February Blue Duck Weather 2010

February 2010 Weather News!


Well, well, well. February proved to be about as wet in Arizona as January. Other parts of the country were blasted with snow, wind and rain as well. The great metropolitan, overcrowded and polluting city known as Phoenix already has more rain than all of last year. As predicted and promised by your great Editor in Chief you will read of cleanup efforts from January’s storms well into February and possibly the effects of February’s weather into March.

As I reported last month the barometer curiosity is brewing in me. And as I promised I won’t bore you any more than you already are with average daily barometer patterns. But I have noticed a pattern during this rainy, not even spring yet. When the weather is fair out here on no man’s land known as the Land the pressure generally is 28.45 to 28.50. Just before it rains, generally the night before the pressure dives to 28.20 to 28.29. The lowest reading with rain was 28.15. It will be interesting to note the barometer readings as the spring and rain give way to high pressure and stable weather conditions. When there is no more rain and I’m sweating my feathered duck’s ass off I will amuse myself by seeing how pressure gradients reflect high wind. When I’m bored with that and it is 115 degrees I will simply put a bullet in my weather station and be done with the whole boring mess.

In this exciting thought provoking edition of Blue Duck Weather that will leave your head swaying side to side until you start drooling on yourself like a cow pounded in the head with a mallet you will learn much more than just the weather around the world. Don’t wait to read about a cat that foresees death, Gothic kittens, the adjustments for the Presidential motorcade during bad weather, the presumably end of the mustang roundups in Nevada, record amounts of snow fall in the East and record number of days the federal government closed shop due to bad weather, “kissing bug” news just in time for Valentine’s Day, a victory for my love of the Verde River, wildlife violations reached a record in Arizona in 2009 (the economy or brutality?), once again an animal turns on a trainer, a canine record set right here in good old Tucson, Arizona, and much more. Don’t go away!

The average temperature at the Land did not change much from the beginning of the month to the end, 2.50 degrees warmer. At Talking Trees and Antelope Hill it was one degree warmer. The average temperature at the Land for the month was 53.75 degrees. The average temperature at the other mysterious high country pieces of land in New Mexico was 32.40 degrees, “colder than a ticket taker’s smile at the Ivar theater on a Saturday night”.

The average humidity on The Land was a damp 50.87 % and the average dew point was 38.31 degrees.

The average wind speed was 4.54mph.

The Land received .55’’ of rain for the month for a total of 2.81 inches for the year. An impressive amount of rain fell at Sky Harbor International Airport where they record weather information and usually don’t get shit. 1.36’’ of rain fell on that greasy location with a total for the year of 3.79’’! I can guarantee you with a quack that parts of northern Maricopa county have received over 12’’ of rain so far this year. I noticed today that New River is still running with a good flow.

It is probably useless, or at least outdated, to report lake levels in Arizona. By the time you read this they will have more water than the recording data reported to me by unnamed sources. I heard that the SRP reservoir system has enough water to give the thirsty desert communities three years of water. In any event the biggest lakes of the southwest have not benefited. Mead keeps shrinking and is 42% full. Lake Powell holds its own at 57%. And now the weather news you live for each month to read!

2-1- The Hopi and Navajo tribes in northern Arizona are still cut off from storms. Harsh weather hampers relief efforts. Twenty five helicopter missions to drop supplies have been cancelled due to fog. There are twenty two thousand square miles affected.

Lake levels are rising fast after recent rains. San Carlos, almost dry, rose 63,000 acre feet. Roosevelt grew from 76% to 94%. Horseshoe Lake rose from 26% to 91%.

Five days after ice storm hit Oklahoma 80,000 still without power.

A cat named Oscar, kept by a nursing home, regularly predicted patient’s deaths by snuggling alongside them during their final hours. He has been right fifty times. “The staff noticed that Oscar would spend his days pacing from room to room. He sniffed and looked at patients but rarely spent time with anyone except when they had just hours to live.” Oscar is accurate enough that staffers know it’s time to call family members when he stretches beside a patient. (Editor’s note: The lovely Mrs. Blueduck is so in tune with her animals they know when she is hurting somewhere and they either avoid the injured area or give her extra affection. When I walk in a room they hiss, howl, growl and run down the hall. I have no idea why.)

