The iPhone camera didn’t care for the conditions, and neither did we.
With Labor Day in the rear-view mirror, we’re on the fast, winding descent to fall, the election, winter, The Fear, and the decline and fall of western civilization.
And now here’s Patrick with the weather!
We got a surprise visit from someone’s wildfire smoke last evening, probably Santa Fe’s. Though it could’ve come all the way from California or Colorado, where my sister reported from Fort Fun that clouds of noxious smoke from the Cameron Peak Fire turned day into night.
“We have also had lots of ash falling,” she added.
Here we got only smoke, which made the setting sun look like the devil’s fiery bunghole. The pic doesn’t begin to do it justice. It was as red as the business end of a plutocrat’s cigar as he’s telling you to clear out your desk and hit the bricks.
This morning the sky has an odd, flat, metallic sheen, and the Duke City is enjoying an air-quality alert, though we don’t have to cut it with a knife and chew 20 times before swallowing the way they do out to Californy. It must be tough to sell real estate when so much of it is floating around in the sky.
Tags: Cameron Peak Fire, Medio Fire
September 8, 2020 at 8:13 am |
As forecast, snow falling here in the Bibleburg environs and hopefully up in the Cameron Peak Fire area. 87F yesterday and currently 36F today. Much improved air quality. Needed moisture arriving. Better firefighting conditions. Hope your Sis is safe!
September 8, 2020 at 8:26 am |
My man Hal reports snow up to Weirdcliffe, too. More precip’, less fire, please. And thank you.
September 8, 2020 at 8:23 am |
Yikes. If ash is falling, that fire is damn close to your sister’s place. We had ash falling on the BombTowne Estate and yep, the fire was just over the ridge a few miles. Scary stuff.
The blood red sun set over our dinner last night as we were enjoying one of the last few days of late summer eating on the back portico. Every time I see that deep red it reminds me of a short story I read back in school about a planet where the sun is going red giant. Wish I could remember the title and author, but that probably was registered in one of the many brain cells I killed over the years when I was doing brain erasing experiments in organic chemistry.
September 8, 2020 at 8:29 am |
That fire is friggin’ huge. Around 100,000 acres now, which makes the Waldo Canyon Fire look like a stoner flicking his Bic at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.
“FREEEEEE BIRRRRRRRRD!”
Waldo Canyon burned up a shit-ton more private property, of course, but this thing ain’t over yet. The championship belt is there for the taking.
September 8, 2020 at 8:38 am |
Channel 9 evening anchor closed his public service message by sneakily pointing out that he had two kids, didn’t know the gender until the day they were each born, and didn’t start a fire with either.
A reference to this:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gender-reveal-fire-party-california-wildfire/
September 8, 2020 at 8:44 am |
And that wasn’t even the first gender-reveal party to end badly.
Man, Gaia can’t wait to shake us fleas off her back.
September 8, 2020 at 8:44 am |
I saw that and wanted to go out there and strangle the couple or forcibly sterilize them for the sake of the human race. It puts a whole new dimension on STOOPID.
September 8, 2020 at 8:35 am |
There’s a bunch of dying-Earth stories. Could be “Epilogue,” by Poul Anderson.
September 8, 2020 at 10:39 am |
We might have had that kind of sun to yesterday, but the wind blown dust and smoke from the Evans Canyon fire north of Yakima, WA blocked out any shape of a sun. All is cool, blue and sunny today.
I also recall that book Khal (red giant sun). Was it Niven? Perhaps Herbert? I’ll have to look into that.
September 8, 2020 at 11:30 am |
Perhaps “The Disspossed” by Ursula Le Guin? A version of it that I saw online has a red sun on the cover. I haven’t read it but it sounds like something that is worth diving into.
September 8, 2020 at 11:32 am |
Let me try that again. “The Dispossessed”. I got overwhelmed by all the S’s.
Disspossed is pretty funny though.
September 8, 2020 at 12:26 pm
I am frequently possessed by a diss.
September 8, 2020 at 12:28 pm |
The wind here got apeshit right out of the box this morning. Nearly blew me off the damn bike right in the middle of an iffy bit full of rocks and cacti and a steep drop to my left.
I sez to myself I sez, “That’ll do,” and headed for home.
