March 2009 Weather News!

Oh but the wonders of spring about to sprung. It is one of my favorite times of year as the Mesquite trees grow their spiky canopy of leaves promising shade in the brutal heat to come. The Palo Verde trees catch on fire with the gold and yellow blossoms promising bees and snot noses every where.

The lovely Mrs. Blueduck celebrated a birthday in this fine month of eternal beginning. Yes, our tail feathers are turning gray but empty nesters we are not. BeckPeck is still with us incessantly squeaking and squawking for worms of education, love and support. Our fine feathered son DooderDuck celebrated a birthday this month in fine reckless abandon which almost landed his feathery ass in jail.

A rare Arizona March indeed. Usually the end of the month is much warmer than the beginning of the month. Although we felt our first eighty degrees of the season and the first ninety degrees four days later the average temperature at The Land was fourteen degrees cooler at the end of March than at the beginning. Talking Trees and Antelope Hill was eight degrees cooler.

Some of the Nation experienced brutal weather as you will read in this fine edition of BlueDuck Weather News. “In like a lion and out like a lamb “my ass. The more I write of weather events the more parallels I see between weather and mankind. It is either too hot or too cold, to dry or too wet. Caught up in the midst is human tragedy by either ignoring the weather or not being able to escape it. There is no “perfect” life but the perfect days need to be appreciated and the bad days endured. Hopefully we can dodge the tragedies of life’s folly, and the brutality that Mother Nature can hurl at us.

In this exciting edition you will read about, amongst many jaw dropping weather facts, beer kegs keeping zoo animals happy and a bobcat attacking three people in a Cottonwood, Az. bar just before closing time. You will also find out that researchers think they have the ultimate sun block made from hippo sweat and using maggots on open human wounds promotes healing. Without further ado let’s get to it!

The average temperature at The Land was sixty three degrees. The average temperature at Talking Trees and Antelope Hill was forty two degrees.

It was dry in March with the average humidity at 25.14% and the dew point was 23.59 degrees. Causing this dryness in part was the wind. Although the windy month for Arizona is April the average wind speed was 6.50mph.

There were wind chills, although candy ass by comparison to the cold climes. At 71.50 degrees with a twelve mph wind it was 69 degrees. Seventy four degrees plus 13 mph winds dropped the temperature to 72 degrees. And the one I will be begging for when it is one hundred and fifteen degrees; eighty two degrees with a twenty one mph wind dropped the temperature to a blissful 79 degrees (with a mouth full of sand.)

March was a parched month with no rain at all, although the high country had snow.

The lakes in Arizona are as fat and swollen as a pregnant hog although the lakes of Utah and Nevada are barely holding their own. Roosevelt is one hundred percent full and over flow is pissing down the polluted Salt River bed through Phoenix. Lake Pleasant is eighty seven percent full. Mead is at forty five percent and Powell at fifty three percent.

3-1-09. Chandler man’s disappearance two months ago near Payson is still a mystery. He left his family vacation home on an ATV and wasn’t dressed for deep snow and nineteen degree temperatures.

Four NFL football players missing after fishing trip off the coast of Florida. Poor weather and high winds with ten to fourteen foot swells may be to blame. (Editor’s note: one of the missing is the son of Phoenix sports broadcaster, Bruce Cooper. Bruce said his son was an avid fisherman.)

A mile long avalanche near the Idaho, Wyoming border kills three snowmobilers.

Rare and heavy snow in Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia.
North East bracing for heaviest snow of the season. Boston is at 175% of normal snow pack for the season. One foot of snow in New York with 35mph winds.

Traps in place for sea lions that devour salmon near a dam in the Columbia River. Oregon and Washington will trap and kill them for eating fish on the Endangered Species Act. (Something is fucking wrong here! Leave nature alone and let it do its business!)

3-2-09. One NFL player from capsized boat rescued. The air temperature was in the low forties, the water temperature in the low sixties. Survival time is about forty hours with these conditions.

Wildfire in central Texas destroys twenty five homes and three businesses.

Two hundred whales and several dolphins beach themselves in southern Australia.

3-3-09. National Guard suspends the search for remaining NFL players.

Three tornados make landfall in Alabama.
Nearly ninety seven percent of Texas experiencing drought conditions. Central Texas is the direst it has been since 1918.
75 mph winds fuel latest wildfire in Australia.

North American Wright whale may be taken off Endangered Species Act. There are no known predators except man.

3-4-09. Storm dumps six feet of snow around Lake Tahoe in California, shutting down highways for hours. A ski worker killed by an avalanche.
More than eight hundred thousand homes and businesses without power. Most of the people without power are in the South East and some areas received sixteen inches of new snow.

3-5-09. Ski patrol member killed by Avalanche at ski resort near Lake Tahoe.

Woman attacked by “pet” chimp last month may never recover; severe face and brain injuries.