2-2-. Almost two weeks after a flooded New River in Black Canyon City, Arizona wiped out the River’s Edge RV Park displaced residents are without a place to return to. The county has posted signs which read “unfit for occupancy.” There were ninety residents before the flood, there are five left.

With temperatures as low as 58 degrees below zero 1.7 million Mongolia, China sheep livestock have frozen to death. 21,000 herder families are at risk of “food insecurity”. One third of the people in Mongolia herd livestock for a living. 14,000 Red Cross volunteers are in the area.

According to Punxsutawney Phil’s annual prediction there are six more weeks of winter. The world’s most famous groundhog saw his shadow and the onlookers got drunk.

2-3- The death of an eighty eight year old woman in northern Arizona is being blamed on the storms that hit the state in the last month. Window Rock police report she went to visit a family member last week. Her vehicle got stuck in the mud and she decided to continue on foot. Her body was found twenty five yards from her vehicle.

Billionaire Ted Turner is receiving 88 Yellowstone Buffalo on his ranch in New Mexico. The Montana program to place disease free bison on public lands has failed.

2-5- The Governor of Arizona approves additional million dollars of aid for the Navajo Nation. Some of the elderly cannot eat MREs. They don’t understand the instructions because they are in English.

A Court has ruled that Prescott can tap into underground water which will dry up the Verde River downstream.
Multiple Winter Weather Storm Warnings have been issued by the National Weather Service from Baltimore into the Virginias. The East Coast is bracing for record breaking snow. Flights and schools have been cancelled. Food is “flying off the shelves of stores” as residents prepare. Federal government employees in Washington, D.C. were given the day off today to prepare. The Presidential motorcade changes to four wheel drive vehicles.

Cyclone Oli slams the French Polynesian with 120mph winds and waves up to twenty six feet high. All roads are closed.

A rare shark attack in south Florida kills a kite boarder. Once the man started bleeding it set off a shark feeding frenzy.

A Pennsylvania woman has been accused of animal cruelty after marketing “gothic kittens” on the Internet. The kittens has neck and ear piercing.

2-6- A Flash Flood Warning is issued for Mohave County, Arizona.

Near Los Angeles mudslides sweep cars away and pushed furniture out of homes. Crews are going door to door and urging people to get out of their homes in the La Canada Flintridge area.

There is so much snow in the D.C. area the National Zoo and the Smithsonian museums are closed today.

“Freak” winter rains across Mexico collapses hillsides, flooded rivers over their banks and left 29 people dead or missing. More than half the country is affected. Many homes are flooded in Central Mexico.

The Bureau of Land Management has concluded the roundup of 2000 wild Mustangs in Nevada. Activists unsuccessfully sued to stop the roundup saying it was inhumane and unnecessary.

A Rhode Island man has been charged for “illegally operating on a pet.” The man is disabled and said he couldn’t afford a vet. He removed a cyst from his dog, an infection occurred and professionals had to operate. ( Editor’s note: I applaud the man for trying to do something. There was a time in this country when all measures to help people and animals were done by the family or friends as there were no doctors or quacks to be found. If you fed someone a quart of whiskey and sawed their leg off to save them, today you would be charged with cruel and inhumane acts, if not murder if the person died.)

The Mexican wolf count has dropped by ten from a year ago in New Mexico and Arizona. Fish and Wildlife Service officials are troubled by this decline. The project began with thirteen wolves in 1998. The project grew to fifty two before the wolf population declined again. If this project is not a success extinction is likely.

2-7- Winter Weather Advisories are posted for the Rim country and Flagstaff receives 12’’ of snow.

The Mid Atlantic digs out of an “epic” blizzard. Duller International Airport shattered the record of snowfall with 32’’. This snow comes less than two months when a December storm dumped 16’’ in Washington. According to the National Weather Service Washington has gotten more than a foot of snow only thirteen times since 1870.
Hundreds of thousands are without power in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia.

