Gettin' Down to Business

It's true! There's an inch of new snow on the DaveCave's front deck tonight! Chain controls are up, and the Washoe Drive Fire is settling down a bit as the winds abate a little and the relative humidity is rising thanks to the storm.

KOLO8 TV is still wall to wall Washoe Drive Fire! The fire's forward progress has been halted for now.

Up on My Mountain, snow is accumulating! Maybe 5-6 inches and counting. My world is gonna look so fine tonight! Snowfall will taper off overnight, but the second wave is due Friday evening.

Friday's storm looks to be wetter and bigger. Some new trails will fall from the sky Friday night into Saturday!

The Worst Is Happening

I got off early this morning, then fell asleep before noon. When the wind shook me awake at 2:30PM, my Twitter timeline came alive with news of a wildfire in the Washoe Valley between Reno and Carson City.

Evacuations are mandatory, and a few homes have reportedly been consumed. KOLO8 TV has preempted regular programming for fire coverage. Their WeatherDude reports steady 35 MPH winds in the Washoe Valley and 100MPH gusts up on the ridgetops.

Hwy 395 is closed, and Vice President Joe Biden's speech at Galena High School has been cut short to allow time to evacuate!

The fire has a name now, The Washoe Fire. It's not the only fire either...I looked at Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center page and saw The Jack's Valley Fire.

KOLO8 is streaming their coverage now, and will cover a live press conference at 5PM.

NWS Reno has extended Wind Warnings and Red Flag Warnings until 10PM.

It's just beginning to snow in Truckee, and 4 miles west, Chain Controls are up over Interstate 80's Donner Summit

More Weirdness

My head hit the pillow at exactly bedtime today, 2PM. I got off work a little early, picked up the mail, and picked up a few things at the Auto Parts Store.

Back at the DaveCave, I put out the garbage and recycling stuff, did some chores in the garage and driveway, and Pow-Wowed with Mr Landlord on our plan to get my pickup, Mrs Landlord's car, and all the other winter crap into the garage before the storm arrives for real Thursday afternoon. Then I made a killer breakfast...a pastrami and cream cheese omelet...yummy...

I woke up with a start...no dream...probably another big gust of wind...it's blowing like a storm is really coming in...and one is...followed by most of a week's worth of juicy drought busters! These are the first serious westerly winds of my season to date!

I tuned in the 5 O'clock News looking for an idea of exactly when the snow would start flying. Imagine my surprise when the weather map had a wide ranging Red Flag Warning for my neck of the woods, alongside a Winter Storm Warning on the West Slope, and Winter Weather Advisories to the north and south.

Warnings for everybody!

Weird...my Twitter Timeline has tipped me to several Prescription Burns around the Tahoe Basin that the Forest Service is conducting. I heard an advisory on the radio on my way home from work...Carson City was getting a lot of smoke from Prescription Burns on the El Dorado National Forest.

I won't lie starting fires in wildlands during Red Flag Warnings gives me the Heebie-Geebies.

I'm still up...not good...I guess I'm a little too excited. I get back in my favorite BR350...it's been down for a couple of days getting a new injector pump. Thursday night's shift is the one that's pumping this extra adrenaline through my fevered brain.

Damn, am I ever ready!

Summertime, and the Livin's Easy

The weather forecasting isn't though!

Yuppers, our weird weather continues. Yesterday the Tahoe Sierra had Red Flag Fire Warnings to begin the day with snow and thunderstorms to round out the clock.

Here in the Inland Valley it rained all day Tuesday, then Wednesday was grey and cold until late afternoon.

KCRA3's weatherman @MarkFinan was on the case. In the past 24 hours he tweeted: 

"Updated rain total for Sac... .55. Only .01 from the record for the date. Another perspective.. we average .18 for the month" at 8:43PM Tuesday


"Approx 70 lightning strikes in the last hour near Sonora, Twain Harte-Yosemite" at 9:18PM Tuesday


"1991 deja vu... June 28 .56'' then temps 105-111 for 4th of July. 2011: June 28.. .56'' then temps warming to over 100. Weird" at 9:47PM Tuesday


" Temps still only in the low 70s. Ave is 92 at this time of year." at about 4PM Wednesday


"The high today was only 74" about 7PM Wednesday



My other go-to WeatherDude, KTVU2's Bill Martin posted this YouTube Video on Facebook Wednesday at around 7PM

Head Spinning Time

There I was...minding my own business...just relaxing while doing some online planning for my Monday Fishing Trip...A new tweet appears in my Twitter Timeline...for the second time in as many days I felt my blood chill...

