“It’s gonna be hot, it’s gonna be bright and it gonna’ last for the rest of your life”.
That’s about the size of it as we head into the month of May for the deserts of Arizona. Why do you think they call it a desert? Take a look out the window from your air conditioned home, office or vehicle.
And as promised we will begin the count of temps over one hundred degrees until there are no more, say around October or November. Sounds like a long ways a way. And also understand although temps did not hit the hundreds until May it has been over one hundred days in Phoenix with temps above normal.
I actually think we were lucky on The Land for May as there were only seven days it reached above one hundred degrees, and only two were one hundred and five degrees. How lucky is that I ask somewhat sarcastically? But the brutal count is on especially when we get into June, the hottest month of the year in Arizona.
With the heat and the constant drying of fuels comes the ever more present danger of fire. No one likes to hear of a wild fire anywhere but when the Slide Fire erupted in Oak Creek Canyon around the 20th of the month my heart sank. Oak Creek Canyon is arguably one of the most beautiful places on earth and personally I also believe it is a spiritual place as well. Just ask the Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck about her spook. As of the end of this month the fire had consumed just over 20,000 acres and fortunately all buildings and businesses in the canyon were spared even when their loss seemed eminent. You will read all about its rapid growth in this latest edition of Blue Duck Weather.
As you read this month’s edition you will clearly see there are too many wildfires this early in the season, or is it now, just a year round occurrence? A historic find in the middle of a burned up wilderness, a fire so massive in Alaska it is creating its own weather, three months of rain in one day! One region with so much rain it is being called a thousand year flood, whiskey flavored pigs (I swear we don’t make this shit up), drones banned over National Parks, water police and patrols due to lack of water. Read about this and so much more in Blue Duck Weather News.
The average temperature on The Land for May was a pleasant 78.40 degrees.
The average temperature at Talking Trees and Antelope Hill was an even more pleasant 64.48 degrees.
Still no rain since March with a yearly total of .49 inches.
Due to an glitch we have no lake levels to report this month but it probably wouldn’t change the bleak outlook of that large toilet, Powell.
5-1- The aftermath of a month’s worth of rain in one day in Baltimore; a retaining wall gave away with a deluge of water that swept cars away.
The Etiwanda Fire in Rancho Cucamonga, California prompts 1650 evacuations. Dry conditions and Santa Anna winds are brutal!
Border Patrol beacons in Arizona north of the Mexican border will allow migrants to call for emergency aid crossing the desert. There are twenty two 30 foot tall solar powered towers. They have sun reflectors and blue lights that are visible for ten miles. They are posted with signs in three languages that direct a user to push a red button that sends out a signal for help. In 2013 agents found 194 bodies and rescued 802 people.
5-2- A massive mudslide kills 350 people in an Afghan village with 2000 missing! 350 homes completely covered with several feet of mud.
5-3- One hundred degrees the first time this year in Phoenix. It is a day later than the thirty year average. (Whoopee!) With it topping out at 102 it is eleven degrees above normal. There were two Camelback Mountain rescues in Phoenix today due to dehydration.
5-4- Earliest one hundred degrees in Witchita, Kansas on record.
The 307 acre Cameron Fire near Alpine, Arizona is zero contained.
The Square Top Fire began as a controlled burn in the Chiricahua Mountains has grown to 400 acres and is 50% contained. The 125 acre Redington Fire north east of Tucson was human caused and 50% contained.
5-5- With a Red Flag Warning in northern Arizona the Hearst Wildfire three miles north west of Williams has started.
5-6- And yet another fire erupts near Prescott in Chino Valley. The 89 Fire has burned five hundred acres with wind gusts over 40mph.
A wind driven fire, out of control fire burns near Guthrie, Oklahoma and has consumed 3500 acres. One man killed who refused to leave his home and six homes destroyed. Temperatures over one hundred degrees.
5-7- Amazing on The Land this morning; with a 12mph wind it produced a 5 degree wind chill reducing the morning low to 54 degrees. A high of only 74 degrees occurred, fuck those one hundred degree days as long as we can.
The Grand Canyon has banned the use of drones for personal picture taking due to the sound. (I think target shooting at the drones in action would be fun and inspirational. Just think as they plummet into the abyss after being hit by a bullet Quiet those fuckers forever!)
