December 2103, Thank God this year is over, Blue Duck Weather News

December 2013 Weather News!



Rattlesnakes. You are probably asking yourself why this old fool is opening another amazing Blue Duck Weather News about snakes. It is too damn cold for rattlesnakes in the desert (you think) and what do rattlesnakes have to do with weather?

I waited until December to write this piece as I felt it was finally cold enough not to have any surprise visits from the bastards. But on a much deeper level I am concerned because I did not see one rattlesnake on The Land all spring, summer and fall. This has to be a first in thirty three years! I can’t say I miss the encounters as they are not pleasant at all and are always a surprise of pissed off energy, buzzing and tongue flickering warning you to stay the fuck away or suffer the consequences. But I guess if you are around the enemy for a long period of time, you miss your enemy once you have conquered them or they are gone.

That is what worries me about the absence of rattlesnakes at The Land. It is a sign of much broader ecological conditions, some I will never be aware of as I don’t look through the black glass fixed eyes of a snake. But I do know that fifteen years of drought means little rain, less grass and plants, fewer quail (and their eggs that rattlesnakes love to swallow whole), fewer prairie dogs (That rattlesnakes love to swallow whole, hair and all. Believe me, I have skinned rattlers that had entire stinking rats inside them. It is not a pretty sight or pleasant smell.) In other words the circle of ecology is missing right now. I will not say it is dead but I do worry.

I have shot enough rattlesnakes over the years I suppose there is some guilt in me or fear that I have lead to their absence. But at the time I had the best interest of pets, quacklings and the Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck in mind. I have shot at least two snakes that crawled through a doggie door into my father’s house. One was behind his refrigerator and my dad thought the noise was the fridge compressor going out. That is all I need is to have an old dad barely able to see or hear with a heart condition, to be bit by a rattlesnake.

That is not to say they are gone. They can surprise you even in the winter. Rattlesnakes don’t truly hibernate. If it gets warm enough they will emerge from some hell den and sun themselves thinking of some fat rat to eat or dream of striking you as you walk by in ignorant bliss. One January afternoon about eighteen years ago TwinkyDuck and I arrived home from work in the late afternoon. As we were walking up to the front porch she asked me what the sound was she was hearing from the back of the house. I had a cold and my ears were ringing so I didn’t hear it at first. And then it sounded like running water. But under a window air conditoner was a thoroughly pissed off rattler letting the world know he did not want to be messed with. You would think the rattler would have been lethargic from months of colder weather and sleepy. No way and he was buzzing like hell with nothing around him to spook him.

And finally on December 4th of this year the Lovely Mrs. Blueduck told me there was a fat rattlesnake sunning on a sidewalk at the school she teaches at with eight or nine quacklings around it. The temperature was 55 degrees. Go figure!

In some twisted but natural way I hope the rattlers are not gone for good at The Land. But I also know karma is a bitch. As many of them I have killed I will probably be nailed by one when I least expect it, like January when I refuse to believe the buzzing sound is not a snake but has to be water spraying or something else “rational.”

Read about a Scottsdale, Arizona woman and her dog “attacked” by javelinas, the weather term “Nada”, an amazing survival story about a young couple and their kids stranded in snow, the awful rising death toll from Typhoon Hayian last month, the state with the dubious record of the driest calendar year on record and the mysterious and tragic account of a missing hiker in Oak Creek Canyon in Sedona, Arizona.

But first let us list the data weather facts for the month. The average temperature at The Land for December was 47.74 degrees. The average for Talking Trees and Antelope Hill was 32.17 degrees.

It was an impressive rain year by recent standards with near average amounts of yearly rainfall. On The Land .15 inches fell bringing the yearly total to 7.66 inches. Phoenix received 8.42 inches. But it varied across the Valley. Glendale only received 5.16’’ while Scottsdale received 10.32’’!

Lake Mead finished the year at 47% capacity, Pleasant at 66%, Powell at 43% (nearing record lows), and Roosevelt 47%.

12-2- Rare fog drapes the Grand Canyon caused by a “classic air inversion” with warm air on the top and cold wet air on the bottom. ( I noticed this phenomenon in the desert for several mornings recently. Although it hasn’t rained in over a week the ground is so wet that there was actually fog.)

Winter Storm Cleon approaches with heavy snow in the Rockies, Midwest and ice in the South.

12-3- Nine states are under Winter Storm Warnings. Temps drop in Denver 26 degrees in two hours. Little Rock, Arkansas preparing for a 40 degree drop.

