January 2013 Weather News

January 2013 Weather News!

Happy New Year! The years go by in a blur no matter how long any given day may seem. And as life is ever changing for the good or the worse, so is the weather. Arizona laid one down for the record books and more diverse weather in one month I have never seen. Five consecutive days of lows below freezing (most of them in the twenties at The Land), two days of record warmth in Phoenix, and then toward the end of the month a record wet air mass over Arizona left The Land with 1.12’’ of rain.


In this new and updated Blue Duck Weather News you will feast your eyes on items such as Disease forecasters examine weather trends and possible causes, “catastrophic” fires in Australia, a new high temperature record for the U.S. and what a one degree rise means, a man that jumps into a mine shaft at Meteor Crater to “appease the gods”, a man’s plea to a charge of trespassing after jumping into a tiger’s den (you read it in Blue Duck Weather when it originally happened.), a python that rides on an airplane wing for two hours (I swear we don’t make this shit up!) a day where it is colder at The Land than Anchorage, Alaska, National Weather Service to use “simpler” language to forecast the chances and severity of storms, Don’t eat the yellow snow at Snow Bowl in Arizona! One week after the deep freeze in the Arizona desert record high temps!, a deer that attacks two men and steals their cigarettes (I swear we don’t make this shit up), a man that goes on an internet quest to remove all pet cats from New Zealand (I swear again, we don’t make this shit up in a cannabis induced or otherwise haze) and a ski resort that is so cold it closes due to unsafe conditions.

But before we get to all the news that fits or not let us get past the ever boring stats that yours truly loves so much.

The average temperature from high to low at the Land for the month of January was a chilly 49.27 degrees. The average temperature at Talking Trees and Antelope Hill in New Mexico was 26.83 degrees.

An impressive 1.12” of rain for the month at The Land, most of it fell over three days. The kind of gentle, soaking rain we desert dwellers love to see.

But I am getting worried about the ever shrinking Roosevelt Lake, down to 42% capacity. This time last year it was nearly full. Mead and Powell remain fairly consistent at 53% and 51% and Pleasant in central Arizona is 63% full.


1-1- Twenty seven degree low on The Land! (Being a desert dweller I might as well have been in Siberia with this kind of cold.)

Coldest beginning to a New Year on record was in Karasjok, Norway in 1886. The low was sixty one degrees below zero!

1-2- Seventy mile per hour Santa Ana winds in Los Angeles County.

A New Year’s Day walk on the beach north of San Francisco proved deadly when a man died after he and his wife were swept out to sea by a “rogue” wave. The man’s wife and dog were able to make it back to shore.

Sixty six days later and still no relief for some victims of Hurricane Sandy.

A Shell oil drilling rig runs aground off Alaska’s Kodiak Island. It is carrying 15,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 12,000 gallons of oil lubrication. Salvage teams are not able to reach the grounded vessel due to 30mph winds and twelve foot swells.
A Natural Resources Committee member said “Oil companies keep saying they can conquer the Arctic but the Arctic keeps disagreeing with the oil companies.”

1-3- Six salvage experts have been lowered by helicopter to assess the structural damage to the grounded oil rig in the Gulf of Alaska.

1-4- Tucson and Phoenix tied the record for the warmest year since 1989.

“Disease forecasters look to weather trends. Only a 10% chance of showers today but a 70% chance of the flu next month.” In one study two scientists say they could predict seven weeks in advance when the flu season would peak in New York City. Computer models factor in rainfall, temperature and other weather conditions to forecast certain disease outbreaks.

Two teens are rescued clinging to a tree after lake ice cracked below them near Show Low, Arizona. Both were treated for mild hypothermia. A fire fighter in a water proof suit got a rope to them. “Arizona lakes usually don’t get cold enough for ice to freeze solidly. Every once in a while we have kids trying to see how far out they can go. That was pretty foolish. There was probably an inch of ice in the middle of the lake” according to a spokesman.

1-5- Ten below zero in Window Rock, Arizona.

Dry winter casues more concerns for farmers in the Corn Belt after the driest summer in fifty years. Corn production was down 27%.

Worst drought in north east Brazil in fifty years. 30% of sugar cane production, diminished corn and cotton crops and cattle and goats starving to death. The agricultue secretary said “…… consequences that could be compared to a violent earthquake.”

Twenty two dogs and one monkey rescued from a house fire in Phoenix. All are fine and an investigation is underway to determine the cause of the blaze.

1-6- Six Russians killed and two seriously injured when their snowmobile and sled ran off an Italian Alpine ski resort at night. It slammed into a barrier and then careened into a ravine.

1-7- “Fire bans go up in smoke.” Maricopa County, Arizona residents continue to violate wood burning restrictions during Christmas and New Year. The county exceeded federal health standards for particulates on the day before Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day. ( Bah Humbug! Why don’t we fucking ban driving for one day and see how many particulates we save and enjoy the fires for several days?)

“Australia faces catastrophic days as wildfires rage in 5 of country’s 6 states.” 90 fires alone are burning in New South Wales. A record heat wave began in western Australia on December 27th with highs as much as 114 degrees, and lasted for eight days, the worst in 80 years. Combined with record low rainfall and high winds the combination is deadly. (Sounds like fire season in the Arizona deserts.)

1-8- As the wildfires spread across Australia national parks are evacuated. One hundred homes lost in Tasmania.

Last year in the United States there were five record high temperatures for evey one record low temp.; a new record.

A new alpha male gray wolf will be released in eastern Arizona to replace the one illegally killed last July.

Wild burros are crossing a roadway in Bullhead City, Arizona and causing hazardous driving conditions. There have been six recent calls on the fuckers and an accident last month that left a motorcyclist injured and the burro dead.

1-9- The U.S. set an “off the charts heat record for 2012. It was a full degree warmer than the record set in 1989. Breaking records by an entire degree is unprecedented. Normally records are broken by a tenth of a degree or so.

Thirty households return to Jersey Shore for the first time since Hurricane Sandy. 7,000 of 7,400 homes damaged or destroyed. Only residents with restored electricity, gas and water are allowed to return. Others can come in the daytime only as a curfew still exists.

