March 2014 Weather News!
Greetings my loyal readers of Blue Duck Weather! There is enough weather tragedy in these journals as it is. Let us begin on a humorous, if not silly account. There was a fluke and a mild weather disturbance in Arizona this month. It caused a “massive” dust storm in the southern deserts. Thank God it was not called a fucking “Haboob.” It caused enough of a stir that television news had reporters all over the valley exclaiming about the potential damage of the dirt storm, where it had struck and where it was moving. In the paper the next morning the headline news talked about the precursor to the monsoon and blah, blah, blah. What we experienced had nothing to do with the monsoon or the wind flow and moisture during that yearly period of time here in the South West. Was it humorous because to us long time desert dwellers it didn’t mean a whole lot? Was it humorous because normally the weather is so dull here that weather sensationalism is the news event of the day? Or is it humorous because people are idiots, oblivious or have no idea what a dust storm even is? I just don’t know but all the news coverage of a brief weather event made me laugh my ass off.
Now turn the page to where the weather proved to cause a deadly landslide in Oso, Washington. Weeks of rain and saturated soil, even reports of a small earthquake set off a landslide that sent fifteen million cubic yards of mud and rock down the mountain, literally a piece of the mountain crumbled. With mud as deep as forty feet, as I write this, bodies are still being recovered. You will read about the incredible force of nature, the speculation and the sad reality.
In the North East they called it the winter that would never end! And collectively I could hear them scream “IN LIKE A LION AND OUT LIKE A LAMB MY ASS! I am sure there are many casualties of the brutal winter and stories of survival and perish we shall never read. But please take a solemn moment to bow your heads and quack about the thousands of meat eating ducks that perished. These cousins, normally used to steak every night, could not crack through the ice to eat the minnows to sustain them. A sad, sad predicament indeed!
Some of the features in this latest and greatest Blue Duck Weather include, but not limited to (sounds like some bullshit warranty), a city that has had no rain in excess of one inch since October, 2011, a rare confirmed tornado in Mesa, Arizona, a town in northern Arizona that is out of surface ground water and the price to pay, a boy in Montana buried by an avalanche in the backyard of his own home, what Burl poachers are and why they do it, where radiation testing begins almost three years after the great tsunami in Japan all but destroyed nuclear reactors, where the most lightning strikes occur, 30 million salmon hitch a ride, drought and the new gold rush, tuberculosis from cats and an alarming increase in Arizona of severe dog bites.
The average temperature on The Land for the month was 64 degrees. The average for the high country of New Mexico, affectionately known as Talking Trees and Antelope Hill was 52.16 degrees. This was a bit alarming to me. Normally there is a twenty degree difference between the desert here and 7400 feet there. It was not exceptionally cold here in March. Does that mean it was exceptionally warm there?
The Land received .49’’ of rain on one day in March, the only rainfall this year. Phoenix has recorded a more impressive .99’’ of rain, but a proverbial drop in the bucket.
We better keep an eye on the diminishing lake levels, especially Powell. I need not repeat myself in telling you this lake and the lake below it are critical to civilization in the South West as we know it. Powell is down to an astonishing 39%. Mead is 46%, Roosevelt 50% and Pleasant a more reassuring 83%.
3-1- After sixty days with no rain .37’’ of rain at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. Flash Flood Warning out until seven p.m. A possible funnel cloud spotted in Mesa with trees down and reports of a hot tub being thrown over one thousand feet. 1.22’’ of rain in Cave Creek, over 2’’ in Fountain Hills, .75’’ in Surprise and .94’’ in Buckeye.
And here at The Land I had given up on the rain with nothing falling all day. Then sometime after ten p.m. a welcome and fast one half inch fell. It is about fucking time!
A ten acre site that Phoenix bought in 2000 at Tatum and Pinnacle Peak Roads will be turned into a five million gallon reservoir. Lined with concrete it will measure 145’ in diameter, 30’ high with eleven inch walls. It will be buried half way with landscaping around it. (No one has said where the water supply will come from, flooded washes?)
Los Angeles experiences one inch of rain or more for the first time since October, 2011! One inch of rain in San Diego. Water rescues in normally dry L.A. River, 2 to 4’’ of rain in parts of California since yesterday.