12-4- Dense fog in Belgium causes a 130 vehicle pileup. One dead and seventy six injured. Some victims were in their vehicles for several hours in freezing temperatures. Emergency workers handed out emergency thermal blankets. (I happen to have one in my back pack just in case. They are called space blankets.)

Forty degree drop in temperature in Dallas in twenty-four hours. Ten degree high in Denver. Snow and ice in 27 states. Twenty inches of snow and 40mph winds in Deluth.

12-5- 53 degree high at The Land. Freeze Warnings issued for all of Maicopa and Pinal counties for the next five or six days.

According to the NWS ice storms could be catastrophic for Dallas with a 50 degree drop in temperature. Seven-eights of the country will be in a deep freeze tomorrow. 0 degrees in Denver, 8 below in Billings (Mrs. BlueDucks home town), 29 below in Meeker, Colorado and the entire state of Wyoming below 0 as of mid-morning.

142 mph winds in Wales!

12-6- The storm with hurricane force winds that hit Britain moves across Europe. Ten thousand evacuated along eastern England’s coast after a warning that the country could be dealing with the worst tidal surges in sixty years!

A Scottsdale, Arizona woman and her dog were walking at six in the morning on Thanksgiving Day. Reportedly she and her dog were attacked by by five charging javelinas. She was knocked to the ground. The dog fought the pigs and suffered serious cuts and puncture wounds. It later took sixty stitches to close the dog’s wounds. “Javelinas have incisors that are literally as sharp as razors” according to Game & Fish spokesman.

12-7- Twenty nine degree low with a 56 degree high on The Land.

From his secluded location in Colorado RyDuck reports there have been five days the high has not been above ten degrees.

The outlook for 2014 in the South West: Neither a wet El Nino or a dry La Nina phase is developing. A NWS drought specialist said to expect a “Nada”, a winter of neutral influences from surface ocean temperatures.

Under pressure from the wind power industry the Obama administration will allow companies to kill or injure eagles without fear of persecution for up to 30 years.

12-9- 49 degree high on The Land!

A foot of snow in Newark. Philadelphia International Airport received 8.6” of snow, more than it had all of last year.

A seventy one year old woman in Virginia hit a deer with her car. The deer was catapulted and struck a twenty two year old jogger. Both women are recovering in a local hospital.

12-10- Record lows, Flagstaff ten below zero, Prescott, ten degrees and Showlow 6 degrees.

A young family trapped in Nevada snow found alive after two days. Two adults and four children went on an outing to Seven Trough Mountain range in their jeep. Their jeep overturned but they managed to keep a fire going with a temperatures at 16 below zero. Their cell phone did not work but the last signal it had helped rescuers find them. They were ten miles from Reno, Nevada.

12-11- “Miracle in the mountains.” What the Nevada family did right. They had water, a machet and a flashlight. They stuck with the overturned jeep and slept in the interior of it at night. They heated rocks during the day and placed them in the jeep.

Bird strikes cause the crash of a eight million dollar Air Force jet in Texas; The two pilots ejected safely.

12-12- Winter Storm Electra blasting the Great Lakes. Lake effect snow in upstate New York and Michigan. Twenty below zero with the wind chill in Chicago.

12-13- Near Rockville, Utah, a rock slide crushes a home killing two. The home was buried by dirt and boulders weighing hundreds of tons. The rock slide caused a dirt cloud so thick traffic on a local highway had to be stopped due to poor visibility.

Arizona Game & Fish asking for help identifying hunters that poached four cow elk in the Coconino National Forest on December 7th. One elk was field dressed and taken. The other three were left to rot. The department is asking anyone traveling on 89A that morning around seven thirty to contact investigators if they witnessed a silver pickup truck facing north on the south side of the shoulder.

Wildlife officials in the northern Rockies say it’s time to remove about seven hundred girzzlies in the Yellowstone National Forest off the Endangered Species Act.

“Get festive without firewood.” Direct warning to Maricopa county residents not to burn on Christmas Eve, Christmas day and New Years day. (I’m glad I live in Pinal county but it wouldn’t make any difference where I live anyway.)

12-14- Typhoon Haiyan death toll has passed six thousand poor souls. Sixteen million homes destroyed or damaged and seventy hundred and seventy nine people still missing. This has become the deadliest disaster ever recorded in the Philippines.

A woman survived three bitter cold nights in Alaska by burning her snowmobile and huddling with her small dog. Later she took shelter under her snowmobile with her small dog. The machine had broken down when she went to check on her husband after he left their cabin to check on a trap line and hadn’t returned. When she was found she was severely hypothermic. Temperatures reached twenty below zero! (There was no mention of the overdue husband.)