Australia gets some fire relief from the relentless temperatures as it cools down. Two days ago was the hottest day on record since 1972.

A brutal cold winter storm is intensifying the misery of 50,000 Syrian refugees. The camp is a muddy cold mess and 35mph winds have knocked many tents down. Some frustrated refugees have attacked aid workers with sticks and stones.

Mid East storms cause flash flooding and dump a rare foot of snow on the desert in Jordon.

1-10- Chicago breaks a seventy two year old record. 320 days without at least one inch of snowfall. The city usually has 11.5’’ by now, they have a tenth of that amount.

“Southern Soaker” storms bring heavy rain to parts of Texas with some drought relief. Three inches of rain in San Antonio in twelve hours. White Rock Lake in Dallas rose ten feet in one day.

Eleven killer whales trapped under the ice in northern Quebec, coming up for air in a hole the size of a pickup truck. Shifting winds caused the ice to break up just in time to save the beasts.

1-11- Hard Freeze Warnings issued for the Phoenix, Arizona area. Two highways out of Globe and Florence are iced over with some rockslides.

“The Grapevine”, I-5 in California was shut down last night due to snow. Twenty degrees colder in San Diego than Chicago.

Most of Utah is under a Winter Storm Warning with two feet of snow already in some places.

State of Emergency from flash flooding in south east Louisiana with three confirmed tornadoes.

Four Florida cities break records for this month with temperatures 85 degrees or above.

International Falls, North Dakota has a record high of 48 degrees, breaking a previous record by seven degrees.

1-12- Twenty four degree low on The Land. 27 degrees in Anchorage, Alaska.
Twenty one degrees below zero in Bellemont, Arizona. Eleven degrees below zero in Barrow, Alaska.

Freeze Warnings again in San Diego County. Twelve degree record set in the Big Bear Mountain resort east of L.A. Daytime highs are twenty degrees lower than Boston.

A visitor at Meteor Crater in Arizona leaped over a fence at an observation deck. He then came to a tall fence topped with barbed wire that surrounds an old mine in the bottom of the crater. He climbed the fence and jumped feet first into the mine. It took twelve hours to stage his rescue and get him out of the one hundred foot deep shaft. He suffered severe hypothermia, a broken leg and arm. He told deputies later that he wanted to “appease the gods.” (Good God!)

A man who jumped into a tiger den at the Bronx zoo last year has pleaded not guilty to charges of trespassing. He said his jump was not a suicide attempt but a “desire to be one with the tiger. (This clown needs to team up with the mine jumper.)

A ten foot python clings to the wing of a plane on a two hour flight in Australia. It fought to stay on the wing despite brutal cold wind by pulling itself forward. It managed to hang on until the plane landed but was dead on arrival. (How the fuck did a ten foot snake go unnoticed on the exterior of a plane before take off?)

1-13- Twenty degree low on The Land with a forty eight degree high. Anchorage and Juneau, Alaska warmer today than Phoenix.

1-14- Twenty eight degree low at The Land with a high, with the wind chill,
of thirty five degrees.

New record low in Los Angeles of 35 degrees. Winds up to 50mph adding misery to the cold.
In Angeles National Forest a hiker was found surviving twenty six hours of temps in the twenties.

One hundred cities on the East Coast break record high temperatures.

One hundred and forty fires burning north and west of South Wales, Australia. The largest fire has burned 100,000 acres and twenty eight homes. Fires have forced the evacuation of a major observatory which has fifteen major telescopes. The site cannot be reached to assess damages.
Father and son arrested after setting a fire to destroy illegal drugs.

1-15- Twenty degree low on The Land with a high of forty five degrees. For Phoenix this is the most consecutive days with temps below freezing since 1988.

It is so cold in Window Rock, Arizona school is closed because the classrooms cannot be adequately heated.

Ice Storm Warning in South East United States.

Smog so bad in Bejing, China it can be seen from space. One building fire burned for hours without being seen due to poor visibility and the amount of shit in the air.

Here is a sad one: An outdoor loving military veteran ventured out with his eight and ten year old sons on the Ozark Trail. Dressed only in light jackets and sweaters they got soaked in freezing rain and died. They had even declined to take a ride back to the lodge where they were staying. The only survivor of the group was the family’s four month old dog. It was the tragic end of a weekend trip that was a surprise anniversary gift for the man’s wife.

1-16-Tennesee declares a State of Emergency as ice storms leave up one half inch. “When you start putting that much ice on roadways and power lines it’s not going to be good” said a spokesman.
Heavy rains in eastern Tennesse causes flooding.

The controversial snow making machine at the Snow Bowl in northern Arizona is producing yellow snow from reclamated water. Environmentalists are outraged and the snow producers say it only rust in the water. (Don’t eat the yellow snow!)

1-17- Heavy rains and severe flooding in the Indonesian capitol Jakarta. Government offices and businessess forced to close because people cannot get to work. The presidential palace is flooded.

1-18- Indonesia army uses rubber boats in the captial’s business district to rescue people trapped by flooding. The president is pictured standing in water up to his shins with his pant legs rolled up. Four are dead and 20,000 evacuated.

Three hundred and twenty six levees in the U.S., covering 2,000 miles are declared deficient by a new inventory conducted by the federal government. The levees are in danger of failing and protect thirty seven states. There are 2487 structures in the U.S. protecting twenty four million people.

In central Alabama hundreds of motorists spent a cold night trapped in their vehicles on I-65 after four inches of snow causes wrecks and stopped traffic. One hundred people made it to shelters in Cullman, Indiana but others were less fortunate.

The National Weather Service will test using simpler language for storm warnings, alerts, watches and advisories. ( I don’t know how one gets any “simpler” than the current “language.”) For example, instead of a winter storm watch ,“The NWS is forecasting the potential for a significant winter storm.” (Don’t these geeks have anything better to do?)

A Tucson based immigrant rights group, “No More Deaths” claim that hidden cameras show a U.S. Border Patrol agent removing food, water and blankets from a trail intended to be used by crossers. This group, and others, leave items for survival along desert trails know to be used by illegals immigrants. Temperatures between January 9th and the 15th dropped to record lows.