2-8- Some areas of northern Arizona have accumulated more than twenty feet of snow this season.

Two hundred and thirty thousand government workers in D.C. get the day off to dig out of the snow.

Residents of the foothills communities north of L.A. are allowed to return home after mudslide danger subsides. Eight hundred homes were evacuated, forty three damaged and nine declared unfit to enter. Twenty five vehicles were damaged my rocks, mud and water.

In Switzerland a twenty one year old skier buried beneath an avalanche was pulled out alive after being trapped for seventeen hours. Although he couldn’t move from the crushing weight of the snow he was in an air pocket and could breathe. A spokesman said “I’ve never heard of such a case before. It is very difficult to survive more than forty five minutes beneath an avalanche.” The skier suffered only minor hypothermia.

2-9- Residents of the Tonto Basin in Gila County, Arizona are still cut off on the east side of Tonto Creek from January’s rains. It is a remote area halfway between Roosevelt Lake and Payson. Food, water and medicine is being brought to them by two and a half ton trucks that can ford the swollen creek.

Five hundred homes in north L.A. are being evacuated due to mudslide predictions.

Heavy snow in Bulgaria and Romania disrupts all motor travel. People are urged not to drive, even in cities.

The Mustang roundup in eastern Nevada is halted until after the spring foaling season.

2-10- A Winter Storm Warning is issued for S.E. Arizona above 7000’. A Winter Storm Watch is issued for Tucson.

The federal government in D.C. shuts down for third day due to snow, blizzards and whiteout conditions. Snow is falling from northern Virginia to Connecticut. Blizzard Warnings are issued for New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. New York City closes all schools.

Flash Flood Warnings are issued in southern California and five hundred more residents are evacuated due to mudslide threats.

2-11- Snowfall in D.C. breaks a record set way back in 1898. The city has 54.9’’ for the season. A new record in Philadelphia of 70.3’’ for the season and Baltimore with 72.3’’ of snow for the season.
A new record for the federal government for closing four days in a row due to weather.

Rare snowfall in Atlanta and the Dallas, Fort Worth areas.

A heat wave in Brazil, with temperatures up to 102 degrees have killed thirty two elderly people.

More than forty percent of kissing bugs collected by Tucson researchers carry parasites that can be deadly to humans. The disease known as Chagar kills thousands of people each year in Central and South America.

2-12- The Salt River Project in Arizona and Prescott and Prescott Valley have struck a deal to protect the Verde River from being totally depleted of water. Cities can tap into the aquifer if the river “isn’t hurt.” The cities can draw up to 2.6 billion gallons of water per year but will ensure wells do not siphon water from the Verde. The Verde River is one of Arizona’s last continuously flowing rivers.

Parts of the South are receiving record snowfalls and the first snow in ten years. With snow as far south as Florida all fifty states have some snow. The Dallas, Fort worth areas received eleven inches of snow breaking the old record of seven inches. There is snow in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. I-49 in central Louisiana is closed.

The Obama administration has released 490 million dollars in emergency heating funds. Since the South has been unusually cold it is receiving the bulk of the funds. For the first time unemployment is factored into where the funds will be allocated.

American Samoa is getting prepared for Cyclone Rene with wind gusts of 80mph. All schools are closed.

A Green Bay, Wisconsin man is accused of killing ex girlfriend’s puppy by placing it in a hot oven. He broke into her apartment and when she returned home the apartment was filled with smoke and the dog’s body was found in the oven. (Editor’s note; this sick bastard should be placed in a giant pizza oven and allowed to bake until well done. His carcass should then be fed to the dogs.)(Mrs. BLue duck adds to take this sick fucker and shove his ass in the oven and crank it up!)

2-13-. In 2009 Arizona Game and Fish received 768 reports of wildlife violations through its program Operation Game Thief. There were 451 reports in 2008.

Snow days for school children mean less food for many. Tens of thousands of kids miss out on free or reduced priced lunches when schools are closed.