3-6-09. Apache Sunrise ski resort in Arizona receives a foot of new snow.

Jury convicts auto mechanic of murdering five firefighters by setting a wildfire that over ran them as they defended a home in rural California in 2006. The death penalty may be imposed.

3-7-09. Scorpion bites on the rise in Arizona; there is a thirty percent increase from March of last year.

Texas asks for drought help from Federal Government.

Avalanche kills skier in Ketchum, Utah.

Woman freezes to death after her and husband get lost on a ski trip in the Rockies. They were lost for seven days. She died from hypothermia two days before rescue.

Heavy snows help restore water supply for portions of Nevada.
Tornado warnings in Kansas.

3-8-09. Wind advisory for northern Arizona.
Tornado in central Illinois and Indiana.

3-9-09. Tornado destroys dozens of structures in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. The Blanchard River in Ohio rose seven feet yesterday to fifteen feet today, four feet above flood stage.
Blizzard warnings for South Dakota and Minnesota.

Nine foot tall kangaroo breaks into Australian home and jumps up and down on bed.

3-10-09. Heavy snow driven by 40 mph winds brings parts of the upper Midwest to a halt. A foot of snow in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota. Highways are closed in North Dakota.

Sandstorm disrupts Persian Gulf flights and oil exports.

Killer Australian fires fueled by restrictions on cutting undergrowth and trimming trees. (Editor’s note: sound vaguely familiar like good ol’ California?)

3-11-09. North Dakota blizzard leaves four foot snow drifts with a wind chill in Fargo of twenty six degrees below zero; four deaths tied to storm.

Forty two year old elephant at London Zoo has to have daily applications of sun block for skin condition. (Editor’s note: Just shoot the poor bastard. This is no way for beast, duck or man to live!)

Four deer caught on camera as they slam through liquor store in Pennsylvania.

3-12.09. Hail, rain and snow in Flagstaff; sunshine and mid seventies at The Land.

Crews clear roads of up to ten foot snow drifts in Midwest from storms two days ago.

National Weather Service to re-word warnings from “severe weather alert” to “extremely dangerous “and “life threatening” for worst weather.

Alps avalanche kills three teens and instructor.

3-13-09. Warm weather may trigger migraines. Each temperature increase of nine degrees appeared to increase the risk of severe headache by eight percent. (Editor’s note: this is a crock of shit. Out here in the desert at one hundred and fifteen degrees our heads would pop like blood filled balloons.)

3-14-09. The record high in Phoenix on this date was ninety one degrees in 2007. The record low was thirty three degrees in 1969.

Emergency management officials in Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota are getting ready after forecasters predict record flooding along the Red River this spring. Due to heavy winter snow melt the Red may crest in Fargo at thirty five feet. The flood stage is eighteen feet.

Six months since Hurricane Ike Galveston, Texas still struggling to rebuild.

Australia declares dozens of beaches disaster areas after oil spill.

Warming alters Antarctic food chain; basic food, plankton, is declining. Populations of Adelie penguins have declined sharply.

3-15-09. April in Phoenix is average for the first ninety degree temperature. The high today was eighty six degrees and the average is seventy four degrees. The Land saw the first eighty degrees on March sixteenth and ninety on March 20th. There was not another day in March that hit ninety degrees but look out!

3-16-09. ATV found of missing man for nearly two months near Chevlon Lake in Arizona. It was found twelve miles from missing man’s vacation home in Forrest Lakes by two hunters.

The north eastern United States coast likely to see the world’s biggest sea level rise from man made global warming by 2100. The rise could be two to three feet and would be catastrophic especially when hurricanes hit.

Dramatic increase of allergies blamed on global warming.

3-17-09. Researchers test hippo sweat as the ultimate sun block for humans.

Frogs in Ireland survived Ice Age according to study.

3-18-09. Forty acre fire near Buckeye, Arizona. The temperature is thirteen degrees above normal in Phoenix.

3-19-09. National Weather Service predicts warmer than normal spring for Arizona. They also predict spring floods in upper Midwest and Northeast could be severe.

The west Antarctic ice sheet collapsed periodically between three and five million years ago, adding more than sixteen feet to global sea level.

3-20-09. The first day of spring for Arizona was at four forty four a.m. Areas below five thousand feet in Arizona more prone for fires this season.

The Snow bowl in Arizona will close on April fifth this year.

British researchers use maggots to treat wounds because they remove dead flesh and may speed recovery in human patients.

3-21-09. The first ninety degree temperature in Phoenix. Wind advisory posted until eleven a.m. tomorrow. Wind gusts up to 30 mph and 50 mph in northern Arizona.

3-22-09. Highway 260 near Heber, Arizona closed due to fire driven by winds. There were winds up to sixty three mph in Flagstaff. Red Flag Warning for southern Arizona.