1-20- Hundreds of flights canceled in the UK and Paris due to heavy snow.

Four climbers killed when they were engulfed by an avalanche in the Scottish Highlands. Two escaped, one with serious injuries. Scotland has been battered recently by heavy snow and strong winds.

Six “urban” mountain rescues in the Phoenix area today. Due to the warmer weather many were on the trails, and as usual, some were not prepared.

1-21- Fifty fucking degrees below zero in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Highs to remain below zero. Winds knock out power to 120,000 people in Detroit. (And my candy ass complains about twenty degree lows?)

A fifty eight year old hiker dies after falling off a trail near Spur Cross in Cave Creek, Arizona. He tumbled five to ten feet and hit his head on a rock.

A dog in El Mirage, Arizona is recovering slowly after being caught in a coyote trap. The two year old pooch lost seventeen teeth trying to chew the trap off. The dog’s owner claims the neighbor deliberately set the trap because of a feud they were having. After a lengthy investigation police arrested a U.S. Department of Agriculture wildlife specialist for charges of animal cruelty and setting the trap for a domestic animal.

1-22- An “Alberta Clipper” drawing arctic air from Canada has brought brutal winds and snow from North Dakota to Maine. Below zero temp in the western Great Lakes. Seventy five degrees colder in Maine, after record highs, last week. Eighty six car pile up in Cincinatti, Ohio in snowy conditions leaves one person dead. Twenty degrees below zero in Chicago.

And here in the deserts eighty one degrees breaks the old record of 79 degrees set in 1994.

Half of the world’s iron ore shippers halted by a tropical storm in Australia.

1-23- Eighty one degree record high in Phoenix, Arizona.

Most snow ever in January for Erie, Pennsylvania.

A seventeen year old from Tempe, Arizona dies during a sledding accident near Flagstaff, Arizona. He and a friend lost control of the sled and slammed into a tree. The young man was in the front and took full impact of the collision.

No running water for two million Chileans after heavy rain and warm weather melts snow in the Andes mountains causing landslides and river flooding. Mud, rocks and trees have forced the temporary closure of three water purification plants.

Two men shaken up after being attacked and robbed in the front of their yard of a East Texas home. The assailant was a white tailed deer. It chased one of the men into a pickup truck and proceeded to poke the man in the ribs. As the man escaped the deer entered the truck and stole a pack of cigs. Once cops arrived it took five men to calm the “nicotine enraged deer. “ No one was seriously hurt. ( I swear, we simply do not make this shit up.)

A man wants all pet cats out of New Zealand because they are threatening native birds. He has set up a web site called Cats To Go showing a tiny kitten with devil’s horns. The caption reads “That little ball of fluff you own is a natural born killer.” ( My God, please believe your editor in Chief, we do not make this shit up!)

1-24- Victims of Hurricane Sandy hit hard by the cold. Four hundred residences still have no electric. Some who were in “makeshift” homes turn to shelters in tents with propane heaters.

Temps so cold that New Hampshire’s Wildcat Mountain ski resort closed yesterday and today. With a windchill of 48 degrees below zero it was deemed unsafe to be there (you think?)

Salt Lake International Airport closed due to ice.

1-25- Chicago’s no more than an inch of snow in one day streak ended today breaking a record at 335 days. 1.1’’ fell today. The old record of snowless days was set in 1940 of 310 days.

Twenty swift water rescues in Queensland State, Australia from flash flooding. Nearly a foot of rain has fallen since yesterday.

1-26- The wettest air mass in January over Arizona ever recorded. 1.02’’ of rain in Phoenix sets a new daily record. Blizzard conditions in Sunrise, Arizona.

Freezing rain and ice in the Deep South.

1-27- Fifty hikers rescued in Bear Canyon near Tucson, Arizona due to flood waters.
Two water rescues in the Verde River near Pumpkin Center, Arizona.

Flights in and out of Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Louis grounded due to ice.
Churches across Iowa called off Sunday services due to ice. One half inch across the Midwest.

Salt Lake City had the dirtiest air in the United States last week prompting a State of Emergency. (It sure seems to me this term is way overused. You hear it often ahead of hurricanes, tornadoes and other events even when the city or state may dodge the weather bullet.)

Sixty seven dead cats and ninety nine living ones are removed from a filthy, stinking home in upstate New York. The dead cats were packed in plastic bags in a freezer. (Now this is a fucking state of emergency.)

1-28- Four inches of rain in northern Arizona sets a new record and now snow advisories are issued.

Landslides caused by flooding have killed sixteen poor souls and nine are missing in western Indonesia. Twenty homes buried.

1-29- Four feet of new snow at the Snow Bowl in northern Arizona. (And it ain’t man made yellow piss snow.)

Tornadoes in January? Warm air colliding with cold air has prompted Tornado Watches in five states. Kansas City had a high of 68 degrees and Chicago, 63 degrees, thirty degrees above normal.

1-30- Don’t drink the yellow snow. Snowbowl snow making gets the okay and according to ADEQ treated waste water is a “safe source.”

Powerful tornado in Adairsville, Georgia. One person killed and overturned cars closed ten miles of I-75.
Tornado Warnings from Central Tennessee and Kentucky to northern and western Georgia.

Florida warm weather colliding with north colder air. Tornado watches issued for D.C., the first in twenty years. Record 65 degrees yesterday in Cleveland, tonight snow.

The cat killer debate moves to the United States. Cats kill up to 3.7 billion birds annually, part of a three year Fish and Wildlife Service Study . A third of the eight hundred bird species in the U.S. are endangered, threatened or in significant decline.

1-31- Sudden snow white out kills three and injures forty in Michigan on I-75 near Detroit.


What happened to the days when Blue Duck Weather was only a few pages? Was weather less severe or as my maddened mind looked for more news? One of these months, when the Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck edits this shit for press she is going to shoot me in the beak and cut my tail feathers (balls) off.

Until next month remember Pioneers took bullets. Settlers took land.

The quite Distinguished, weather photograph runner up, honorary award winner of the Quack award in journalism, Honory Professor, Mr. Blue Duck.