It was Anthony Watts' @wattsupwiththat tweeting some High Sierra Weather News: "Winter Weather in California in June" I clicked the link and that's when my blood suddenly ran cold when I read:

"WEST SLOPE NORTHERN SIERRA NEVADA-
233 PM PDT MON JUN 27 2011


…WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 2 PM PDT
WEDNESDAY ABOVE 7000 FEET…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SACRAMENTO HAS ISSUED A WINTER
WEATHER ADVISORY ABOVE 7000 FEET FOR SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW OVER
THE WEST SLOPE OF THE NORTHERN SIERRA NEVADA…WHICH IS IN EFFECT
FROM 2 AM TO 2 PM PDT WEDNESDAY.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS: UP TO 5 INCHES OF SNOWFALL OVER THE CREST TO
INCLUDE CARSON PASS ON HIGHWAY 88…EBBETTS PASS ON HIGHWAY 4
AND SONORA PASS ON HIGHWAY 108.
* ELEVATION: EXPECT SOME SNOWFALL ABOVE 7000 FEET WITH MOST
ACCUMULATION ABOVE 7500 FEET.
* TIMING: BEGINNING AFTER MIDNIGHT AND ACCUMULATING BY 3 AM PDT."

The WWA was issued by the Sacramento NWS Office. I regained my composure and hit the Reno AFD for some reassurance...and there was a Red Flag Warning for much of the Eastern Tahoe Region for high winds and low humidity before the cold front arrives Wednesday.

The Reno office, obviously in Fire Drill Mode, said nary a word of snow, but the AFD did say an inch of precip was possible Wednesday.

Bedtime Tuesday Update:
Before bed I looked at the latest Reno AFD. It's all over but the crying:

"WENT AHEAD AND DROPPED THE RED FLAG WARNINGS FOR THE REST OF THIS
EVENING. WITH THE SUN GOING DOWN AND COLD FRONT MOVING THROUGH THE
REGION... THE HUMIDITIES HAVE RISEN WELL ABOVE THE RED FLAG
WARNING CRITERIA OF 15%.

WINDS WILL CONTINUE TO GUST THROUGH AROUND 11PM...SO WILL LEAVE
THE LAKE WIND ADVISORIES INTACT FOR NOW. MAY END UP DROPPING THOSE
BEFORE 11PM AS WELL...BUT WIND READINGS STILL SHOWING GUSTS OVER
30 MPH NEAR AREA LAKES.

REST OF THE FORECAST LOOKS GOOD. CONVECTION ON THE WEST SIDE
OF THE SIERRA DEVELOPING PRETTY WELL...WITH SOME LIGHTNING SHOWING
JUST HOW UNSTABLE THE CONDITIONS ARE. PRECIP IS STILL GETTING
SHADOWED FOR OUR EAST SIDE FOR NOW. AS THE LOW GETS CLOSER INTO
THE RENO- TAHOE AREA OVERNIGHT...EXPECT PRECIP TO SPILLOVER
FAIRLY EASILY WITH WETTING RAINS INTO WESTERN NV AFTER MIDNIGHT
AND INTO WEDNESDAY MORNING."

I looked at all the webcams before sundown...all rain and no snow. Down here in the Inland Valley the rain was quite heavy at times. I was happy to luxuriate indoors watching a rare SF Giants double-header from Wrigley Field in Chicago. The Giants extended their winning streak to seven games, the longest of this season. #GoGiants!

Stat Wrap

No, not more baseball, besides I'm a Giants fan, not a stat rat...anyway, I'm givin' it a rest until Saturday when my San Francisco Giants play in Philadelphia.

I've read a few articles lately that cover the changing of the seasons...Mark McLaughlin, of www.thestormking.com penned a look at Truckee's September rainfall and it's place in the High Sierra's Water Year. Everybody gets excited by the first decent storm of the season...old news.

There's two weeks left of Atlantic Hurricane Season, and it's been more quiet than the forecast...nothing of any real import on the horizon either.  The authors mention the early snow on New Hampshire's Mt Washington while apologizing for the weak hurricane season that didn't match the active season forecast.

