April 2013 Weather News!
Welcome to another exciting edition of Blue Duck Weather. It is almost becoming a spring right of passage for Fargo to deal with major flooding of the Mighty Red River in April. Four out of the past five years the town has come together to sand almost a million bags. Many feel is brings a sense of community and unity (I say just get the hell out of Fargo.)
And for a lot of folks in the Country spring never did arrive in April. Thousands of snow records and low temperatures were broken almost to the end of the month. Many were begging for winter to end. Don’t worry. Before you know it will be hot, muggy and we will be sweating our collective balls off!
Add heavy rains and snowmelt and six Midwestern states have some of the worst flooding in history.
So on a note of eternal optimism and spring in the air your fine staff at Blue Duck Weather has this quote just for its faithful readers. “The best things in life are nearest; breath in your nostrils, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. (ponder the last two sentences.) -Robert Louis Stevenson.
April was mild on The Land. There was only one day it hit a hundred degrees and it only lasted a few minutes. The average temperature was 68.11 degrees, 10.50 degrees warmer than the beginning of the month. Talking Trees and Antelope Hill had average temps of 46.66 degrees.
Welcome rain fell on The Land on April 8th leaving the total for the year at 2.07” To date Phoenix has had 2.67”.
It seems the spring snowmelt and runoff in the high country has helped my beloved Roosevelt Lake but I fear it is short lasting. At 54% capacity it is bound to only shrink from here until next spring. Mead is at 51%, Pleasant 85% and Powell 47%.
In this edition of Blue Duck Weather satisfy your twisted weather craving with the difference one year can make in weather extremes, the scientific definition of a severe thunderstorm, do you know what causes the most weather related deaths in the United States?, the scientific definition of a severe thunderstorm, the name “Sandy” removed from the revolving alphabetical list of tropical storms and hurricanes (bad luck or too painful of a memory to have a named storm after her again I suppose), the heaviest fish caught in Arizona state history on April 12th, tornado chasing begins on April 9th by the NWS, seven rattlesnake bites in seven days in Maricopa County, Arizona (the fuckers are back!), “Winter Storm Waldo” ( I thought it was spring and where is the consistency of naming winter storm as first announced by the NWS months ago?), New Mexico woman charged with child abuse after letting her son cross a protective barrier and “pet” a bob cat, dire warnings about the Arizona river of my boyhood, the beautiful Verde, Which river is called the most endangered river in America though?, an amazing finding of the power of Super Storm Sandy last fall, the deadliest avalanche accident in Colorado since 1962 and debris from the Japan tsunami two years ago finally reaches the West Coast. Read on, there is so much more!
4-1- March 2012 to March 2013; from extreme warmth to cold. On March 17 last year International Falls had a record high of 77 degrees. This year it was 28 degrees below zero. That is a 105 degree temperature swing!
Coldest opening day on record for baseball in Minnesota with a temperature of 35 degrees.
4-3- A record 6.1 inches of rain fell in two hours in Buenos Aires yesterday. Flooding kills five by electrocution and drowning.
4-4 forty six more killed by flooding in Argentina and fifteen hundred evacuated. Water rose so fast it trapped people in their cars and walking on city streets. Twelve to sixteen inches fell in two hours.
It seems like an annual event in Fargo as they stock pile one million sandbags in anticipation of major flooding from spring snow melts.
Two young mountain lion cubs are photographed trapped on a fence by five coyotes in Wyoming’s National Elk Ridge. Eventually one cub ran off with the ‘yotes chasing him and the other dropped down from the fence and hid in the grass. Both cubs were later spotted alive. (I bet if mama was around the fucking coyotes wouldn’t have messed with the cubs.)
4-5 A stranded hiker is rescued in Sedona on a ledge seven hundred feet high after being trapped for twenty four hours. (The photos sure looked like it was near Junipine Resort on Oak Creek.) ((Thank God it wasn't Jesse and Tommy May)
This is the last weekend for skiing at Flagstaff’s Snowbowl. There is a fifty seven inch base and they had an amazing season partly due to the piss water snow blowers they used after a lengthy legal battle.
4-7- Red Flag Warning for central and western New Mexico tomorrow. High wind advisory issued for most of Arizona.
A report by the Natural Resources Conservation Center states that the mountain snow pack in Arizona is 40% of normal. The Southwest is in “tough shape” of water outlook for the rest of the year.
