May 2013 Blue Duck Weather News

May 2013 Weather News!

Welcome to a brand spanking new edition of Blue Duck Weather, the most comprehensive journal on weather news and other tidbits of information to keep you entertained, educated and bored out of your minds for hours. Blue Duck Weather is a perfectly natural sleep aid when you just cannot keep your eye lids open any longer reading the boring statistics and general garbage. But hang on, it’s time to see what happened around the Land, the state, the Country and the world! And your fine staff at Blue Duck Weather is proud and excited to announce a mile stone for this award winning weather journal. Blue Duck Weather has received over seven thousand worldwide views since it began has a fledgling duck journalistic exercise!

Find out what country bans air conditioning for the summer, federal budget cuts affect the NWS, tornado activity in the U.S. to date being mild for this time of year (at the beginning of the month), a string of wildfires intentionally set in northern Arizona, major chicken news in Arizona, the absolutely depressing continuing decline of honeybees, Southern California on fire all the way to the ocean, record snow in parts of the U.S. in May, what the United Nations reports as a world food source that should be used, a mild tornado season turns deadly with an EF-5, “the most powerful winds on earth”, the strongest National Weather Service Warning language I have ever read in front of a tornado, the disappearance of the American frog?, the state that sets the longest amount of snow days on record, and what the prolonged drought is doing to the United States beef industry.

On Sunday, May 19th in the afternoon I was visiting one my weather sites and saw playing out in real time a massive tornado headed for Kansas and Oklahoma. The NWS warning was the most explicit and hard language I have ever heard. With words like “take cover now or you will die” shocked me at the eminence of this monster. Moore, Oklahoma took the brunt of it with 23 lost and 13,000 homes and businesses damaged or destroyed. The force of this monster tornado with winds over two hundred miles per hour was greater than the atomic bomb in Japan so many years ago. And then again on May 31st a slow moving storm seventy plus miles wide bears down on Oklahoma City, again with Moore in the possible fire lines. Read the chilling details in this latest feature of Blue Duck Weather!

Meanwhile back at “The Land” May was mild with only three days that the temperature reached one hundred degrees. The average temperature for the month was 79.45 degrees with the highs seven degrees warmer than the beginning of the month. Talking Trees and Antelope Hill at 7400’ in New Mexico had an average temperature of 53.81 degrees with the highs 5.5 degrees higher than the beginning of the month.

There was no rain in May at The Land and the drought brutally carries on and takes its toll in so many ways. Rain for the year 2.07”. The lakes that matter for Arizona and the South West speak of this. Mead is 49% full, Pleasant is 75%, Powell 47% and Roosevelt 54%.

Let us begin with all the news that matters now!

5-1- A five hundred acre fire burning near Chino Valley, Arizona. No cause yet but dry and windy conditions. Red Flag Warnings for western and southern Arizona.

Late spring snow dumps a half foot in the Rockies. A record high low of 27 degrees in Denver. Records set in the Plains and Dakotas for snowfall.

5-2- Rochester, Minnesota has a historic thirteen and a half inches of snow today! The previous record for this date is only two inches.

A bear is found wandering near an Elementary school in east Mesa, Arizona. The bear appears to be in good health and will be released “back into the wild” next week. ( What we call the “wild” is the bear’s home or was. Thirst or hunger probably drove him closer to “humanity”. I bet that poor bear was fucking freaked out near a school, traffic and bear insanity.)

A well known thirty seven year old British adventurer has died and two others with him have suffered extreme frostbite injuries as they tried to cross Greenland’s ice cap for a charity hike. The expedition was caught by a strong, cold wind. A rescue helicopter was not able to reach the men for a day until winds died down.

5-3- A ten thousand acre wildfire is burning out of control in southern California. Flames are approaching Malibu and choppers are using ocean water to douse them. The Spring Fire has placed 4,000 homes in danger.

Record flooding has ended the drought in some parts of the Midwest. The far West is still suffering from a lack of winter rain and snow.

The Chandler, Arizona Planning & Zoning Commission approves a 4-2 vote on allowing urban chickens. As many as five hens will be allowed in a residential back yard. Opponents fear allowing chickens will bring pests and the sounds and smells of a farm to their neighborhoods. (So what the fuck is wrong with that?) If passed the ordinance will not prohibit slaughtering of chickens at a residence just as the city does not prohibit a hunter from butchering a deer at a residence.