Sounds like good news to this observer...remember the fears of hurricanes messing with the Gulf Oil Spill? That was a total train wreck even without tropical weather jumping into the fray!

After the High Pressure brought North Winds and Red Flag Fire Weather Warnings over the weekend, here in the Inland Valley, it's warm, but not quite hot. It was a little muggy this afternoon. I worked all afternoon on the Family Books...it's Tax Time in Pepperland...sweaty stuff weather or no.

I'll be back up the Hill once more before Thanksgiving...before the November 2nd General Election actually, so I perused the Reno AFD. They're forecasting warmer than usual weather for the next week...and zero precipitation in the near term.

I'm reminded that it's getting to be Snowmaking Time for Boreal if they're gonna spin a chairlift on Halloween...I'll see if their webcam is online yet...

Waddya know...Boreal's webcam is back online after taking Summer off! Not much to see, the thermometer was 45.9F° at 9:20PM...the mountain lights weren't on, and the Half Moon isn't bright enough to really illuminate the bare ground.

 SturgeUrge, Urge's brother, and KirkVallus are down at the tip of Baja fishing, and the Sea of Cortés is a little cool for this time of year...just like the rest of the Eastern Pacific.

We didn't get a "Regulation Summer" this year...who can say what the Fall will bring?  I'm not a Gambling Man, but I'm tempted to wager that Boreal is gonna be hard pressed to make enough snow for their Halloween Show this time around...either way, it'll be fun to watch!

Another Round of Red Flag Warnings

I was minding my own business Labor Day when this showed up in @CorduroyPlanet's Twitter Feed. The Reno newspaper's story of the Reno NWS issuing Red Flag Fire Warnings for Tuesday afternoon, noon to 8PM.

A quick look at Reno's AFD assured me that there's no lightning forecast to accompany the approaching Winter-Style Low that triggered the warnings. Serious winds over the Sierra Front combined with the very dry air pulled the Red Flag tripwire. Humidity will recover with the passing of the front.

The SFO/Monterey AFD cited the Winter-Style front too. All across the West it's a winter-Style pattern this week with temperatures dropping some 20°F overnight. Some precipitation will fall, though the NWS isn't talking deluge.

It seems like every interest I enjoy is caught by this Summer's cool regime. I've been seeing lots of Green Tomato stories and recipes on the Food and Garden Blogs I read. Early Snow news from across the Northern Hemisphere, a record cold Winter in South America, and chilly SSTs around the world. Even the waters around the Tip of Baja are running cool this year.

I found the weather to be absolutely Autumnal Tuesday. Crisp was the adjective that best described my world. I finished another part of the Diggins' irrigation...without much sweat.

Next week I'll be at the Reno National Championship Air Races. That's the weekend that I traditionally see the Autumnal Light for the first time near the end of every Summer. It's my undeniable marker that Fall is at hand, and Winter is coming on fast. I start thinking about venturing my educated guess on what kind of Winter we're in for.

There's no telling this year. The only discernible weather trend this year has been cooling. In the 21st Century that means Snowmaking will be a "GO for Throttle Up" November 1st. This probably means chairlifts will turn before Thanksgiving, though I'd venture that my Mountain will open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday only until Thanksgiving Weekend.

I'm not looking forward to that. Opening early on Man-Made Snow is very expensive, and there's no more fickle clients than early season skiers and boarders. The Brass from the Front Office are likely to have hair triggers when cash is flowing out of our accounts faster than it's flowing in. As with the larger economy, I suspect that the cash will be sitting on the sidelines until there's good conditions to play in. These are the times when working the Graveyard Shift is a Godsend.

Hurricane Season Blows Up?

This morning I was multitasking in the sack...internet, radio, newspaper ads, and I had the Local TV News on. I wanted some up to the minute news on Mt Diablo's Curry Fire.

The local Newsers didn't have much of anything new on the fire. The fire behaved overnight, and it's mostly over...for sure there wasn't anything happening that would make dramatic video for the 5 O'clock News.