It is so hot and dry in Kansas corn cannot be replanted yet. August like temperatures last weekend. The wheat crop is also half of what it should be.
5-8- Tornado threat affects fifty million. Confirmed tornado in Minnesota and two to three inches of rain in Fort Worth and Dallas.
5-10- Forty five agencies in California are keeping watch and patrolling for water waste. So far it is only training and warnings but fines of up to one hundred dollars are possible and enforceable, There are restricted days for watering, no hosing off sidewalks and driveways, no over watering and in some areas no filling swimming pools.
Bees attack two teenage hikers near Marana, Arizona. They encountered a beehive in a crevice and were stung twenty to thirty times each. Rescuers helped them off the mountain after the two were able to dial 9-11.
Flagstaff, Arizona police and firefighters have begun patrolling the woods within city limits for fire hazards. The Woods Watch Program hopes to educate but also catch people sneaking into closed areas and disregarding fire restrictions. (In other words they are looking for the poor and homeless who are trying to stay warm at night.)
5-11- Williams, Arizona declares a water emergency. Water for pools has to be trucked in and many businesses are also trucking in water.
And from his secluded location in Colorado Ryduck reports three inches of snow. There is a Winter Storm Warning for most of northern Colorado and southern Wyoming. I-80 is closed
5-12-Zion National Park in Utah joins the Grand Canyon in banning drones for picture taking. A recent incident had an unmanned aerial system separated several young bighorn sheep from the adults in the herd. If the young can not rejoin the herd they are dead. It is already illegal to use drones in Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks.
5-13- An Iowa distillery is attempting to raise whiskey flavored pigs. They will be feeding spent rye mash by a special formula by scientists and livestock experts. If it works a two hundred pound whiskey pig will cost six hundred and ninety nine dollars. Some in the food industry claim there is a great demand for whiskey flavored bacon. (Why not just dip a piece of fried bacon in a whiskey glass, eat the bacon and drink the whiskey. It won’t be long you can’t tell the difference anyway?)
Now Payson, Arizona is imposing water restrictions. No new lawns allowed.
Up to six inches of rain from San Antonio to Houston last night and this morning.
Wildfires burn ninety homes in the Texas Panhandle.
“All hope is lost for Antarctic glaciers. All of the glaciers are rapidly losing water to the open sea by warmer ocean water. Global sea rise levels of four feet or more are coming this century. Two separate scientific communities, One NASA says it is now unstoppable and an amazingly distressing situation.”
5-14- Heat records broken from L.A. to San Francisco with temps in the nineties and hundreds, hotter than Phoenix today.
A dozen fires burning in Carlsbad, California with thirty homes destroyed. There have been 20,000 evacuations in San Diego County and Santa Barbara due to the fires. The winds blowing are typical of October at 50mph. A State of Emergency has been declared.
Due to a 27% decline in caribou numbers in Alaska from 2011 to 2013 officials may restrict hunting them. The Western Arctic Herd had about 490,000 in 2003, 325,000 in 2011 and about 235,000 now. (We better not make the same mistake as with the buffalo decline.)
5-15- “A War with not bullets” as firefighters are sent to battle nine separate fires in San Diego County. Fourteen square miles have burned, a college campus and a theme park is closed. There is some speculation that some of the fires have been intentionally set. A nuclear power plant is closed and part of Camp Pendleton is evacuated. Twenty structures have been destroyed.
California University is closed as with Lego Land. Thirty homes have burned in San Diego County. Out of control with ten thousand acres burned and 5% contained. High temps in the nineties along the coast.
5-16- One “transient” found dead due to the fires in California.
On March 23rd (you read it first here in Blue Duck Weather) officials released water out of the dam just south of where the borders of Arizona, California and Mexico meet. For the first time in over twenty years the water has crossed the barren desert river bed and is about to reach the ocean. The release was a joint effort to revive trees, wildlife and aquatic life since the delta dried up decades ago. This one time release ends in two days.
5-17- 27,000 acres have burned in San Diego County. Yesterday a 57 year old man was arrested on arson charges connected with one fire. Eight homes and an eighteen condo burned up.
104th day in Phoenix temperatures above normal.
In Wichita Falls, Texas no outside watering and car washes closed on weekends.
Four months of rain in one day for Bosnia! Twenty five dead and 300 landslides.
5-18- Worst flooding in a century in Bosnia and Serbia. 24,000 evacuated and millions live in flood plains.