Record snowfalls in Missoula, Montana. Avalanche destroys two homes. Two buried in snow found alive.
3-2- Confirmed EF-0 tornado in Mesa, Arizona yesterday at approximately Alma School and University and Alma School Roads with 60-80 mph winds. Enough rain fell that a home near Thomas and 75th Street in Scottsdale under a foot of water.
Ice storms from Oklahoma to Kentucky affecting 139 million people. As another storm approaches some areas in Texas dropped from 80 degrees to 20 degrees twenty four hours.
Snow causes a 104 vehicle pileup on I-25 near Denver. One killed and thirty injured.
3-3- In the aftermath of the latest storm temperature fall like a rock in parts of the Plains and the East. Three inches of ice in Kansas City, Missouri, breaking a record of one inch set in 1962, In Richmond, Virginia the temperature dropped form 72 degrees to 22 degrees with wind driven snow.
3-4- Four degrees in Baltimore breaks a 100 year old record. Atlantic City and parts of New Jersey 2 degrees, Washington D.C. 0 degrees. Three days ago it was 80 degrees in north Texas. Last night it fell to the low 20’s.
Normally running at eight billion gallons per second Niagra Falls frozen for the second time this year!
Cold wet day for the Mardi Gras with highs in the upper forties, twenty degrees below normal.
3-5- The Great Lakes is 90.50% iced over and may set a record, the third highest amount of ice since record keeping began.
Two more bighorn sheep found dead in the Catalina Mountains near Tucson. One breeding male left.
Endangered jaguars receive 1200 square miles of protected habitat in Arizona and New Mexico. “Welcome home to Arizona, jaguars” for cats that venture north from a preserve in Mexico.
3-6- Williams, Arizona is out of surface ground water. Residents can’t water lawns, hose off sidewalks or wash cars. Swimming pools can only be filled with trucked in water. People using 15,000 gallons of water a month will get a 150% water bill increase. (Spooky shit for an area predominant for forests.)
Watch for the effect of El Nino in Arizona next winter. The last major warming waters in the Pacific was 1997-98. This means fewer hurricanes in the Atlantic will occur as the waters will cool. Meteorologist say there is a 50-50 chance of this happening. (I am certainly not holding my breath, but hopeful of some drought relief as this phenomenon tends to bring heavy rain to the deserts.)
Talk about a bad day at the races! An Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race participant was flow off his crashed sled and hitting his head on a tree stump. He was unconscious for at least an hour before he moved on. Then he fell through ice and breaking his ankle after chasing one of his dogs that broke free. Another racer found him and stayed with him until he could be airlifted out.
3-7- Ice storm shuts down power for 250,000 folks in North Carolina.
Radiation testing in the California Pacific will begin almost three years after the fateful tsunami shut down nuclear reactors in Japan.
Eight year old boy tries to “lick and bite” his way out of an avalanche in his back yard. Protected by an air pocket he grew tired and fell asleep. Neighbors dug frantically for an hour to free him. He was scratched and had a bruised spleen but will recover. Authorities believe the avalanche was triggered by a snowboarder on Mount Jumbo even the though the area was closed off to the public for unstable snow conditions.
Unemployment and drug addiction have caused an increase in cutting off the knobby growths at the base of ancient redwood trees to make decorative pieces of furniture such as coffee tables and wall clocks. It is so prevalent on the northern California coast Redwood State and National Parks are closed at night. One hundred pounds of burl made into a dining room table can command thirteen thousand dollars!
3-11- The last nineteen days in Phoenix have been in the 80’s. The last 61 days have been at or above normal. Spring is here with the creosotes and the orange popcorn blossoms, the orange trees are blooming, and the mesquites are about to release the cooling canopies of much needed shade relief for the brutal summer that is just around the corner. What we are experiencing with this subtle spring beauty in the desert is not normally seen until April and even May. (It is going to be a fucking miserable summer.)
Here is something I would truly like to witness: A Mexican river bed that has been dry for decades due to overuse from the Colorado River will once again flow as an experiment to restore the area’s native vegetation. The gates of Morelos Dam, located where California, Arizona and Mexico share boundaries, will open on March 23 to release a manmade flood of 100,000 acre feet of water. Flows continue until May 18th, followed by a smaller stream of base flows. (I have to wonder if this continues if any of the wildlife driven away will return. I hope so.)