December 2012 Blue Duck Weather News

December 2012 Weather News!

Before we begin another amazing issue of Blue Duck Weather your fine staff is pleased to announce yet another amazing award for Professor Blue Duck. He has won Honorable Mention for a photograph of flash flooding that he took last summer. The contest was sponsored by the National Weather Service locally to capture weather events and their impact. The Quack never ceases to amaze!

On a much more serious note December had a cyclone in a distant part of the world equal to a Category 5 hurricane. The devastation and death toll was staggering. Had it been the United States it would have been front page print news and around the clock reporting on media outlets for weeks. There would have been fund raisers, concerts, prayer vigils, donations and help from afar. But I would bet that most of you reading this do not even know where this destructive phenomenon happened. The events will unfold in this weather journal. And almost two months after Hurricane Sandy there were news reports (if you looked for them) at least twice a week. The poor souls in New Jersey and New York are still trying to recover.


This month you will read about Hurricane Sandy’s prediction of size and power was underestimated and under predicted, a fire in the mountains of Colorado in December (seems impossible), Typhoon Bopha, hunting grizzly bears may become legal in the not so distant future (?), a rare tornado with major damage in New Zealand, on a not so happy note just in time for Christmas, partridges and turtle doves in sharp decline in Great Britain (aren’t they the birds in that stupid Christmas song?), find out what a “king tide” is, a dog that saves his and other pets lives trapped in a car by honking the horn, circus elephants almost killed by the cold saved by vodka diluted with warm water!, “Sandy Claus”, “find out what a skin slide is, Hurricane domes being constructed in Texas and so much more in this amazing issue of Blue Duck Weather!

The average temperature on The Land for December was 47.90 degrees, a full thirteen degrees colder than the beginning of the month. The average temperature at Talking Trees and Antelope Hill in New Mexico was 32.45 degrees.

The Land received .40” of rain in December. The total for the year was 5.69”, over two inches below “normal”. Phoenix received 4.27’’ or rain for the year.

The lake levels (that matter) continue to reflect this never ending drought. Lake Mead is 52% full, Pleasant 58%, Powell 53% and Roosevelt 42%!

12-1- November was the second warmest on record in Phoenix, Arizona.

The body of a missing seventeen year old hiker has been found in the White Tank Mountain Park west of Phoenix after missing for three days. The young man was a cross country runner. The death “does not appear suspicious.”

Two hundred folks evacuate the Fern Lake Fire in the Rocky Mountain National Park near Denver, Colorado. The fire is being fueled by 70 mph winds and has burned one cabin. The blaze originally began in October by an illegal campfire and was 40% contained until last night. The fire is has burned 1550 acres since it began. Snow is desperately needed. Editor’s note; this fire must be burning in some rugged, inaccessible areas with little “impact” to be left burning since October. God, it must be dry for a fire to burning in December in the mountains of Colorado!

12-2- “What would normally be of interest only to weather Geeks.” The fact that Sandy made landfall last week as a post tropical cyclone rather than a hurricane is feeding controversy among government agencies. The question is why were there no hurricane warnings issued? Two days before the storm the New York City mayor said “with this storm we will likely see a slow pile up of water rather than a sudden surge.” (Man, were they wrong!)

Thousands in Staten Island still waiting for repairs to their homes to restore electricity and heat.

The third storm in a series hits central and northern California last night and today. The rain total in some areas is up to twenty inches! All of San Francisco is under a flash flood and mud slide Warning.

Group of Boy Scout hikers in the Four Peaks area, north east of Phoenix are twenty four hours overdue. They went on a “quick” weekend nine mile hike.

12-3- A dry fall has placed Houston and Fort Worth, Texas back into severe drought conditions.

Record heat in Chicago at 70 degrees, 30 degrees warmer than normal. Two hundred high temperature records broken in forty states. The jet stream is keeping cold weather well to the north and Fairbanks, Alaska had a low temperature today of 52 degrees below zero!

Overdue Boy Scouts located in the Superstition Mountains in Arizona and are safe. A rescue helicopter spotted them at about one in the morning, determined they were fine, and left. They thought they got the “thumbs up” from the weary boys and “leaders.” Some parents are pissed because they thought a rescue should have taken place since the group was low on food and water.

12-4- Typhoon Bopha hit’s the Philippines with 160 mph winds, equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane, killing eighty one people and 155,000 in shelters.

12-5- The death toll from Bopha has risen to 283 poor souls. 300 missing and “entire families washed away.”

A cargo ship and rescue boat sink in a severe storm in the Black Sea near Turkey. Three killed and ten missing.

Hurricane Sandy victims still looking for vacant apartments. First responders from Katrina have come in to help New York residents. New York was there for the Gulf Coast after the devastation of Katrina. New Orleans is returning the favor. (Honor amongst brothers.)

With bear and human conflicts rising, wildlife managers in the northern Rockies are laying the groundwork for trophy hunts in anticipation of the government lifting the the Grizzly bear’s threatened species status. It will be another two years before six hundred bears around Yellow Stone National Park lose federal protection. But already “officials” say the population has recovered to the point that limited hunting for small numbers could occur. (I am a hunter but this is wrong! They were slaughtered nearly to extinction out of fear. If hunts are to be allowed it should not be “trophy” hunts but extended to the folks who need every part of the bear for survival. Are there any of those people left? We all know who they once were but now Wal Mart and Jack in the Box has replaced every basic, and then some, need.)

12-6- A fifty four year old man has been found alive two days after being swept away by flooding from Typhoon Bopha. He was found clinging to a boulder by a tree in a river. He survived on coconut and water until he was found with a fractured leg. Three hundred and seventy nine folks are gone and hundreds missing.

A rare tornado kills three near the largest city in New Zealand, Aukland, and damages one hundred and fifty homes.

12-7- Typhoon Bopha’s killing spree is over five hundred with four hundred missing. 310,000 are homeless. (One photo I saw really struck me in the heart. It showed six or seven men wading across a swollen muddy river holding a white casket above their heads. They were taking the body home.)

12-8- After killing near six hundred people Typhoon Bopha makes a u-turn and heading back to the northwest Philippines.