5-19- Balkan flooding is being described by some as the worst flooding in a thousand years! Power plants are threatened and landmines hidden for twenty years may surface in the flooding. There are 222,000 mines still hidden from the Bosnian War of 1992- 1995.Thirty seven dead from flooding.
5-20- Breaking News! A wildfire has started near Slide Rock Park in Oak Creek Canyon, Arizona. Parts of 89A closed. Garland’s, Junipine resort, all other businesses and recreation areas in the canyon evacuated with only twenty minutes notice. Wind gusts of 32mph and a relative humidity of only nine percent. Red Cross is opening up shelters in Flagstaff.
“Record flooding worse than war” proclaims the prime minister of Bosnia.
5-21- The Slide Fire in Oak Creek Canyon has burned a thousand acres and is zero percent contained. This has turned into a Type 1 fire with fifteen hot shot crews on the ground. 30mph winds.
Tornado Warnings in the Denver area and all flights in and out are postponed or cancelled.
Two women are recuperating after being attacked by a moose while walking their dogs in a park. Both were stomped by the moose but one woman was able to get away, the other was not so lucky. She has staples in her head, fifteen stitches in a leg and four broken ribs. Officials say moose are agitated by dogs and do not walk toward a moose but away from them if you encounter one.
A female bear and two cubs may have killed chickens on a property near Globe. Other bears have been sighted in the area. A young black bear suspected of blowing out a transformed while climbing a tree near Duncan, Arizona. (I have no idea if the bruin survived the encounter, I doubt it.)
A new wildfire has broken out near Woods Canyon Lake in northern, Arizona and has burned a 150 acres. There is a Red Flag Warning for the area with 33mph winds.
5-22- The Slide Fire has grown ten times to 4900 acres with zero containment. There are 840 personnel on the fire. Three thousand residents of Forest Highlands and Kachina Village are told to stand by for evacuation orders.
The Funny River Fire south of Soldotna, Alaska has grown from seven thousand acres to 20,000 acres! (You don’t often think of fires in Alaska but there is bark beetle infestation there too killing millions of trees.)
A sixteen year old Gilbert, Arizona teen has been arrested after admitting cutting off a part of one hundred and fifty year old protected saguaro cactus in Pinnacle Peak Park, Scottsdale. Damage is estimated at ten thousand dollars. ( What a young fool!)
5-23- The Slide Fire is at 7500 acres no homes lost. The fire missed Junapine Resort by mere feet.
Just across the Arizona, New Mexico line on I-10 a massive dust storm caused a pileup that killed six innocent motorists.
Portland, Oregon orders boiling water before drinking due to E-Coli bacteria.
5-24- Slide Fire 10,000 acres and zero containment.
Civilians are banned from reentering two Bosnian villages after major flooding. There is grave concern of potential epidemic flash points of disease due to thousands of rotting animal carcasses.
5-25- Twelve hundred firefighters now on the Slide Fire and it has burned 14,100 acres and is twenty five percent contained.
5-26- 18,500 acres burned, 35% containment and evacuation orders are lifted.
A fifty year old man dies when he jumps from a one hundred foot high cliff at Apache Lake into seventeen feet of water.
The massive Funny River Fire in Alaska has burned 218 square miles. One thousand homes and structures under evacuation orders.
Hurricane Amanda on the eastern Pacific is the earliest and strongest hurricane on record for May and is a Category 4 system.
5-27- A historic find deep in the woods of the Slide Fire; an old cabin, railroad trusses and an old look out. The structures may be over one hundred years old and have not been visited by man since then. It is being protected until it can be studied.
Three missing ranchers after a mudslide in Collbran, Colorado. The area is very unstable so search and rescue is impossible at this time.
5-29- Residents and businesses are allowed to return to Oak Creek Canyon and the fire is 55% contained.
The Funny River Fire in Alaska is so big it is creating its own weather and can be seen from space. Wolf cubs are rescued and being helped while their parents have disappeared or perished in the fire.
5-30- A foot of rain in southern Louisiana floats caskets, one dead and streets are muddy rivers.
5-31- The Slide Fire is 75% contained at almost 21,000 acres.
Until next month when the South West has all but burned up remember:
Pioneers took bullets. Settlers took Land.
Professor MR Blue Duck.
1 comment:
Stellar writing as always my friend!
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