Fargo, North Dakota on flood alert as Red River may hit forty feet above flood stage later this week.

3-23-09. Eighteen degrees at the Grand Canyon.

High school and college students let out of class to help with the massive task of sandbagging the Red River in Fargo, North Dakota. Two million bags are needed by the end of the week to even stand a prayer of containing the swollen river.

Twenty inches of snow in eastern Wyoming, seven inches of snow in Nebraska with 55 mph winds.

Tornado threats for the Eastern Plains.

Five eruptions from Alaska’s Redoubt volcano, one hundred miles south west of Anchorage. Ash spews up to fifty thousand feet.

The drought has affected whooping cranes wintering in the Texas Gulf Coast. Lack of food and water may make them to weak to travel back to Canada.

3-24-09. Rabies warning issued for campers in southern and northern Arizona. The advice is to sleep in a tent and not on the ground. There have been seventy confirmed rabid animals already this year.

The Red River in Fargo has risen five feet since yesterday. Flood stage is eighteen feet. The river is below major flood stage of thirty feet. It may crest at forty one feet breaking the record of 36.6 feet in the devastating flood of 1997.

Beer kegs keep zoo animals happy. (no shit)

Two Komodo dragons maul fruit pickers to death.

3-25-09. Wind advisories post for most of Arizona.

An ice jam clogging the Missouri River north of Bismarck began to move, sending more water toward Fargo. Bismarck now poses the most urgent threat of flooding and the President declares state of emergency.

Severe ice storm in Duluth, Minnesota with power out to hundreds of thousands.

3-26-09. Geronimo fire in south east Arizona has consumed one home and charred twenty acres in Sunizona.

A severe wind advisory is posted. High winds near Winslow have closed I-40 with 61 mph peak gusts and 37 mph in Phoenix.

Two tornados touched down in southern Mississippi with seventeen injured. A Baptist church was destroyed with documents from within found eighteen miles away.

Wind blown snow closes highways in western Nebraska and South Dakota.

In Montana the National Guard dispatched two helicopters to help locate stranded motorists in south east part of state due to snow.

Denver International may be closed for two days due to sixteen inches of snow.

Rabid bobcat attacks three men in a Cottonwood, Arizona bar just before closing time. The whole thing was caught on video and is now the bar’s claim to fame, although the three men will be subject to painful rabies shots. There is now a special drink in the bar called the “Bobcat special.”

3-27-09. Geronimo fire seventy five percent contained at twenty five hundred acres in Sunizona.

Eight hundred National Guard deployed to Fargo, North Dakota. The Red River has topped a hundred and twelve year record of forty feet above flood stage.

Tornado touches down in Alabama, a day after twister injures twenty eight people in southern Mississippi.

There is a spring blizzard in Amarillo, Texas.

3-29-09. Wind advisory for northern Arizona and a red flag warning for most of the state.

The Red River breaks past a levee in Fargo and submerged a Lutheran school campus. The Red is starting to recede.

Mount Redoubt spews enough ash to close Anchorage airport.

In Cirendeu, Indonesia torrential rain cased a dam to break killing ninety one people. The dam released seventy cubic feet of water. People waited on rooftops to be rescued and four hundred homes were submerged in water up to ten feet deep.

3-30-09. Red flag warnings for south east Arizona due to high winds and extreme fire conditions.

Blizzard and subsequent snow melt threatens millions of sandbags and levees.

3-31-09. Wind advisories for Safford and Cochise Counties in Arizona.

Red River recedes below most sandbags in Fargo.

New blizzard hammers the Northern Plains.

Illinois snowed in as Texas blizzard melts away.

EPA will place air monitors around dozens of schools to see how safe the air is outside for children. (our tax dollars at work)

Birth control for rats being developed at Flagstaff, Arizona. Rats are consuming half the rice in south east China.

How we ended the weather statistics on rat birth control is beyond me but the weather and animal information is collected in nanoseconds and carefully transcribed in the order of which they came to your brilliant Editor in Chief.

The Mighty Broaduck is back in fine and sensitive style with his quote for the month. “Wives are like Del Taco; at times they can be a pain in the ass but you can’t live without them.”

Sean you are as sick as Monte.

Our new nature weather contributing reporter, Ryduck submitted this fascinating tidbit of information for you campers, nature lovers and rat shooters; “Watch the smoke from your campfire. If it hangs low, a function of low pressure, to the ground rain is on the way. If the smoke rises high into a vertical column, which means high pressure, count on good weather. I think Ryduck was inhaling something and blowing smoke when he made this observation, however his credentials are impressive if not downright suspect.

The song of the month is “Big River Blues” by Doc Watson. It should have been Red River Blues for the poor folks in Fargo but is looks like for now they have beat the river down.

Until next month remember Pioneers took bullets, Settlers took land.

Professor MR BlueDuck..