A Kingman, Arizona man is recovering after a fifty foot fall while rappelling a cliff in northwest Arizona. He was above a small stream bed when his rope snapped. He has several compound fractures in one leg and both hips. Fortunately he was with two friends. If he would have been alone it probably would have been adios!
3-12- Late winter Ohio snowstorm cuts power to thousands. Snow began falling last night from Missouri to Michigan. Downtown Kansas City receives snow seven hours after reaching 80 degrees!
3-13- 45,000 without power in Illinois, 26,000 without power in Ohio. Heaviest corridor for snow is from Buffalo to New England. Ten inches of snow at Niagara Falls. Gusts of wind knock down trees and power lines in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Seven inches of snow in Toledo, Ohio has officially set a record for the snowiest winter ever.
Yellow snow from treated effluent saved the Arizona Snowbowl ski season. The treated water cost one hundred thousand dollars to produce 60 million gallons for snow making! (No wonder the natives and elders protecting the mountain are beside themselves. How would you like sixty million gallon of treated piss and shit thrown on your birth ground of centuries? )
A man in southern Arizona, a suspected migrant, fell 125’ off Mule Ridge near Nogales. The man had a signal fire going and was rescued by helicopter after dark. He was airlifted with a badly broken ankle, cuts to the face and back and possible internal bleeding.
An elusive wild pig that has evaded hunters for years has been taken in North Carolina. The beast weighed over five hundred pounds. Although not a record, these smelly mean bastards usually weigh between one hundred and two hundred pounds. The hunter said “We are not wasting anything. That pig will provide food for me and my family for a good year.” (Good for you, that is what hunting is all about.)
3-14- Yesterday morning I noticed a haze that seemed to be in the sky everywhere, like smoke from a fire. It was so thick the normally blinding rising sun looked like an orb in the sky, almost like the moon. I even commented on this to the Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck. Today I read it was from a massive dust storm from the plains of Texas and not that uncommon for it to blow this far west.
A man scuba diving with friends near the old dam at Lake Pleasant, Arizona never surfaced. He had 140 minutes of air available. He was found later in the day over two hundred feet below water by an underwater moving camera used by rescue and recovery teams. It is not known how he died. (This may be “urban legend” but when I was a boy a heard a fighter jet crashed into Lake Pleasant near the dam. Divers said there were catfish over eight feet in length in the murky depths. With a young, inquisitive mind I always wondered if a barb puncture from a fish that large could kill you. Who knows?)
3-15- Phoenix woman killed by daughter’s pit bull when she was attacked feeding it.
It was a warm winter but it was a warmer spring this time last year in Phoenix. On this day it was 92 degrees, 86 degrees today.
3-16- Cliff rescue in Papago Park, Scottsdale, Arizona today. Rescuers had to rappel a three hundred foot cliff to get to a man who was combative and angry at being rescued. (Maybe he didn’t want to come down?)
3-17- 48mph winds in Winslow, Arizona and 44mph winds in Prescott. Wind advisory issued until 7:00 p.m. (Sad but as dry as it has been I am already thinking wildfire possibility.)
Another transplanted bighorn sheep found dead in the Catalina Mountains near Tucson.
Maple syrup season in Massachusetts typically begins at the end of February. It has been so cold sap will not dry and may not for two more weeks.
3-18- Low pressure system spreads snow from Montana to Wisconsin.
Winds of 50mph from Kansas to west Texas. Fire danger high.
Sea levels will rise more now that the last stable portion of Greenland’s ice is no longer stable. For the first time in 25 years since 2003 the ice loss has tripled. Greenland’s ice sheet is the world’s second largest and covers 80% of Greenland’s surface.
Paris bans half of cars on the roads for a day to combat smog. Cars with even numbered license plates ordered to stay off the road and 700 police man control points with 4,000 tickets handed out.
3-19- Major dust storm in Texas caused by drought conditions. In Lubbock wind gust up to 55mph produce zero visibility.
A Texas man is the first this year to die from a fall at the Grand Canyon. He was trying to retrieve a hat when he fell 350’ from the South Rim near El Tower Lodge.
