Actual Heatwave

Don’t let the pretty clouds fool you. It’s 7:23PM in the evening of Labor Day, and the temperature has cooled-off to just 100-degrees, from a high of 110 earlier in the afternoon. Tonight the temps will even dip into the mid-80’s.

This whole week is going to be in that range, and has been since Saturday’s 103 and Sunday’s 105 – leading up to today – and tomorrow is supposed to be hotter. So with a cooler (by recent standards) morning, we got out to walk the dog by 6:30 sun-up while it was just in the mid-70’s…

I have a little RainBird sprinkler on a stake that you shove into the lawn, and have I set to rotate in a short arc and cool off the hot concrete at the garage-end, to keep from scorching the dog’s paws. It all helps a bit, but a dog that would more readily come when called, and get in out of the damn heat would help more!

UPDATE: 114 yesterday (Tuesday), but forecast ten-degrees cooler today at just 104. Meanwhile, a forest-fire started up in Foresthill (where we used to ride dirtbikes) last evening is being aggressively attacked – from the air – because that’s the only way to get at it, the location is so remote and difficult.

Just Chillin’

The Global Machinery of Climate-Change blew over and laid-down a blanket of “Sierra Cement” (aka = snow) over the Thanksgiving holiday, and now we folk on the down-slope get to enjoy our traditional-seasonal Frostie, as the chilled-air from the mountains rolls down and fridgidizes the ambient surroundings: woke up at 31-degrees and it didn’t crack 62-degrees outside today. More time for indoor sport I guess as long as it doesn’t involve too much house-cleaning. Thanks Algore, see you on the iceberg!

Range time

Frosty and ice-crystals all over the deck in the morning, with low-30’s temps, but the Range is open from 9:00AM to Noon for shootin’ tomorrow (the Sheriffs haven’t taken all the available time), so maybe I’ll get me some of that.
UPDATE: Rain delay…
UPDATE-UPDATE: More rain, more cold and gray, time to light a fire in the fireplace, shop Amazon…

Rain

About a half-hour before my brother and family arrived to visit, the sprinkles started. After they left it really started to come down. We hunkered down to watch an old Rita Hayworth movie set in the South Pacific, loosely adapted from a story that I remember reading by W. Somerset Maugham.
Thanks to this year’s weird weather pattern, “monsoon” influences have blown-up in retrograde from New Mexico and Arizona, and we’ve been having a tumultuous Sierra Summer. There’s been with hail the size of quarters in Tahoe, and severe lightning filled rain-cells along the spine of the mountains from Quincy on down southerly to Arnold and Sonora. A few days ago we heard what sounded like artillery practice as dry-lightning boomed in the mountains above Kirkwood Ski Resort. Severe weather warnings have flashed-up on the TV screen in the midst of shows, warning of flash-flooding from the sudden onslaught of actual “weather.” In any event, the small bit of rain we did receive with grateful thanks to a beneficent Deity easily filled the rain barrels, yay!