Almost absent-mindedly, I clicked the TV to FoxNews to see if any of Tuesday's close Primary Elections had been officially decided yet...specifically the Alaska Republican Senate Race between the incumbent from the Murkowski Family Dynasty,  and Tea-Party upstart Marine Corps Veteran, Joe Miller. This race is down to the Absentee Ballot Count, and they won't start counting them until Tuesday.Isn't that civilized...no rush job for Alaskans!

While I was doing other things I heard the FoxNews Weather Gal say: "The Atlantic Hurricane Season Blew Up Today" What?

Blown Up? I looked at my Atlantic Tropical Weather Pages and "Blown Up" turns out to be pure hyperbole...One Cat 2 Hurricane and one Tropical Storm isn't a Blow-Up in my book.

Cat 2 Hurricane Danielle is in the Mid-Atlantic, may strengthen to Cat 3 before fading out in the cooler North Atlantic waters where it's headed now. It's still quiet in the Gulf of Mexico, too.

All things hurricane sent me to the CPC's 90 Day Climate Outlook to see how the deepening La Niña is coming along. I checked the Reno AFD too, and Red Flag Warnings are up again for the Reno-Tahoe Sierra Region. (I can feel the Monsoonal Moisture in the air this morning here in the Inland Valley.) The Reno NWS forecasters even had a Snow Level in the discussion...9000ft, after the cold front passes!

So, in the Dog Days of Summer we have a flurry of Big Picture Weather News. This will most likely percolate all week long as it's almost Hurricane Katrina's Fifth Anniversary. The TV Networks are all planning Katrina Week Coverage.

Katrina Week? I guess ratings are down...there's not a lot of Shark Attack News this Summer, either...what's a Network to do?

Back On Track

I followed last weekend's High Sierra weather closely. From the distance here in the Inland Valley, it's easier than ever to have telepresence. The internet and webcams are truly amazing ideas.

I kept up with events on the ground and in the sky in order to follow the Red Flag Warnings through to their conclusion. Along the way, the Reno NWS Office issued some Severe Thunderstorm Warnings and Flash Flood Warnings.

Well, the warnings were good ones. Sunday's thunderstorms were vigorous to say the least! By the time the real gully-washers began, the Red Flag Warnings had expired...these were Super-Soakers.

Plenty of rain throughout the Greater Lake Tahoe Area, reported one inch hail in South Lake Tahoe, and an antique railroad derailment were all part of the fun.

Monday morning on the Armstrong and Getty Radio Show, Joe Getty related his experience getting caught with his family aboard, on Lake Tahoe in a 20ft boat when the squall hit. Joe's story was at once harrowing and hilarious. Big hail...quarter-size, Joe said, swells, waves, dark skies, and wind all played a role. I could see them in my mind's eye, huddled under the Bimini top, standing in ankle deep hail, soaked to the bone, shivering in 50F temps that had been up in the mid-70's just minutes before. Joe said the big hail frothed up the lake around them 'till it looked like a pot on a roiling boil.

Things settled down for the rest of the week, thankfully. It's been a cool week here in the Inland Valley, and in the Central Valley as well. Friday's KTVU Noon News did a story on July 2010-the warmest on record, then segued into the weatherdude citing California's cold July! The cold in South America in July was both record breaking and deadly...millions of river-dwelling fish, turtles, and dolphins perished during July's cold snap. The Noon News said Tahoe is warmer than the Bay Area today, and Reno's newspaper touts 100F degrees on tap for this weekend.

A couple other High Sierra News items caught my attention:

A seasonal State Park Employee died from hantavirus in Mono County.

Truckee's local paper updated the latest beetle problems in the High Sierra forests.

By my estimate, this is the third beetle problem I've seen since I moved to the mountains in 1980...in the late 80's, lodgepole pine were under siege from their beetle. Much to my dismay, the mid-90's brought the beetle problem to my favorite White Pines. Now it's Fir Engraver Beetles...more natural cycles.

I really hated to see the White Pines get hit. These are kinda rare in the forest mix. The few that survived the building of the Transcontinental Railroad and the Comstock Lode, were too small for lumber then, and now are huge, stately lords of the forest, so a piece of Living History dies when the huge tree dies.

In other Natural Cycle News...the Sun has been very, very quiet since the little flare-up got solar geeks all fired up last week.

Random Thoughts Again

It's almost "The Dog Days of Summer" on the calendar, but the diffusion of thought has already arrived in my head. Nobody is in the driver's seat of late. All I've got are snippets...random snippets.