3-20- The first day of spring and a sight to behold near Carney, Nebraska. 40 million birds are migrating near the Platte River with thousands of snow geese and cranes.
3-21- From the Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck comes this amazing, frightening but true account: A man sitting in a ground blind with his son hunting wild hogs in Georgia almost shit his pants when a rattler stuck its head into the blind. The son shot the fucker in the head with a .22 pistol. This creature from Hell was 9.5’ long, head 5.5’’ wide, fangs 2.5’’ long and the beast had the bones of three little pigs in its stomach.
Two dead after a landslide this morning in Washington and six injured. Sixteen homes destroyed and Route 530 between Arlington and Darrington is closed. The cause is believed to be ground water saturation from heavy rains earlier this month.
A controlled burn out of control as a firestorm is created by a dry whirlwind of burning tumbleweeds in Colorado.
Three quarters of all lightning fatalities are when people are engaging in outdoor activities. Fishing ranked the highest, with camping second, boating third and finally golf. The odds of getting struck by lightning in any given year is one in one million. But odds in a lifetime are one in ten thousand.
3-23- A dozen people are missing from the landslide in Washington yesterday. It is being called a square mile of devastation. No warning at all with fifteen feet deep of rocks and mud. The mud is like quicksand and even some rescuers are trapped. Thirty homes are destroyed or damaged.
Early spring in the Phoenix area with five rattlesnake bites in February and one in March.
Fish eating ducks hit hard by the severe winter from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The hard ice kept them from eating minnows. These ducks will only eat meat, not bread crumbs and shit domestic ducks eat. One conservationist counted 950 dead in one outing. (Let’s take a few moments of silence for our dead quack brothers and sisters.)
Twenty five years after the Valdez oil spill in Alaska the effects remain startling. The shrimp are slowly coming back but the crabs and herrings have not made a return.
Prospectors able to find gold during January and February when streams and water holes are dry from drought. Gold has been exposed that was not explored previously.
Rescue in a frozen river in Des Moines after a seven and twelve year old boy trapped on ice.
3-24- Now eight dead and one hundred missing in the Washington landslide. 50 structures wiped out.
An avalanche has killed three skiers at the mountain resort used for the Sochi Olympics. The avalanche occurred a day after it opened to tourists after the Olympics and the Paralympics are finished.
Folklore or science? Over eight years CAP has spent 798,600 dollars to fund a small scale cloud seeding operation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Water agencies in California and Nevada joined CAP in funding the program. Silver iodide particles are shot into the clouds hoping to produce snow. A ten to fifteen percent increase has been noted.
3-25- Out of nowhere a Sever Dust Storm Warning is issued for Maricopa and Pinal counties until 7:00 p.m. Red Flag Wind Warning issued for southeast Arizona tomorrow.
The coldest the North East has seen since 1993-1994. Snow accumulations are breaking records. The reason is a persistent high pressure ridge over Alaska, the Yukon and the northeast Pacific Ocean deflected the jet stream across the North Pole down through Canada and into the United States.
Blizzard conditions in Cape Cod, East Main and Nova Scotia. Blinding snow squalls from Michigan to east Tennessee. 4.5’’ of snow in Flat Springs, North Carolina.
Officials in Zion National Park in Utah have found the body of a BASE jumper. It is the third death in two months in the park by parachute. It is illegal to jump in this park but brave fools do it all the time.
Sadly the death toll keeps rising in Oso, Washington from the landslide. Now fourteen deaths confirmed and the rescue mission is turning into a recovery mission, one hundred and seventy two unaccounted for. One theory is a small earthquake may have loosened the hillside behind the tiny town. Some homes not swept away buried to the rooftops in mud.
A “Giant Water Taxi’ is used to transport 30 million salmon due to the drought in California. The fish are transported over three hundred miles to the San Francisco Bay area.
3-26- The Valley of the Sun (Phoenix area) is coming out of its second warmest winter with an average of 60.2 degrees. “For a city that lives in a perpetual state of psychological heat management. Summer is either coming or it’s here, such a warm streak so soon after the first days of spring can make it feel like we’re skipping right past it.