Cyclone Rene slams the U.S. Territory of American Samoa with wind gusts up to 103mph.

The warmest January ever recorded in Vancouver, Canada.

A chimpanzee mauled and seriously injured a twenty one year old volunteer at a Florida primary sanctuary.

Five seal lions are shot to death near Seattle, Oregon. One was a Stellar sea lion protected by the Endangered Species Act.

2-15- The South received the second snow storm this past weekend with four to six inches of snow in Georgia and Alabama.

The drought is so bad in Hawaii some residents have water hauled and delivered. About a third of the homes there rely in part on rainwater catching systems.

One man is dead another feared buried in an avalanche in the Chugach National Forest near Anchorage, Alaska. They were snowmobiling and the man killed was the head of Conoco Phillips Oil Company of Alaska. (Editor’s note: Don’t matter how important or rich you are when Mother Nature decides to slap you dead.)

2-16- A food drive is started for the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona. People there are still affected from three storms in January.

Snow and ice cover parts of the South again from Tennessee to northern Alabama.

Twenty eight Pilot whales are dead or euthanized by conservation workers after a mass beaching in New Zealand. It is the fourth mass beaching in recent months.

2-17- This past January in Arizona was the fifth wettest on record. All SRP reservoirs are near capacity and will supply two year’s of water. It has been twenty years since this much moisture has occurred but the drought is not over for northern Arizona.

The body of a veteran climber was recovered in the crater of Mount. St. Helens. He was posing for a photograph at the edge of a crater when the snow gave away. He fell fifteen hundred feet. Clouds and strong winds delayed rescue efforts earlier this week.

2-21- A Winter Storm Warning is posted for northern and eastern Arizona.

A mother and two young children have fallen through lake ice and drowned in St. Claire county, Illinois.

Thirty two people are dead from flooding on the Portuguese island of Madeira.

A micro burst caused a Canadian sailing ship to sink off of the coast of Brazil. Sixty four young students on a “dream cruise” were rescued after thirty hours in life rafts.

2-22- Hail in Carefree, Arizona. I-17 closed near Flagstaff. One foot of snow at the Snow Bowl in the last twenty four hours.

There are forty two people dead and thirty two missing in the resort town of Madeira. Three hundred and seventy people are homeless. All of the victims either drowned or were crushed by debris from flooding. Official’s said a month’s worth of rain fell in about eight hours.

2-23- 1.14 inches of rain fell in Apache Junction, Arizona in the last three days.

Nineteen people reported missing in Madeira are found alive. There are still thirteen not found. This has been the deadliest storm on the island since the late 1800s.

A landslide triggered by heavy rains kills five plantation workers and buries sixty others in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Three California condors are found dead in northern Arizona last month died because of lead poisoning. They ingested lead pellets from guns when eating carrion. There are only 350 living condors in the United States.

A Tucson Great Dane is named the tallest dog in the world by the Guinness World Records. The 250 pound dog stands three feet, seven inches from the paw to the shoulder.

2-24- Portions of I-17 near Black Canyon City, Arizona may be closed without notice. With over fifteen inches of rain since the beginning of the year landslides could occur at any time allowing rock and earth to fall onto the freeway. It would effect south bound lanes between Sunset Point and Black Canyon City.

Two feet of snow falls in Albany, New York. There are one hundred and sixty thousand without power.

At least forty six people are feared dead after mudslide in Indonesia.

Twenty six inches of snow in Moscow breaks a record set in 1966.

A Killer whale at Sea World in Florida turns on a trainer and kills her. The whale grabbed her pony tail and thrashed her around in the tank killing her. The largest Killer whale in captivity has a history of turning on trainers. Another trainer was killed in 1991 and a man who jumped into the tank in 1999. Trainers were not allowed to swim with this whale. (update...whale is going to be allowed to perform again)

2-25- A second storm is hammering the North East. Flood Warnings are issued for Boston and Philadelphia. One to two inches of rain falling per hour.