September 8, 2020 at 8:33 am |
Out 8 year old has asthma, and I just looked at the calendar and realized we haven’t been outside for more than 15 minutes in about a month.
Snow couldn’t have come at a better time, what with the Cameron exploding this weekend. Tripled in size in 24 hours. That’s what a one-hour old fire does, not a month old one.
September 8, 2020 at 8:49 am |
Yeah, as a lifelong asthmatic I can tell when the air’s gone to shit. It’s like being able to use an old wound or broken bone to forecast a cold spell.
“Ayuh, winter’s a-comin’. M’rheumatiz is actin’ up.”
September 8, 2020 at 9:46 am |
Smoky as hell down here. Like you say, almost a bronze, dull metallic color to the sky and sun. That Sawmill fire was a bitch. Almost took out the historic Empire Ranch. I think I know where our smoke is coming from.
https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/sector_band.php?sat=G17§or=psw&band=GEOCOLOR&length=24
September 8, 2020 at 12:29 pm |
I didn’t think it could get worse, but the smoke is thick enough to make it hard to see the mountains. And, the mountains are only 4 miles away from my house. It’s coming from the West.
September 8, 2020 at 12:35 pm |
Angeles/Bobcat fire, mebbe? It’s hard to keep all the California fires straight.
Ooh, and Santa Ana winds, too. Just what you like to see.
September 8, 2020 at 1:02 pm |
I think from most of them based on the satellite imagery. But, i think you’re Right that most of the smoke is from the fires around LA and El Cajon.
September 8, 2020 at 1:46 pm |
There’s some flaming happening down here again.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/122699207/auckland-brewerys-dump-the-trump-beer-hard-to-swallow-for-some
September 8, 2020 at 1:51 pm |
“You do get people asking why you’re making a political statement with a beer but that’s the voice we have so we’re using it.”
Good for them. That’s the way I felt whenever some thin-skinned type would squeak, “Stick to cycling!”
September 8, 2020 at 2:32 pm |
But, but, we did have the Tour de Trump! I believe the beer offered by the casinos in Atlantic City during the race was called “Two Wheeler Cheeseburger and Greasy Fires Ale”. At that time I believe the slogan was “Dump with Trump”.
September 8, 2020 at 3:42 pm |
If the dumpster gets any fatter you could have a tour of trump. Asshole casts a big enough shadow to alter the climate.
September 8, 2020 at 2:36 pm |
Still no sign of rain up this way. Just smoky skys and windy as hell. Whatsup down your way, Patrick?
September 8, 2020 at 3:15 pm |
Windier’n a sumbitch, is what. I had to run some errands and forgot to bring a stapler to keep the hat on my head.
On my abbreviated bike ride the power lines over by Embudo Dam were thrumming like the sound of God dragging a bow across Her bass fiddle to no particular purpose.
September 8, 2020 at 3:28 pm |
I know there is a novel in your little grey cells. You sure can paint a picture or sound with words. Chapeau!
September 8, 2020 at 3:58 pm |
Aw, shuckens. Thanks. But I’m strictly a short-form kind of guy. Carl Hiassen can switch gears to book length, but I start to lose interest in myself at about 750 words.
September 8, 2020 at 4:41 pm |
It’s not the size of the pen, but the style with which one writes, eh? 🙂
September 8, 2020 at 5:21 pm |
I have some fun snuffling around, and occasionally unearth a truffle. But most of what I write has a short shelf life; it’s rooted precariously in the moment. I get focused on the tree and lose sight of the forest. A novel is a forest.
September 8, 2020 at 5:41 pm
Michelangelo: “Genius is eternal patience.” 🙂
September 8, 2020 at 5:43 pm
Michelangelo: “Genius is eternal patience.” 🙂
September 8, 2020 at 11:12 pm |
.7 “ of mixed precip so far! Won’t put out the Cameron but can’t hurt.
September 9, 2020 at 7:10 am |
Anything’s better than nothing, hey? I saw some fire dude up your way was saying the Cameron got five inches of heavy, wet snow. Nothing weird about five inches of snow falling on a 100,000-acre fire, no sir.
September 9, 2020 at 7:56 am |
We lost power for half the night, along with about 6,000 other people in the City Indifferent. High wind, I suppose?