According to a meteorology professor at Plymouth State University the biggest U.S. weather killer by far is car accidents with seven thousand a year. Weather related crashes are those that occur in adverse weather like rain, sleet, snow, fog or on slick pavement. Multi-car pileups get media attention but single or two car accidents on wet roads cause the most deaths. (Dust storms are not mentioned but are deadly also. In my opinion dust can blind you more unexpectedly than fog.)
All people who have free time in Fargo are urged to fill sandbags at “Sandbag Central” as they prepare for the mighty Red River to hit flood stage, expected in ten days.
4-8- What a wild weather day for Arizona, the Phoenix area and The Land! 35mph peak wind gusts at the official weather station on The Land. A totally unexpected and appreciated .19’’ of rain. The pressure fell from 28.05 to 27.88 in a brief amount of time (I was getting worried about tornadoes.)
65mph peak wind gusts recorded at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. I-10 closed in both directions near Pichaceo Peak due to jack knifed rigs in the blowing shit. Forty mile stretch of I-40 closed near Flagstaff. Highway 89 south of Flagstaff closed. Four inches of snow in Lakeside, Arizona. Snow level drops to five thousand feet.
70 mph winds in Southern California and up to two feet of snow in some of the higher mountains in Colorado.
There have been seven reported rattlesnake bites in the last seven days in Maricopa County. One man was bitten getting out of his hot tub. Last year there were two hundred and seventy rattlesnake bites in Arizona, one hundred and sixteen of them in Maricopa County. The last fatality from a snake bite was last October in Chino Valley. The unfortunate 63 year old woman was bitten by a Mohave rattler, the most venomous rattlesnake in the world.
A quiet beginning in March for tornadoes. The fewest number in “decades” were reported. There were ninety eight tornadoes reported in March. Last year there had already been one hundred and fifty four reported with 43 deaths.
A Severe Tunderstorm is defined as “any thunder storm that produces either tornadoes, hail at least one half inch in diameter and wind gusts 58mph or greater.” ( I have had severe thunderstorms at The Land that haven’t met these requirements but the effects of flooding and downed trees and power lines were just as real.)
4-9- The annual tornado hunt begins today by the NWS with an official vehicle and storm chaser assigned to the task. On this first day severe weather was tracked and chased in northwest Kansas and Colorado observing 60mph winds and hail. (sign me up for this job!)
Forrest Lakes, Arizona received seven inches of snow yesterday, described as December weather.
Eighty two degrees in New York City. Seventeen degrees on the west side of the state of Kansas and seventy four degrees on the east side.
4-10-Winter Storm Waldo in the Plains breaks new snow and temperature records. Rapid City, South Dakota records twenty two inches with twenty inches falling in a twenty four hour period, shattering a sixty nine year old record.The foothills of Colorado received eighteen inches of snow. Yesterday in Denver it never got above twenty two degrees, the coldest on record. Cheyenne, Wyoming had a high of twelve degrees, the coldest on record.
71mph winds damaged a a marina at Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming.
In Nebraska searchers on snowmobiles find a nineteen year old man alive after they found the body of his mother in a field near Berea. The woman called her husband to tell him she was stranded by heavy snow and was leaving her car to walk home. Her son left home to meet up with her. Her son was later found holed up in an abandoned farm house with severe hypothermia. ( This struck me not only profoundly sad but tragic in a simple way. Apparently the mom thought she was close enough to home she could make it on foot and her son could meet up with her to makes sure she got home. It must have been blizzard conditions, bearings lost, or the killing cold underestimated. In the worst of weather conditions “home” might as well be a thousand miles away.)
`4-11- Confirmed tornadoes strike Mississippi, Arkansas and Birmingham, Alabama. One person killed, three homes destroyed and fifty damaged. One tornado was on the ground for 56 miles! One hundred mile per hour gusts in northern Arkansas and the governor declares fifteen counties disaster areas.
Hurricane name Sandy will be dropped and will be renamed Sarah. Only the names that have caused the worst damage are “retired.”
4-12- This contribution is from the Lovely Mrs. BlueDuck: A hundred and twenty pound mountain lion is “arrested” after prowling and jumping fences in Los Angeles. The trouble maker is is tranquilized and taken to the hills. (How would you like to be enjoying your back yard tranquility only to see this beast jumping the fence into your yard? I like animal “terrorists” in the city.)