Breezy Point, New York faces its greates historical challenge after Hurricane Sandy. Residents have to decide if they can afford to re rebuild and others wondering if their community will ever be the same. The town was built by Irish immigrants around the turn of the 20th century.

Britain’s Royal Society for Protection of Birds reposts that partridges and turtle doves are declining rapidly with numbers down 30%.

A woman ate snow and tomatoes for nearly a week and found shelter in a hollowed out treee after becoming stranded in a snowstorm in California’s Alpine County. Her boyfriend died trying to find help. Their Jeep Cherokee got stuck during on a dirt road near a lake.

12-10- The last significant rain in the Phoenix area was on September 7th, leaving a deficit of almost four inches. But much cooler weather is on the way.

12-11- I didn’t realize “much cooler weather” would mean a 29 degree low at The Land. With a dew point of 6 degrees you can be sure there was no ice.

Rare December tornadoes in southern states. Forty homes damaged and twelve destroyed. Fuel pumps blown over in Alabama.

12-12- Twenty seven degree low on The Land! The lovely Mrs. Blue Duck told me on her way to work she turned on the the windshield wipers and cleaning fluid and it immediately turned into ice!

Hayduke Lives! Four protestors of artificial snowmaking were arrested for interfering with a Coconino National Forest office in Flagstaff. One poured out a clear fluid that later was determined to be reclaimed water. The lobby was closed and fucking Haz-Mat units were called. The protestors wore white suits and masks, chanting and displayed large banners that read “Forest Service kills Native culture.”

The fourth straight day of snow and blizzard in Southeastern Europe. Three feet of snow falls overnight in Montenegro. In Serbia, across the border, heavy snow blocked roads to a dozen villages and schools are closed for the rest of the week. Nine deaths are attributed to the weather with temperatures as low as five degrees.

12-13- Snow level in Arizona expected to drop down to five thousand feet.

Growth in the West is straining the Colorado River. “Population growth and climate change will drain the Colorado River’s ability to supply the West unless there is bold action to conserve fresh water or make more” according to federal officials. ( Let me remind you water cannot be “made." It can be hauled, transported, pumped or stolen but it cannot be made.)

The first significant snow of the season in Anchorage, Alaska.

Winter storm today in Southern California with rain that causes mudslides, flooded streets and a “Kingtide” across the coast. At Sunset Beach, ocean water flooded over streets and parking lots. It is a unusually high tide that only happens a few times a year. One inch of rain was reported in San Diego in three hours.

A pile of trash three story’s high remains from Sandy in Long Beach, New Jersey.

12-14- Fourteen to sixteen inches of snow in the White Mountains in Arizona.

A Tuba City, Arizona man pleads guilty of violating the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act by selling golden eagle and other bird parts. He faces up to two years in prison and a 250,000 dollar fine. In 2008 he offered a golden eagle feather fan for sale on line. An undercover agent exchanged email and offered to buy it.

More information on the King Tide; it happens when the earth, moon and sun align in a way that increases gravitational pull on the earth’s oceans, raising water levels higher than normal high tides.

Death toll from Bopha in the Philippines is over nine hundred, 80,000 in shelters, nine hundred and thirty four missing and twenty six hundred injured.


12-15- With a Winter Storm Warning still in place twenty one inches of snow north west of Flagstaff, eighteen inches east of Payson, 1.32” of rain in Anthem and 1.35” of rain in Apache Junction.

A dog apparently left and neglected by owners trapped in a vehicle with two other dogs and two cats for days. Apparently one of the dogs alerted Canadian police by honking the horn. ( I swear, we don’t make this shit up.)

12-16- An impressive twenty inches of snow from this latest storm in Flagstaff, Arizona.

“Sandy’s mental health toll emerges.” Project Hope in New York City is reaching out to twenty thousand people. One man lives in a tent in his back yard refusing to leave until his home is demolished. The extent of the problem is difficult to measure, as many people are too anxious to leave their homes, wracked by fears of wind and water or parting from their loved ones. One woman said “You’ve got to get numb. You’ve got to get tough. If I’m not numb I can’t function.

12-17- Tropical Cyclone Eva slams the “tropical paradise’’ of Fiji in the Pacific with winds up to 170 mph. 3500 evacuated to emergency shelters.

12-18- One hundred percent chance of snow in Flagstaff, Arizona today. (A rare prediction as the weather reporters have no excuse if they blow it!)

Northwest mountains receive three feet of snow in the strongest storm of the season. 80 mph winds along the coast knock out power in Seattle and the Portland areas to 28,000. Nineteen states are under Winter Storm Warnings.

12-19- Freeze Warning from two a.m. to ten a.m. for the “Valley of the Sun”.

Blizzard Warnings from the Rockies to the North East including twelve states. Wisconsin governor declares State of Emergency. Chicago may get snow after a record of 92 days without any.

The cold in Siberia almost killed two circus elephants after their trailer caught on fire. A handler bought two cases of vodka and gave it to the beasts with diluted with warm water. “After that they roared as if they were in the jungle.” Apparently they were happy.”

12-20- Holiday travel alert as Central U.S. storm brings flight disruptions, deadly blizzard and even a tornado. Six hundred flights cancelled at Chicago O’Hare, a tornado knocks out power to 400,000 in Mobile, Alabama. Blizzard Warnings are issued for sixteen states. “Thundersnow” in Iowa last night as thunder and lightning mix with falling snow. This same system in west Texas caused a dust storm that caused accidents along I-27. Wisconsin declares State of Emergency and all schools are closed.

12-21- First day of Old Man Winter and the least amount of daylight. It’s uphill from here leading right back to another fucking summer in the desert!

Sandy Claus delivers toys to storm ravaged homes in Queens, New York to awe struck little kids whose play rooms were destroyed by flooding and old toys swept away.

The tornado in Mobile, Alabama has been confirmed as an EF-1 with winds of 86-99 mph. 22,800 still without power.

12-22- 6300 flights delayed and 144 canceled. Winter Storm Warnings for northern California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Ohio and North Carolina. (Merry Christmas from fucking Old Man Winter!)