Arizona may lose Endangered Species protection for the desert nesting Bald eagles of Central Arizona. This is the only place in the country where protection from the Act still exists. The Fish and Wildlife Service posted a petition with a federal court to have the eagles removed from the list. They are confident the birds “would survive a delisting.”

Eight wild turkeys have been released by Arizona Game and fish into the Santa Rita Mountains of southern Arizona. They have released one hundred Gould’s turkeys since 2007. Turkey numbers in the Santa Rita have declined in recent years due to lack of rainfall and predators driven from their habitat due to urbanization.

A Mohave, Arizona woman has been arrested after dead and abused dogs were found in her home. She ran an unlicensed animal shelter and neighbors complained after a “foul smell” was coming from her residence.

2-26- Wind Advisories posted for central Arizona tomorrow. Snow levels will drop to five thousand feet by 2-28.

9.4 inches of snow falls in Central Park, New York breaking a record set in 1874. All city schools are closed.

Seven hundred thousand people are without power in the North East. A wind gust of 90mph was reported in New Hampshire. Wind there flamed a hotel fire and shut down an entire block of businesses.

Snow throughout the United States has caused a spike in already high unemployment.

A 2.6 million gallon aquarium in Dubai springs a leak scaring people away from the mall attraction. Thirty three thousand fish, including sharks live in the aquarium.

2-27- A Winter Weather Advisory is posted for northern and eastern Arizona from eleven am to three p.m. tomorrow. A Wind Advisory is issued for the Phoenix area.

As of today there are a half million people without power in the North East, one hundred thousand in New Hampshire. Some residents are warned they may be without power for a week due to high winds uprooting trees and knocking down utility poles.

More than four hundred Bighorn sheep have died from pneumonia this winter in Nevada, Montana, Utah and Washington. More than half are in Montana.

A Colorado snow boarder survived three days on a single energy bar after becoming lost during a whiteout. He says he’s ready to hit the slopes again. This time he will carry a personal locator beacon.

2-28- A Microburst is reported in Cave Creek, Arizona. Over an inch of rain falls there, Surprise, Paradise Valley and Apache Junction.

The Mighty Broadduck reports ten inches of snow on the ground in the deep woods of Michigan.

Flash Flood warnings in L.A. shut down portions of I-10 east bound.

Still two hundred thousand people without power in the North East, one hundred thousand of them in New Hampshire. Shelters are set up to provide warmth and food.

Rain and hurricane force winds kill fifty one in France, Germany and Spain. The storm named Xynthia, is a cyclone depression. It is the worst storm since 1999 and the National Weather Service had warned to would be violent. Nine hundred thousand people in France are without power. Winds reached 130mph on the summits of the Pyrenees and 100mph along the Atlantic Coast.

The quote of the month from the Mighty Broadduck is deep and profound as usual. “All women appreciate a compliment, but never tell your better half that she reminds you of your favorite musical group if it is Super Tramp.

RyDuck dispels some myths about determining how far away lightning is by counting after one sees the strike. One of the long time standards has been to count in seconds until you hear the thunder. Actually to determine the distance of a lightning strike count the seconds between the strike and thunder and divide by five to get the answer in miles. ( This means it is a lot closer than thought if you counted the old way.)

The beautiful TwinkyDuck’s contribution is perfect for the amount of snow this state and the country has had in the last two months. “ The greatest snowfall recorded in Phoenix in one season was one inch. The most snow recorded in a winter season in Arizona was 400.9 inches as Sunrise Mountain during the winter of 1972-1973. The United States record is 1140 inches (95 feet) which fell at the Mount Baker Ski area in Washington during the winter of 1998-99.”

The quote I am stealing from the author William Least Heat- Moon is as follows; “…poor maps, like muffed weather reports, make for adventure….and failure.”

The song of the month is “There Ain’t No Bad Weather In Heaven” by Skid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. And there you have it my faithful readers. Until next month remember;
Pioneers took bullets, Settlers took land.

The Honorary, Award Winning and Distinguished MR BlueDuck