4-13- A Surprise, Arizona man has caught a 75.52 pound flathead catfish at Bartlett Lake north of Scottsdale. Arizona Game & Fish delared it the heaviest record fish of any species in state history. The previous record was a 74 pound flathead caught in 1988.
Winter Storm Xerxes bearing down on the northern Plains. The Red River flood is delayed as parts of South Dakota and Minnesotta may have another ice event this month. Winter Storm Warnings are posted from Montana to North Dakota.
Red Flag Warning issued tomorrow for the Little Colorado River Valley and northern Arizona.
4-14- Winter Storm Xerxes is the fourteenth named storm in the Weather Channel’s alphabetical list of winter storms for 2012-2013. (How come this is only the second named one I’ve read about? Seems like local forecasters haven’t caught on, even the ones on The Weather Channel.)
Sixteen inches of snow in western North Dakota. Tornado Watch issued in the Florida Panhandle.
The Fisher Fire near Flagstaff triples in size to thity five acres and is 40% contained. Wind gusts up to 60mph aren’t helping and the fire is human caused.
A sixty year old hiker is missing in a Washington State avalanche in the Cascade Mountains west of I-90.
A New Mexico woman has been charged with child abuse after the child was mauled by a bob cat at the zoo. She took her son across a protective barrier to get a closer look. His brother said they were petting the cats. One cat grabbed the boy by the head and began pulling him away. It took eight staples to close the head wound. (Mrs. Blueduck thinks they should have just taken that sorry excuse for a mom and tossed her into the pen....)
4-15- More High Wind Warnings are issued for northern Arizona tomorrow.
According to a U.S. Geological Survey report population growth and ground water pumping are taxing the Verde River in Arizona to the point it may dry up in summer months. Area leaders are calling for conservation programs to prevent “an economic and ecological crisis.”
4-16- A Mesa, Arizona man gets two years probation in last summer’s Sunflower fire near Payson. The man has admitted to starting the 18,000 acre fire last May 12th when he was camping with friends at a bachelor party. (I think this was the dude that shot a cardboard box in dry grass with an incendiary shotgun shell. The fire got away from him obviously.)
“Winter Storm Yogi (you have to be kidding me, how fucking fierce does that name sound?) Bears down on the Plains.” A half foot of snow in Nebraska and western South Dakota. Northern Colorado may get two feet of snow.
So far April has been one of the coldest for Fairbanks, Alaska. The average temperature is 9.7 degrees, sixteen degrees below normal and what the weather should be like in early March. On April 11 it was 21 degrees below zero.
4-17- Colorado River named, once again this year, as “the most endangered river” according to the non profit American Rivers. “The current trends are not sustainable” with an ever expanding population, a shrinking Rocky Mountain snowmelt and plans to build new pipelines to carry water away from the river.
Possible unprecedented flooding on the Red River prompts new forecasting plan. Fargo has received double the normal amount of snow in March.
Tornado Watch in Oklahoma.
A thirty four year old man is missing in the Superstition Mountains. Family said he didn’t have much water. ( Thankfully it has been cool and windy and the nights there are probably cold with out the proper clothing. I doubt a man on a casual hike would be prepared for any weather other than what he was blessed with on the day he set out.)
4-18- Up to four inches of rain in parts of the Midwest with major flooding in Chicago.
Severe thunderstorms and damaging winds from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi Valley today and tonight.
Snow and ice have closed roads in Colorado and Wyoming. Flooding rivers in Iowa and Illinois. Tornado damage in Oklahoma. Lightning temporarily knocks out electricity to a nuclear power plant.
Forty one degree low at The Land this morning! I suppose this cool of a temperature is gone until next November. ( The Lovely Mrs. BlueDuck will be cussing me soon for having us live in this hot desert.)
4-20- Missing hiker in the Superstition Mountains in Arizona has been found dead after five days. His body was discovered yesterday near a canyon south of Siphon Draw. A helicopter could not get to the rugged terrain so hikers are going in to recover the body.
Thirty eight counties in Illinois are declared disaster areas due to severe flooding. Floodwaters from the Illinois River are near record levels in Utica, Illinois. Many homes and businesses are flooded and two deaths reported.
Flooding closes roads and schools in northern and central Indiana.
4-21- First 90 degrees at The Land. (Here we go.)
Major river flooding in six Midwestern states have forced evacuations, closed bridges, flooded homes and caused three deaths.
State of Emergency in Clarksville, Missouri. People have been sandbagging for four days to keep water out of town. Last week a months worth of rain was dumped in a few hours.