12-23- Whiteout conditions in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California with three to five feet of snow expected. Heavy rain in San Francisco.

An Amtrack train called the Train of Hope is headed from New Orleans to Sandy victims with one half million shoes, blankets and toys.

12-24- Up to six feet of snow fell in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. As the storm moves east Winter Storm Warnings are issued from Monatana, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

12-25- Seventeen extremely rare winter tornadoes in the South, the worst in Mobile, Alabama.

Snow as far south as Texas all the way to Maine. Denver hasn’t had snow on Christmas day since 2009. 150,000 without power in Arkansas. Thirty one unconfirmed tornadoes spotted from Texas to Alabama.

12-26- Heavy snow from Indiana to New York and a Blizzard Warning that extends for seven hundred and thirty miles from Winter Storm Euclid. (As you may recall, the fine staff at Blue Duck Weather reported in a forgotten edition that the U.S. was going to begin naming major winter storms so people pay more attention to the potential devestation possible. But give me a break. Euclid? )

Twenty one tornadoes sets a record in the South in the last twenty four hours with three deaths. Arkansas sets a record with nine inches of snow on the ground.

12-27- From his secluded location in Colorado RyDuck reports a high temperature of sixteen degrees.

Twenty one inches of snow in the North East with one thousand flights canceled and eight thousand delayed.

12-28- The Arizona ski resort Snowbowl near Flagstaff has received six feet of snow this season in a very short amount of time.

Forty landslides caused by heavy rain since Thanksgiving have disrupted the scenic Amtrack train route between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C. Passenger service has been completely shut down since December 17th. The worst damage, a “skin slide”, a section of cliff slid into a moving cargo train taking out seven cars. The latest slide occurred yesterday.

“Hurricane Domes” are being built across Texas doubling as a typical high school gym and a hurricane shelter. Twenty eight will be built with double layers of block walls with steel and concrete that penetrate thirty feet below grade. They are designed to withstand winds up to 200mph. New York is looking at a similar plan.

12-29- From the Ohio Valley to New England severe storm causes of to one foot of snow in areas. Twenty million holiday travelers affected.

Three bull elk were illegally poached around December 3rd near Flagstaff, Airzona. Although it was elk season (legally) the three carcasses were found partially field dressed with most of the edible meat left to waste.

A reward is being offered by the Arizona Game & Fish department for information of who illegally killed a javelina on Christmas day near Bisbee. It was shot in the head and dragged down a residential street. The pig was found with an orange extension cord wrapped through its mouth.

12-30- The snow level in Arizona will drop to twenty five hundred feet tonight. Ooshy at The Land and .05’’ of rain.

Snow Emergencies in Wisconsin and Rhode Island.

12-31- Freeze Warning issued for “the Valley of the Sun” from midnight to eight a.m.
Eight inches of snow in Payson from the latest storm that passed by.

And so my faithful readers this ends another exhausting year of weather reporting from your fine Staff at Blue Duck Weather.

Until next year remember Pioneers took bullets. Settlers took land.

The Distinguished, Honorable MR. Blue Duck

November Blue Duck Weather News 2012

November 2012 Weather News!

Welcome to another award winning edition of Blue Duck Weather! (How is that possible when no one but me has even read the damn thing yet?) Sandy dominated the news almost daily with it’s sad and tragic aftermath of a storm now almost a month now as I write this. One account that amazed me were the record amounts of trees, some one hundred and twenty years old, that were destroyed in New York and New Jersey. With that the quote of the month is quite eloquent. It was written in an AP story about the tree loss. “They fell by the thousands, like soldiers in some vast battle of giants, dropping to the earth in submission to a greater force.” Jim Fitzgerald.

Although Hurricane Katrina killed more people along the Gulf Coast Sandy caused more property damage in an area of the country that is densely populated. FEMA could not bring in emergency trailers for housing as many areas there was just not room for them. With so many apartments and high rises where could a trailer be parked? You will read more about this later.

But, as always, there were other things that happened last month to educate, entertain, amuse you or bore you to death. Read below for a tasty tidbit of the information waiting you.


An elephant that vocalizes human words, the wilderness is dead when the Reavis Ranch trail in Arizona is on the local evening news as a “popular hiking destination”, a critical update on the red squirrel population on Mount Graham in south east Arizona, Mesa, Arizona man pleads guilty to starting an 18,000 acre wildfire last summer, two tons of pigeon shit has to be cleaned up on a church tower, a missing hiker found in the Superstition Mountains three years later (obviously very dead), A Chandler, Arizona couple facing criminal charges for raising chickens in their back yard (are ducks legal?), a very sad story about a family that loses their lives trying to rescue pet dog from the ocean, the official cause of the death of a man eating cockroaches, the metropolitan area in the United States with the most mountain rescues and how the 2012 Hurricane season stacked up (you will be surprised.)

The average temperature at The Land for the month was a beautiful and comfortable 62.18 degrees. The average temperature at Talking Trees and Antelope Hill in New Mexico at 7400’ was 43.41 degrees.

The Land received only .06 of an inch of rain bringing the total rain fall for the year to 5.29”. To date Phoenix has had only 3.41’’, almost three and a half inches below normal.

My beloved Roosevelt Lake continues to shrink with the lack or rain and is 43% full. Lake Mead is holding its own at 51%, Powell at 55% and Lake Pleasant at 53%. (Please perform a peyote ceremony and a rain dance for your desert friends. We are going to dry up and blow away.)


11-1- Power outages from Sandy could last another ten days for hundreds of thousands in New York City, Long Island and New Jersey. Three days after the impact of the storm finding food, water and gas the big challenge. People are even looking for discarded food in dumpsters. Power out to 4.5 million in 14 states and eighty folks have been killed, mostly by drowning and falling trees. The deadliest zone is Staten Island and thirty seven in New York have died, many of them elderly folks. Two small children ripped from their mothers arms by the storm have been found dead.

After suffering the worst disaster in it’s 108 year old history subway services in New York resumed this morning at six. Jersey City has issued a curfew on people driving from seven p.m. to seven a.m. Due to power outages many gas stations aren’t able to pump gas. People lining up for fuel for a mile. Rationing allows ten gallons of fuel for those that are able to find it. The President asks for emergency fuel releases.