Gee, it seems like Reno has been having a rash of fires since the Red Flag Warnings first went up last week. It's not what you'd think...these are structure fires, not wildland fires sparked by dry lightning...homes, both occupied and empty (read abandoned), apartment fires, the Bio-Diesel fire, motel rooms burned, and travel trailers went up in smoke.

It seems like a lot to this observer, though I must admit that I usually don't pay attention to municipal fire calls, unless they're in Truckee or near the Ancestral Digs.

I see the Red Flag Warnings are up again on the Eastern side of the High Sierra...Hwy 395 corridor from Susanville South to Carson City. Reno's AFD cites the winds, temps, and low humidity, not lightning.

Perhaps my diffusion is a product of sleep deprivation combined with the void left by the absence of Le Tour de France. I set my alarm for 0500 this morning to watch Formula One Qualifying LIVE from Budapest. I watched for about 35 minutes until I fell back to sleep. I woke up again at 0830...just a little late to catch the yellowjackets still snoozing in their underground lair...I blasted the nest with half a can of Black Flag Wasp&Hornet Killer before the yellowjackets began arriving from their morning sorties...no stings again...but there's still those annoying loose ends. Next up, I'll give 'em another blast before I hit the sack tonight...they should all be in the nest after midnight!

What a satisfying ballgame!

The San Francisco Giants hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers, and played a close game at AT&T Park today. It was another in the century-long blood feud between the two teams.

Today's game had the atmosphere of a Playoff Game. There was high drama in front of a sellout crowd, three Giants batters were hit by pitches, and with the Giants trailing 1-0 in the 8th inning, Giants' left fielder Pat Burrell blasted a two run homer into the bleachers to give the Giants a 2-1 lead that they held for the win. The crowd went wild, and they even lingered after the game to celebrate the victory over the arch-rival Dodgers. For Pat Burrell, who grew up in the Bay Area and rooted for the Giants as a kid, it must have been a dream come true.

Lightning Fire By The Numbers

Monday Morning
I'm fighting a scratchy throat today, so I'm just takin' it easy...but I spent some time lazing about with the laptop, trying to find some info on a wildfire from 2001.

The 2010 Fire Season's first Sierra Wildfires happened just in time for the Local News to benefit from the story. With Congress nearing their August Recess, Lindsay Lohan off the streets of Tinseltown, and the Gulf Oil Gusher capped, there's room for some Fire Video to fill the void from those missing Soundbites.

Sunday night, KCRA3 TV covered the Sierra wildfires at the top of their newscast. No video, they used their weather map instead to illustrate the wide coverage of the Red Flag Warnings, with the radar and lightning strikes layered on top. Here in the Inland Valley, the Bay Area TV Stations covered the fires too. Covered as an adjunct to their weather segment, I suspect there wasn't any Fire Video available for broadcast yet.

On Monday's Noon Newscasts, the TV stations had the video to fluff up their coverage. It must be a slow news day or something, every NWS website, every Forest Service Fire Info website, and every Wildland Fire website I tried to visit was very slow to load...their servers must be getting hammered with traffic to cause such profound slowdowns. My local Newsweekly, the Sierra Sun was up and at 'em with their fire story, though. The paper had the numbers...63 lightning strikes regionally, 5 working fires, 6129 lightning strikes statewide! And that's just for Sunday!

I spent more than an hour online trying to find a Historical Wildfire Database where I could get the Big Picture Overview of the 2001 Gap Fire. This fire stays front and center in my Wildfire Worldview because I drive by it's remnants whenever I travel between the DaveCave and the Ancestral Digs.

I remember passing by the Gap Fire Helitack Base set up in Boreal's Parking Lot on my way to a remodeling job I did that summer up on Donner Summit. There was quite the assortment of choppers working out of the base, including some "oldies but goodies" that I built plastic models of as a kid but never actually saw in the flesh until then. I searched the web for it...it was a Kaman HH-43 Huskie. It flew for the US Military from the late 50's until the 70's

Thanks to the miracle that is CableTV and the Internet, I watched the 6 O'Clock News on Oakland's KTVU, the Fox Affiliate, and the 6:30 Newscasts on Sacramento's NBC station KCRA3 and Reno's ABC Outlet KOLO Channel 8 Monday evening. They all had video of the firefighting ops, as well as expanded Fire Weather segments.