5-4- The Spring Fire has burned 28,000 acres and 4,000 homes are threatened in Ventura and Malibu, California.

This is the first time on record Arkansas has had snow in May.

5-5- Firefighters are getting the upper hand on The Spring Fire. 60% containment at 30,000 acres and forty buildings damaged. Cooler temperatures and rain are helping the control immensely.

Ten small fires that broke out in Coconino National Forest in Arizona are under investigation. The fires combined burned three to four acres. All occurred in the same general area near Marshall Lake.

A fifty four year old man dies of heart failure on a hike up Squaw Peak in Phoenix.

And this just in from The Lovely Mrs. BlueDuck: An Alabama man hunting for turkey in the woods was struck by a deadly pit viper rattlesnake in the lower left leg. He was scared and nervous but made a move that doctors agree may have saved his life. The man carried a ten dollar snake bite kit in his pack for years. He pulled it out but didn’t know how to use it at first. He stuck the tip of the extractor over the bite, pushed the plunger down and pulled up creating a suction that brought the venom with it. He was then able to drive himself to a hospital. ( I have carried a snake bite kit in my pack for thirty five years but it is more old fashioned and probably dangerous than the one described above. It has a suction device and a razor blade, no plunger. I think I will upgrade my snake bite kit to a current “model.”)

5-6- Wind gusts up to 40 mph in central Oregon toppled trees, blocking roads and knocking down power lines. Two small wildfires set off and forty homes evacuated.

New news on the disappearing honey bee that your fine staff at Blue Duck Weather began reporting several years ago; bees pollinate one third of our diet. 42% bee loss this past winter. Mice, weather and pesticides may be the cause. ( This is not headline news anywhere but if the bee were to become extinct so would we. The genius Albert Einstein even commented on it some eighty years ago. He said something to the effect that if bees were gone the human population would have about four years left on this planet.)

More chicken news from Arizona: “Chickens are moving from farms to metropolitan and suburb backyards in growing numbers, a movement inspired by a desire for a more sustainable lifestyle……” Phoenix allows up to twenty chickens in a back yard. One woman said “That at a time when people are interested in eating locally nothing is more local than a person’s backyard.”

(I bet if the grocery stores closed for only one week there would never be another word of protest, like Chandler, about not wanting to bring farm sounds and smells to the city. People would be killing each other for the common variety of “backyard chicken.”)

5-7- Snow falls on the San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona today and the snow level drops to 7500’ (in May!)

The Forest Service is spending 160 million dollars for seven new air tankers to fight forest fires. ( It’s obvious this program wasn’t part of the federal budget cuts.)

A suspect has been arrested in setting the string of fires last weekend near Flagstaff.

5-8- An incredible cool high of 79 degrees at The Land with a low of 59 degrees. Parts of Canada and the Pacific Northwest were warmer than Arizona and Florida today. Due to locked in high pressure Edmonton had a high of 88 degrees today.

Two inches of rain fall in parts of New York City this morning resulting with street flooding.

5-10- In the last twelve months the United States has experienced the fewest number of tornadoes since 1954. (That was a good year!) Through yesterday tornadoes have killed three people in 2013. By this time in 2011 543 folks had been killed!

A lightning strike injures 39, eight severely at a Father’s Day party in east Germany.

Automatic federal spending cuts may reduce staff at the National Weather Service. The cutbacks are happening just as hurricane season is approaching. A spokesman said the NWS is worried they will not be able to provide the level of sevice as in the past.

Four to six inches or rain in Houston in twenty four hours results in major flooding.

A man who set a string of fires last weekend near Flagstaff will get a psychological evaluation at the request of his defense lawyer.

5-11- The killer drought is getting worse in New Mexico with no relief in site. The map from federal forecasters show exceptional drought has spread from a quarter of New Mexico to 40% in one week! Snowmelt and runoff are just 5% of average. One water district says it has only enough water for irrigation for thirty to forty days. That will be the shortest season in one hundred years.

Pakistan has banned air conditioners for the summer due to an energy crisis. The country often reaches 104 degrees and above in the summer.