Three feet of snow in West Virginia due to the effects of Sandy.

And here in sunny Arizona one of my favorite camping and hunting spots twenty years ago is featured on the local news as a popular hiking destination. The destination is Reavis Ranch on the north side of the Superstition Mountains, an eight mile hike into apple orchards and “paradise”. I knew it was dead ten years ago while hunting deer there. I would be perched above the trail in concealment with rifle and binoculars out. One morning I heard bells and couldn’t figure out what the fuck it was. Up comes “hikers” on the trail with their water bottles, spandex, jingling bells to distract bears (I guess) and noisy conversation. Not one of them knew I had my beady little eyes on them until they rounded boulders out of view and were lumbering on their way. I remember seeing a fine deer in a meadow of grass on one of my perches. I did not dare shoot as I knew the trail and possible “hikers” were on the other side. ( I have not been back since.)

11-2- The death toll raises to 94 from Sandy in the North East and Mid Atlantic. 7400 National Guard have given out 144,000 meals in New York City and Long Island. 5500 folks in New York are in city shelters. Residents of Staten and Coney Island are complaining of aid being too late. “People are defecating in the hall ways.”

Four million still without power and dropping temperatures into the thirties add misery. Some people wait all night for gas. A man in Queens is arrested after he tried to cut in line at a gas station and point a gun at another motorist.

For the first time in history Arizona Public Service and Salt River Project are sending men and equipment to help out in New York.

A smog like haze hangs over parts of Alaska’s Kodiak Island this week and the result is a volcano eruption that happened one hundred years ago. Strong winds and lack of snow have stirred ash from the largest volcanic blast of the 20th century in 1912.

11-3- Under increasing pressure, as thousands are still devastated by Sandy, the annual NYC Marathon has been canceled. 47,000 runners from around the world were scheduled to begin the race in hard hit Staten Island. Storm victims were being evicted from hotels to make way for the runners and their reservations.

With temperatures expected to fall in the thirties tonight power is still out for 2.3 million people in the North East.

National park rangers are trying to rescue a hiker in the Great Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. The Appalacian Trail hiker got into trouble in four to five feet snow drifts left by “Superstorm Sandy.” The man used his cell phone to call 9-11 two days ago. Yesterday morning he called again and said he was hunkered down in his location and might not be able to get out.

An elephant in a South Korean zoo reproduces five Korean words by tucking his trunk inside his mouth to modulate sounds. An international team of scientists went to the zoo to confirm this unprecedented phenomenon.

11-4- Twenty five thousand blankets passed out in New York. The National Guard is passing out free gas in Brooklyn. Five thousand gallon trucks from the Department of Defense dispatched in five locations in New York City. Even and odd numbered license plates designate altering days to get gas in New Jersey. (This has not happened since the fuel shortage in the seventies.)

Seven hundred thousand still without power in NYC, six days after the storm, and temperatures are falling with another storm coming. New York governor says “its going to become increasingly clear that home without heat are uninhabitable.’’ Bloomberg states that housing will have to be provided for thirty to forty thousand people. Two million people in the North East are still without power.

11-5- Eight hundred thousand still without power in New Jersey, including schools. One hundred and thirty seven miles of shoreline have been devastated. “Impactful” Nor’easter on the way.

11-6- “Sandy’s next crisis”: Thousands need housing and two hundred million dollars in emergency housing assistance has been dispensed by the federal government. The tactics that FEMA have used in the past for emergency housing will be difficult to place in a densely populated city. Trailer space is not an option when so many live in apartment buildings. Thirty four thousand people in New York and New Jersey have been put up in hotels and motels.

Staten Island is in desperate need for underwear. Other clothing donations have exceeded generous. “It’s like a third world nation” one person said of the destruction on the island’s south shore.

The World Trade Center Memorial reopens after floodwaters are pumped out from a high water mark of ten feet at the sixteen acre site.

A trainer in Billings, Montana is mauled to death cleaning the pen of two five hundred pound brown bears. He has extensive wounds that make it impossible to determine if he was conscious during the attack and able to defend himself. He had no defensive wounds and had not deployed his pepper spray. There is speculation he may have fallen and hit his head before being killed.

11-7- Nor’easter comes after Sandy’s destruction in NYC. There are new power outages and twelve hundred flights are canceled across the North East. Bloomberg orders three nursing homes and adult care facilities to be evacuated in Queens. 620 people removed and 672,000 still without power.

“Code Blue” across New Jersey for anyone who needs shelter and needs to get warm. “Snowing like January.”

One man says he plans to ride out the latest storm in his apartment even after he saw cars floating by his front door last week. As the water receeded men dressed in dark clothing broke down his door. They were surprised to see him and other residenst inside. The men said they were rescue workers but took off.
The man has put up a handmade sign that reads “Have gun. Will shoot U” and uses a bed frame to barricade the front door. He has gas and boils water to give out warmth.

11-8- 50mph wind gusts and snow knock out power to 167,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey, 50,000 in Long Island. 4.4’’ of snow in Central Park , a record for this date. Record 6’’ in Newark, New Jersey. Bridgeport, Connecticut 3.5’’ breaking a record of 2” set in 1953.

760,000 still without power. Thirty eight percent of stations in NYC still have no gasoline. Rationing with even and odd number license plates will begin in New York tomorrow like New Jersey had to do.

11-9- Weather Alert issued for the state of Arizona. Five inches of snow in Sunrise. Hail in Flagstaff.

By new weather reporting standards by the NWS (you read it here first) the first winter storm for the western U.S. is named Brutus. Blizzard conditions are on the way and wind gusts of 85mph in Salt Lake City with snow this morning.

11-10- As the first big cold front of the winter season slams the West, four feet of snow in Helena, Montana. Lake effect snow in Western Nevada, south east of Lake Tahoe. Top wind gust of 111mph at Meteor Crater in Arizona.