Our cool regime summer returned to the Inland Valley Monday, along with a serious Delta Breeze. Truckee's afternoon high temperature was 82F...Sacramento at 80F was 9F cooler than Sunday's high, and down in Fairfield, the Delta Breeze kept things cool at only 73F for their afternoon high.

Tuesday Morning
Still with the scratchy throat. No fever (thanks Mom) My curiosity is fine, so I perused the web for the latest fire intel...Reno's AFD has been quite active, they've upgraded the watch to a Red Flag Warning for Tuesday night. More winds and dry lightning, farther North than Monday's action.

Tuesday Afternoon
I've been laying about all day listening to the radio and trying to convince my mother that I don't have West Nile Virus Fever...I don't have a fever! The Congress is still in session back in DC, so I've been keeping an ear to the rail via my Political Twitter feed. The DISCLOSE Act failed to get the cloture vote by only three votes! DISCLOSE is another assault on our 1st Amendment Free Political Speech...another Protect the Incumbents Act. The Sierra Sun tweeted another Fire Story too: "86 lightning strikes in region start 5 fires Sunday, Monday"

These fires have begun to show up on InciWeb the Inter-agency clearing house of fire reports maintained by NIFC the National Inter-agency Fire Center.

There's two fires down south now, the Potato Fire near Bridgeport, and the new one, the Mono Fire in the Inyo NF, 5 miles southeast of Lee Vining near Hwy 395 and Hwy 120

To the North, another new one, the Modoc Lightning Complex is many lightning fires 20 miles southwest of Alturas.

Time for the 6 O'Clock News...hey, I'm startin' to feel like myself again.

What? Fire Weather This Early?

Well, yes and no...
I was knockin' about on the net, looking for some weather stations for San Francisco Bay fishing intel gathering, and for the potential CorduroyPlanet PWS Toolbox. Clicking through some of my weather links, I noticed a "Red Flag" Warning had been issued for the Truckee-Tahoe Area for Monday night.

I clicked onto the Reno AFD, and the Fire Weather was cited in the discussion's first paragraph. Warm temps, low humidity, and afternoon winds tripped the Warning. No thunderstorms were forecast, so it's just erring on the side of caution.

I don't have the opportunity to listen to the CDF CalFire Morning Reports when I'm away from the DaveCave. When I'm at home and there's thunderstorm activity forecast, I fire up my Police Scanner and listen in. The Morning Report from the Grass Valley HQ includes a very detailed Fire Weather Forecast , right down to the Fuel Moisture figures. In some ways, listening to the report is richer than just reading the data...often the officer giving the report will add little asides as he delivers his spiel, highlighting things that aren't obvious, or are unique to his situational know-how.

Even though the High Sierra has been warm...which is to say near seasonal temps for the last few weeks, I gotta believe the forest is still "Springtime Fresh"...that is to say still a long ways from Sept/Oct fuel moisture levels. This week I noticed many ski resort webcam images were free of snow for the first time since November.

Wednesday Afternoon
It's quite a bit cooler today here in the Inland Valley. It's only 63F at 2PM, and the Marine Layer really hung on this morning. The cloud cover didn't really clear off until after noon.

I've been keeping tabs on the Delta Winds since our halibut fishing blowout Monday. Mark Finan, KCRA3's Senior Weatherman has been tweeting delta wind updates several times a day since Sunday. Finan's a fellow WeatherGeek, so the data he's been tweeting has been really fun to follow.

This one from Monday evening was interesting: @MarkFinan "It's interesting to watch the Delta breeze work. It's warmer in the foothills now than it is in Stockton"

From Saturday 9:40PM @MarkFinan "The delta breeze.... Auburn is 90. Sac is 83 and Fairfield is 70."

Last night on KCRA's 11 O'clock News they featured a video of a Fairfield Auto Dealer's Lot, with several of those tall flags flapping in the wind, as their lead-in to the Weather Segment. Those flags were really whipping...it looked like hat chasing wind.

Wednesday Night
I looked at Reno's AFD during the 7th inning of the Giants/Dodgers game. No thunderstorms in the mountains for a few days anyway. But hey kids...be careful up there...don't play with matches! Dads, be careful with those mowers and chainsaws...and carry that fire extinguisher!