5-12- Powerful winds drive giant blocks of ice toward townhouses on the shore of Lake Mille Lacs in Minnesota. In a bizarre photo two foot blocks of wind swept ice is inching across patios at two feet per minute. No injuries but several homes damaged.

5-14- 33mph winds in Show Low, Arizona with rain showers.

Bees sting five hikers on a trail in the Catalina Mountains wilderness area near Tucson, including a six year old boy who had to be hospitalized for signs of shock. He was stung over one hundred times and four men were stung over 150 times.

There are five hundred fewer firefighters in the nation due to Federal budget cuts to face wildfires this summer. 10,500 were employed last summer. 48% of the Continental U.S. under a moderate to severe drought condition.

5-15- Tornado Warnings are issued for Dallas. Severe thunderstorms and two tornadoes reported in north east Texas.

Earth’s global melt has reached Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain. Glaciers have shrunk 13% in fifty years and the snowline haas moved upward 590’.

A boat full of people trying to flee Cyclone Mahansen has capsized near Myanmar. There are fifty souls missing and eight bodies found.

The United Nations proposes a world wide effort to eat more insects for protein sources. Declining world meat sources part of the reason.( I bet there are billions of people over time that have had to rely on this food source and still do. I have no problem with it at all if that is what it came down to. Hell, I would even eat a rattler raw if it came down to it.)

5-16- Six dead, seven missing, one hundred injured and two hundred and fifty homeless after an unconfirmed seven tornadoes strike north Texas. Granbury is one of the hardest hit area with an EF-4 tornado reported with 200 mph winds. Residents had 15-30 minute warnings before the deadly beasts struck.
If the EF-4 is confirmed it will be the first one to hit Texas since 1994.

Red Flag wind warnings in northern Arizona. (This may not mean a tornado but it sure means a fire warning, another deadly beast.)

One million flee as Cyclone Mahansen bears down on the Bangledesh coast. 18 deaths reported and the storm could bring life threatening conditions to 8.2 million people.

(If you saw the picture in the following report it would break your heart although it has a good ending.) A coyote pup covered with cholla clumps and facing an agonizing death was rescued this week by two golf course workers in Sun City, Arizona. The idiot ran headfirst into a cactus and was stumbling around in pain. One man held the pup and the other pulled the cholla out with a pair of pliers. The poor little bastard was then reunited with its mother.

5-17- Sixteen confirmed tornadoes yesterday in northern Texas. The confirmed EF-4 was a half mile wide! The damage in Granbury has most of the town off limits until gas and electric can be safely restored. The seven missing earlier have been found safe. One woman that was killed was in her house that was blown 200 yards.

Thirty five million people in the United States are under threat of severe, imbedded thunderstorms.The largest tornado outbreak is feared from Minnapolis to Kansas City.

Thankfully Cyclone Maharen weakens to a Tropical Storm and causes far less damage in Bangladesh than feared. 45 folks have lost their lives.

The world’s glaciers have lost 260 gigatons of water each year between 2003 and 2009, causing a third of sea level rise. (Hell, I don’t even know what a gigaton is but it sounds like a lot of fucking water!)

5-19- A large and very violent tornado is being monitored this afternoon near Wichita, Kansas. Torando Warnings posted for Oklahoma County in Oklahoma. Baseball size hail is reported in Luther, Oklahoma. National Weather warning at 3:45 p.m. “A confirmed large, violent and extremely dangerous tornado was located on the southwest side of Wichita, moving northeast at 30mph. This is an EXTREMELY dangerous tornado with complete devastation likely. You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter. Do not delay seek shelter now! (It does not get any more ominous or forboding than this!)

Parts of Atlanta, Georgia receives 5.1’’ of rain and severe flooding.

Anchorage sets new record for the longest snow season, 232 days, the old record is 230 days set in 1981-82.

5-20- An unconfirmed EF-5 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma south of Oklahoma City. There are fires out of control with thirty square miles of reckage and carnage. Four killed and one school has the walls and roof blown away. Children are being rescued and the Oklahoma governor declares a State of Emergency for sixteen counties. The tornado was up to two miles wide and forty minutes on the ground.

Deadly rainstorm kills 55 in southern China with 14 missing.

5-21- EF-5 tornado confirmed in Moore. Twenty four dead including nine children at Plaza Towers school. Two hundred and thirty seven injured.