According to scientists Superstorm Sandy registered on earthquake sensors all the way to the Pacific Northwest. As Sandy hit New Jersey and New York last October the force of waves slamming into each other shook the sea floor. Energy generated by Sandy was equivalent to a magnitude 2 or 3 earthquake.
Yesterday five back country snowboarders were killed in an avalanche near Loveland Pass, Colorado. A sixth man was buried but able to dig out and call for help. The group may have set off the avalanche while hiking up a drainage area. The snow wave was 650 feet wide, 1,000 feet long and 8 feet deep. Four feet of snow had fallen in recent days. This was the deadliest avalanche accident since 1962.
4-22- Earthday 2013. Hayduke Lives!
From his secluded location in Colorado RyDuck reports fifteen degrees with the wind chill and snow. (And here in the desert it is in the nineties but last year on this date had a record high of 105 degrees!)
Two hundred evacuated in the foothills east of Los Angeles due to a brush fire sparked by equipment a gardner was using in a back yard.
The continuing river flooding in the Midwest from a week of rain and winter snowmelt are becoming dangerous in six states.
Missouri governor declares a State of Emergency and deploys the National Guard to help fight flooding. (How the hell do you fight it?)
State of Emergency in Illinois. The Wabash River rose fourteen feet, the highest since1959.
Two drivers killed in Arcadia, Indiana when their cars were swept into flooded Cicero Creek.
4-23- Winter Storm Zeus dumps more than a foot of snow in South Dakota. High temperatures are ten to thirty degrees lower than normal from the Mississippi Valley west to the Plains and Rockies. Low record temperatures in South Dakota and Kansas.
4-24- Floodwaters rising to near record levels along the Illinois River in central Illinois. In Peoria Heights roads and buildings are flooded and riverfront structures completely submerged.
4-25- A tornado leaves a two mile swath of damage near New Orleans.
4-26- The Mighty Red River near Fargo threatens to break records. This poor town has had to prepare with a million sand bags four times in the past five years. (Is this just a spring right of passage for these folks?) The President declares a State of Emergency for South Dakota.
Chicago has experienced the wettest April on record.
4-27- A barnacle covered fishing boat has washed ashore in Crescent City, California. It has been confirmed as the first debris from the 2011 Japan tsunami to reach California.
4-28- First one hundred degree day in Phoenix. Average is May 2nd.
105 degrees in El Centro, California.
“Out of Nowhere.” Severe flash flooding in Texas and parts of the South. Houston received eight inches of rain in a few hours! One hundred and fifty water rescues in five hours. 40,000 without power.
Officials begin bear proofing Payson area campsites after last year’s attacks. Twenty seven of two hundred and sixty campsites have metal storage containers for food and bear proof trash receptacles. ( I have seen bear proof trash containers in south east Arizona, Montana and Alaska but I have never seen metal storage containers for food.)
Federal wildlife managers are releasing two pairs of the endangered Mexican gray wolf in Arizona and New Mexico. The first pair will be released in the Apache National Forest in southe east Arizona. They will be crated and taken into the back country on speciall trained news. Supplemental feed will be provided while the wolves learn to catch prey.
2-29- First one hundred degree day on The Land but it was brief.
The Phoenix Rescue Mission hopes to deliver 400,000 bottles of water to the valley’s homeless population this summer. Instead of focusing on downtown and south Phoenix the non profit organization plans to expand to Guadalupe, Buckeye, east Mesa and Sunnyslope. These areas have high numbers of homeless people but few agencies. Last year there were 106 confirmed heat related deaths.
4-30- April was the snowiest on record for Rapid City, South Dakota, Duluth, Minnesota and Boulder, Colorado. Eleven hundred snow fall records and thirty four hundred cold records have been set across the nation this month. On April 24th, a twenty one degree low in Amarillo, Texas was the coldest on record.
One meterologist said “the weather map lookes like something out of the Twilight Zone” last week.
The third day of heavy rain and flooding in San Antonio, Texas.
A woman has been given rabies vaccines after being bitten by a bobcat behind a store in Show Low, Arizona.
And that my faithful readers concludes another exhausting edition of Blue Duck Weather. But before we sadly leave you until month we will leave you with a very appropriate weather song for this April; “When it’s Springtime in Alaska it’s Forty Below” by Johnny Horton.
Remember Pioneers took bullets. Settlers took Land.
The Honorable, Distinguished Professor MR Blue Duck