12-16- Heavy snow from Missouri to Maine with one hundred million in path and the third storm in the past week.

Historic snow in Jerusalem with one foot. First snow in Cairo in one hundred years.

12-17- The global air temperature for November was the warmest on record. 345th consecutive month with global temperatures above the 20th century average. Combined land and ocean surface temperature 56.6 degrees.

A rare late season wildfire in Big Sur California has destroyed 15 homes and 40 threatened.

12-18- Big Sur Fire is 74% contained with 22 buildings destroyed.

12-19- Winter Storm Gemini buries Salt Lake City with eight inches of snow, closing Logan Airport. Thirteen thousand without power.

From his secluded location in Colorado RyDuck reports a record high of 68 degrees. One week ago was below freezing.

12-20- 7.8 inches of snow in Flagstaff.

12-21- First day of Winter and the shortest amount of sunlight the entire year.

Dense Fog Warning for the Phoenix area, especially in the low lying areas.

Four of thirty one bighorn seep released near Tucson are dead. Three have been killed by mountain lions. The cats supposedly responsible were tracked by Game & Fish and shot and killed. (Something about this does just not seem right. The cats were doing what they do, surviving. So elimate mountain lions? What happened to the food chain and the circle of life?)

12-22- A mixed bag of weather just in time for the holidays: Floods and tornadoes in the south, record highs of sixties and seventies in New York, ice and three hundred thousand without power in Michigan. Eighty degrees in Augusta, Georgia.

12-23- From Michigan to New England 400,000 without power due to ice damages.

A hiker from Flagstaff in missing in Oak Creek Canyon since yesterday. He was supposed to return to Manzanita Campground to be picked up by family after being dropped off on December 18th. He had a sleeping bag, backpack, white tarp, guitar, plenty of water but no food. (?)

12-24- A white Christmas? Forty-seven percent of the U.S. has snow on the ground.

Thirty-four buildings destroyed by the Big Sur Wildfire in central California. It has burned 1.4 square miles.

22 year old hiker in Oak Creek Canyon still missing.

12-25- With temperatures in the low twenties two hundred thousand still without power from Michigan to Maine from ice damage from last week’s storms.

12-26- Eight dead from flooding in the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent.

An expediton “cruise” ship with tourists and researchers is trapped by ice in the Antarctic.

Five days later one hundred thousand from Michigan to Maine still without power. Seven are dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. One hundred thousand in Toronto, Canada without power.

Sixty people on the ground and air support looking for the missing hiker in Oak Creek Canyon. His family says he is an experienced outdoorsmen. The reason he was carrying no food was to fast.

12-27- Army troops deployed in Espirito Santo to help distribute food, water and medicine to victims of flooding and mudslides that have wracked south east Brazil for ten days, killing 39. 60,000 are homeless.

Rescue barge trying to get to the stranded cruise ship in the Antarctic is trapped by ice.

Search is called off for missing hiker in Oak Creek.

The record low in Arizona for this date was 22 degrees in Yuma in 1911.

12-28- California is experiencing the driest calendar year on record. A Drought Emergency has not been declared yet but so far 3.6’’ of rain. An average rain yer is 14.91’’. There could be catastrophic wildfires next year and water allotment restrictions which would affect agriculture in a major way.

12-29- Ravens that hang out at Red Rock Ranger Station near Sedona reak havoc ripping out wiper blades and weather stripping from U.S. Service and employee vehicles. (Maybe they are trying to tell them something like get the fuck out!) A University of Arizona researcher, in an attempt to occupy the birds, has installed puzzle boxes in the parking lot. To get a food reward the clever ravens will have to open a latch on a box. If they figure it out the challenge will be made harder by adding more latches.

12-30- Thirteen below zero in International Falls/

Two hikers triggered a 800’ avalanche slide on Mount Washington, New Hampshire. They have been rescued after unknowingly entered a avalanche area know as “the hip.”

Well, I am sure if you have read the past few months of Amazing Blue Duck Weather you have noticed a rash of javelina encounters in the state of Arizona and its deserts. Today it was confirmed in a big way. “Javelina encounters on the rise in Arizona.” 347 encounters with seven bites this year. Twelve encounters two years ago. “When development grows past the fringes of wilderness areas.”

And that concludes another edition of Blue Duck Weather my faithful readers. Until next month when you have a hot javelina snoot up your ass remember:

Pioneers took bullets. Settlers took land.

The Distinguished, Honorable MR BlueDuck