Indicators. I read a good overview of the Climate Proxy Indicators by Singer and Avery called "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years" (The link points to the Updated volume, I read the Feb 2007 Edition)

One of those Warming Events, the Medieval Climate Optimum (c. 800-1300AD) ended the Dark Ages and kicked off the Renaissance, before giving way to "The Little Ice Age" The LIA generally lasted from the 16th century through the Mid-18th Century and includes three minima beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850. Did George Washington and the Continental Army have help from the climate crossing the Delaware River that Christmas Eve in 1776?
Looks like it to me.

Another piece of the Climate Puzzle is the "Maunder Minimum" a period of very little observed Solar Activity resulting in a dearth of sunspots. During one 30 year period of the Maunder Minimum, only 50 sunspots were observed by astronomers! In "normal" times there are usually 30,000 to 50,000 observed sunspots over 30 years! Yes, the Maunder Minimum coincided with the Little Ice Age.

Today's Solar Scientists are also seeing very, very few sunspots. Months pass without a single spot on our star...and satellite temperature data says: If you are 29 years old, there's been NO measured warming in your entire adult life! This month's "Sky and Telescope" magazine Cover Story is: "What's Wrong With the Sun?" We'll find out together over the next few years what this means, though I think it's safe to take our Hard Hats off now.

The Sky isn't gonna fall on us anytime soon...you can take that to the Bank!