Twenty four dead and many missing in Oso, Washington from the tragic landslide. One county official “People in the path knew the risk and sometimes catastropheis just happen.” One theory is a week earlier a very weak earthquake hit the region may have ultimately caused a six hundred foot wide wall of cliff to crumble.
A massive forest fire knocks out power to most of Venezuela’s capital. Fourteen hours later many parts of the city without power.
Eighteen hundred year old human bones found in Colorado City, Arizona last fall are confirmed. A group of kids were playing found leg bones poking through the earth. The rest of the remains were found sitting up in a fetal position a few feet underground.
3-27- Sixty nine mph winds in Winslow, Arizona. 38mph winds in Sedona. And on this date in 1988 Phoenix had a record high temperature of 100 degrees. (Please don’t remind us of what will be here soon enough. It is fucking cruel.)
There is a square mile of debris in Oso and the National Guard has joined the search for victims in the mud and rock, estimated at 15 million cubic yards. 49 homes are buried and 176 folks are unaccounted for.
A major snowstorm is hammering the East Coast from Virginia to New England. Massachusetts has blizzard conditions with 80mph winds!
Two firefighters die in a Nine Alarm fire in Boston with 45mph winds, twelve are injured.
3-28- You read if first in Blue Duck Weather about the planned flood of the dry river bed below the Morales Dam in Mexico. Yesterday was the fifth day of 4200 cubic feet per second to be released until May 18th. American and Mexican scientists to see how much water it takes to reach the ocean and how much one spring “flood” can restore.
A very rare tornado in Sacramento, California. A dozen homes are damaged and a debris field 300 yards long is left behind.
Severe dog bites in Arizona have increased 139 percent from 2008 to 2012. A third of the victims were children under 13 years old.
A new set of eyes is watching the mountain top snow packs in Colorado and California. In a new mission NASA has equipped a twin engine plane with high tech equipment to make regular surveys. At an altitude of 20,000 feet the “Airborne Snow Observatory” measures snow pack’s depth and water content with precision. (It is good to see this fine agency continue its scientific pursuit of things important to our survival even if the space program was cancelled by the fucking government for the sake of free enterprise. In other words for the lack of money to fund a very vital program to help map mankind’s future.)
3-28- Hopes are slim now for more survivors in Oso, Washington. In areas the mud is forty feet deep! Officially 17 dead and 90 missing.
3-29- The Secret Fire in burning in the Coconino National Forest near Sedona, Arizona. Eight acres have burned with winds at 18mph and humidity at a normally summer level of 17%! Red Flag Wind Warning issued for northern Arizona tomorrow.
In the devastated town of Oso, Washington now a Flash Flood Warning is issued. Seattle, Washington shatters March rainfall record with 8.89 inches, 263% above normal. The previous record was all the way back in 1950 at 8.40”.
2071 record lows set this month in the North East. 6.7 inches of snow today W. Virginia. One inch of rain in Washington, D.C. and 2.34 inches in Green Haven, Maryland.
England’s public health agency reports that two people have caught tuberculosis from a pet cat. First time the bacterial disease has been documented to spread from cats to humans. (The Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck would kill me if I mentioned what I would like to regarding cats.) (YES SHE WOULD)
3-31- There are now two wildfires burning in the Coconino National Forest in Arizona. (God help us, it is only March.) Red Flag Wind Warnings issued for tomorrow in northern Arizona.
Oso landslide had no warning but the wall of mud had seventeen seismometers picking up its impact from as far away as 170 miles!
March ends with a blizzard shutting down travel across the northern plains tonight. Close to forty million people will be at risk of violent and dangerous weather as the Tornado Risk Zone grows from Texas to Indiana.
And on a “happy note” to end this brilliant piece of weather reporting the United Nations reports that climate change could change human civilization. Wheat and corn worldwide is declining. Lack of food and water will cause political crisis. No one and no place is immune.
Always a bonus in Blue Duck Weather we try to add a weather song relevant to the month’s weather stories and all else that fits. This month for your listening pleasure if you can find my obscure shit is “Washed Away” by Tom Cochrane.
Until next month remember Pioneers took bullets, Settlers took Land.
The Honorable Doctor of Horse Shit MR Blue Duck
