Wildfire on 68

Also, a serious fire on 68. Highway closed in both direction and evacuations taking place. There is a possible third fire, but it could be from the Santa Lucia Preserve Fire (Cachagua and Tassajara) Large plume per reporting party. And finally, the River Fire at 17 and Pine Canyon. Whew. Will take me a while to dig up more details on the two major ones.

wildfire at Tassara & Cachagua Rds

Wildfire in Tassajara & Cachagua

SLU sent 5 units to assist. The South Coast Ridge Rd is probably a campfire.

09/19/2015 15:06 LPF-3009
New Wildfire Tassajara Rd @ Cachagua ( Carmel River Vly) . 7EDW1 BC12LPF E18LPF E31LPF 4X4 PAT19ALPF . . . 36.390 x 121.596
09/19/2015 14:40 LPF-3008
New Wildfire so coast ridge rd . . . . . 36.004 x 121.447

El Niño Journal – Jan 4,1998

“Sunday, Jan 4th – 1.7″ last night and it’s still raining today. Lots of wind at the moment.”

Didnt have any weather watching/recording equipment back then, except a couple plastic rain gauges. I did keep track on my calendar of how much rain I got each day and night, as well as the total to-date for the season. I kept them all, too…I just have to find them!

Foto Friday – Birds of a feather

image image imageI am a happy blogger. I have my new satellite installed, got my new AirPort Extreme for wireless, and I am really up and running, now.

Given my internet challenges have been resolved, I am now free to upload more than one photo and to receivephotos for posting from readers. An amazing lack of frustration here. I do have to watch my data useage, as I got the middle plan, or 15 GB per month. I’m probably using that, too, as I have been catching up with upgrades and doing things I squally wait to do with a town run.

I had actually picked about 6 to upload, but some of them seem to be stored in the cloud … Or something. All these bird shots are from my Africa trip last year. 😉

Rain!

10:00 am – My SLO forecaster has this to say about today and tomorrow:

“In fact, the European weather model is advertising nearly a half of an inch of rain today into Tuesday. So far this morning, many stations have reported between a trace and 0.04 of an inch of rain.

Scattered thundershowers may develop along the Tehachapis, Sierra Nevada and higher elevations of Santa Lucia Mountains. Today’s high temperatures will range between the mid 60 and high 70s throughout
the Central Coast.”

At 8:00 am, I noticed drops on my deck. My rain gauge isn’t recording anything yet, but it is definitely raining. Drops on the deck and drops on the windows. My two most sensitive dogs are acting like there is thunder about, also, although I can’t hear anything, myself. The dawn brought the look of rain – dark, overcast, and it was right. Anything will help settle the dust! Welcome! Make yourself at home, rain!

Smoke hanging Heavy on the South Coast

10:30 am – Cone Peak is now visible. Still a hazy kind of effect, but given the Rough, Butte, and Valley Fire east and north, I would expect that.

7:30 am – first thing I noticed when I woke a bit ago was the smoke obliterating Cone Peak…literally can’t see it. First thing I checked was WildCAD where I found this:

09/12/2015 18:21 LPF-2929
New Wildfire Jolon and Mission . . . . . 35.962 x 121.165

Couldnt see it last night, so based on what I’m seeing, it looks to have gotten rather large. Given the horrific fire in Lake County yesterday and how fast it grew in just a few hours, it is not surprising. “CAL Fire updated acreage to 40,000 on their website 22 minutes ago…. Let that sink in, it went from from dispatch to 40k in probably less then 15 hours.” (From Wildland Fire)

I will be keeping my eyes open, both in the physical world outside, and the cyber one online for additional information, but CHP reported a traffic hazard on 101 in San Ardo after 9 pm, but no details as to what that hazard was. Given proximity, it COULD be smoke.

El Niño Journal – Jan 3, 1998

i found my journal from 1998, as well as the scrap book I made in February 1998. The scrapbook has photos, newspaper clippings, notes, and all manner of historical significance, but only covers that month. I also have a VHS that a friend in town recorded for me of the news reports of the El Niño in Monterey County and Highway One.

As we transition from summer to fall, I thought it might be of interest to this blog’s followers to see what was written and photographed at the time of the last big El Niño, so we can remember a bit more accurately what is predicted to repeat this winter. Therefore, every so often, I will reproduce part of what I recorded back then. Today, I take you back to January 3, 1998.

“Saturday, Jan. 3rd – 8am and I’ve already been awake for 2 1/2 hours. [Rock Knocker] is off to work. It has been raining, but it seems to have stopped. I didn’t get outside at all yesterday because of the rain.

Our small gauge recorded 1 1/2″ but the big one recorded 3″! Last night we got .3″ in the small one and .5″ in the large. The large one is in the open, so I’ll start recording from that one – if we remember to dump it after each recordation. More rain is expected tonight and tomorrow.”

Remember, these are journal entries I made for myself, so the writing is nothing elegant, just factual. I will scan pages from the scrapbook and post them when possible, and when I get to February’s journal entries. If I can get the VHS into digital form, I will consider adding video to this blog for the first time. I finally get Excede installed today, so video should be a possibility.

i hope you will enjoy this series over the next few months.