5-22- Fortunately no more dead found in Moore but the injured is up to 324 and 13,000 homes damaged or destroyed. An EF- 5 storm has the most powerful winds on earth and the energy this storm exerted was more powerful than the atomic bomb in Japan. (As deadly as Mother Nature can be at least she does not leash out deadly radiation to affect a “war zone” for hundreds if not thousands of years.)

5-23- The Soldier Base Fire near Nogales, Arizona is 15% contained at seven square miles of grass and brush in the Coronado National Forest. It is human caused.

In Miami, Florida Wildlife officials are investigating an online video that shows a man jumping on two manatees. He appears to be doing a cannon ball on top of a manatee and young calf near a dock. The agency is investigating the possible violations of the Endangered Species Act.

An eighty year old Japanese man becomes the oldest Mount Everest climber. He said “It is to challenge my own ultimate limit. It is to honor the great Mother Nature.”

5-24- Above average hurricane season is predicted by NOAA- Part of the determing factors is a continuation of long term atmospheric climate pattern which includes a strong West African monsoon. This has been going on since 1995 and the trend lasts for 25-40 years.
Another contributing factor is warmer than average water temps. In the tropical Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
El Nino is not expected to develop and suppress hurricane formation.

Flash Flood Warnings for parts ot Texas up to Massachusetts today.

5-25- Flash flooding near San Antonio, Texas has killed two women, both of who were swept away from their cars in low lying flood areas. A teen also swept away and has not been found. 21-16” of rain fell in twenty four hours.

Rains and (yes) snow knock out power in Vermont to four thousand customers with flooding and up to three inches of snow. Temperatures in the North East ten to thirty degrees below normal.

5-27 Search teams near San Antonio find the body of a missing eighteen year old who tried to swim across a flooded wash two days ago.
Red Cross shelters set up for at least twenty people, some to help people after their apartment complex roof caved in under the weight of heavy rain.

5-28- Red Flag Warnings in south and south east Arizona posted due to high winds and very dry conditions.

Wildfire in Santa Barbara County, California causes 4,000 evacuations in camp grounds and summer homes. 1200 acres have burned.

Thunderstorms with 60 mph winds and half dollar sized hail this morning in parts of Colorado and Kansas.

Tornado Warnings are posted in four states from Oklahoma to Wisconsin.

The Frog Fire in Gila County, Arizona is at 20% containment at six acres near Young. Human caused with one structure lost.

Seven dead after a rain soaked hill has collapsed on a major highway north of Mexico City.

A Spanish climber dead on the Himalayas after falling and surviving for three nights without food or water. Rescue attempts failed to get him down to an elevation where he could be rescued by helicopter. ( What a strong and brave soul this man was to survive that long presumably injured with no food or water.)

5-29- Strong thunderstorms near Dallas cancels the Diamond Back- Rangers game.

5-30- Tornado spotted in Oklahoma and Arkansas this afternoon. This slow moving system extends from Wisconsin to Texas.

Hurricane Barbara floods Mexico’s southern Pacific coast with two dead and fourteen fishermen missing in the state of Oaxaca. Six to ten inches or rain and three and a half foot storm surges.

A new wildfire has flared up north of Los Angeles. Four hundred acres have burned this afternoon. Power utilities threatened.

5-31- “Take cover now!” A massive slow moving storm with tornadoes touching down in Oklahoma City. All people at Will Rogers International Airport are taken downstairs to a concrete tunnel. This massive sytem is seventy miles wide and Moore, Oklahoma is threatened.

Fast moving wildfire in the New Mexico Santa Fe National Forest prompts evacuations of homes and campgrounds. 1,000 acres have burned west of Santa Fe. The cause is a downed power line on private land.

1400 acre wildfire north of Los Angeles is 15% contained.

And so it goes, a weather merry go round from day to day, month to month, year to year. From gentle and pleasant to terrifying and distrustful and where it hits is anyone’s guess, even for the science we have. With that said we will leave you with a far more gentle quote than dealing with wildfires and tornadoes. “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water” by Loren Eisley.


Until the next weather event slams you around like so many pinballs on a collision course remember Pioneers took bullets. Settlers took land.


Always humble, Professor MR Blue Duck