Here at The Land we had the first significant wind chill, 61 degrees plus a 15mph wind resulted in a high temperature of just 55 degrees. Talking Trees and Antelope Hill in New Mexico had wind and snow with a fucking freezing low of 16 degrees.

Hurricane Sandy’s relief efforts by the Red Cross and Salvation Army will be the largest since Hurricane Katrina. The Red Cross has sent 5,800 workers, served 3.2 million meals and snacks and provide 110,000 emergency shelters.
317,000 people have registered with FEMA for financial help. As of yesterday 470,000 people in New York and New Jersey still have no electricity.

Tensions are boiling over almost two weeks later on parts of Long Island One “protestor” carries a sign that reads “We are cold and we are tired. We want our power now.”

The Coney Island Aquarium was flooded in the disaster, home to 12,000 fish and marine mammals. Holding tanks and heating equipment were lost, but due to rescue efforts 90% of the animals and fish are saved.

And here in the sunny desert climate a south east valley girl was bitten by a rabid bat last weekend and receiving treatment.

11-11- Yesterday’s storm dropped a half inch of rain to an inch and a half in Gold Canyon and Queen Creek, Arizona. With only .05’’ of rain at The Land, once it cleared out, this morning was the first 32 degree low of the season. Talking Trees and Antelope Hill had a low of 9 degrees! Zero at The Grand Canyon!

From his secluded location in Colorado RyDuck reports a temperature with wind-chill of 10 degrees!

Alarmed that rebel militias are profiting from a sharp increase in the slaughter and poaching of elephants and rhinos, the U.S. plans to build a global coalition to combat illegal wildlife trade.

And right here in the sunny Arizona, Peoria Police and Maricopa County Animal Control receiving calls about “strange acting” coyotes near homes, schools and parks. (Just shoot the conniving bastards!)

11-12- Two weeks after Sandy 90% of Long Island still without power. Five thousand people in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut are in shelters.

The 6th worst flooding in a 150 years chases tourists from Venice.

11-14- Two Arizona utilities are working sixteen hours a day to help restore power to Long Island, New York. There are eight utility companies there from California, Arizona and Nevada.

The Tiber River in Rome is flooded from rain and flooding suburbs. One of the city’s most historic bridges closed today. St. Mark’s Square under so much water tourists swim there.

Three mountain lions close together photographed in Sabino Canyon, Tucson Arizona.

11-15- Despite recent moisture three quarters of Kansas, South Dakota and Nebraska are under extreme or exceptional drought conditions.

The annual survey shows that red squirrels are holding steady at about 215 on Mount Graham in south east Arizona. ( If you have any idea how vast this mountain range is that is not many squirrels. I can see why they are on the endangered species list.)

11-16- Near Fire Island, New York Hurricane Sandy exposed a ninety year old shipwreck. The “Bessie White” was a four mast Canadian schooner. The ship went down in heavy fog in 1919 or 1922.

11-17- Forty five hundred tons of debris wash up at Queens Park in New York from Sandy. Three hundred and fifty homes in Nork City are beyond saving, eighty in Breezy Point alone from the damge of Sandy.

11-20- A Mesa, Arizona man has pleaded guilty as the cause of the 18,000 acre Sunflower Fire last summer. He used a “flame throwing” shotgun and shot at a box in the timber near Payson. As part of his defense he called 9-11 from his cell phone to report the fire and was told to leave the scene.

Record rain and wind from a powerful storm in the North West from Washington to Oregon. The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport received 2.13’’ of rain, shattering the old record of 1.23’’ for this date in 1962.

In parts of western Washington seven inches of rain fell in two days.
In Oregon an Elk hunter was killed when a tree fell on his tent from winds. Peak wind gusts of 101mph recorded. 20,000 without power.

11-21- Some of New Jersey’s beaches lost half their sand during Hurricane Sandy. The average state beach is thirty to forty feet narrower. The shore town of Mantoloking lost one hundred and fifty feet of beach.

For the first time since 1998 water will flow the entire 1450 miles of the Colorado River all the way from Yuma to the Gulf of California in Mexico. Arizona and six other states sign a water sharing deal with Mexico. This will also help Arizona’s defense agains drought.

The debris from Sandy on the beaches of New Jersey will take months to clean up. On a normal day the city of Hoboken averages sixty tons of trash per day. Workers are now hauling three hundred tons per day (the question in my mind is where?)

11-22- 26,500 Thanksgiving meals passed out at thirty sites in New York neighborhoods affected by Sandy.

One hundred vehicles in south east Texas on Interstate 10 collide in dense fog killing two and injuring fifty one. Before the pile up many vehicles were driving close to the posted speed limit of 70mph despite the foggy conditions. (You have got to be kidding me. Is there no common sense anymore?)

The FCC announces a series of hearings to find ways of widespread communication losses in disasters, such as Sandy. Even first responders and emergency managers lose communication.

11-23- Hurricane Sandy destroyed or damaged 113,000 trees in New York City and New Jersey, more than any storm on record. Some of the trees were one hundred and twenty years old.

The sand dunes that saved Fire Island, New York from the full impact of Sandy are gone but 4,000 structures survived. Some dunes, up to twenty feet high are washed away.

And here in sunny Arizona in November with temperatures in the low eighties two female hikers rescued off of Squaw Peak in Phoenix, suffering from dehydration. (Give me a break! Thankfully they weren’t hiking in August!)

In Crescent City, California fifty four million dollars is being spent to build the West Coast’s first harbor to withstand the type of tsunami expected to strike every fifty years. It happened in 2011 when the highest surge in the boat basin measured 8.1 feet and currents at 22 feet per second.

244 new steel pilings will be thirty inches in diameter and seventy feet long, with thirty feet sunk into bedrock. The pilings will extend eighteen feet above the water so surges plus or minus seven and a half feet will not rip docks loose.

11-24- Three more hiker rescues on Squaw Peak in Phoenix. At eighty five degrees one was carrying no water and one was wearing no shoes! ( I just don’t even have a fucking comment on this one.)

After all of the recent and violent weather in the United States climate activists hope the U.S. will be more “than a disinterested bystander” when the U.N. climate talks resume in two days.

With a re-elected President “I think there will be expectations from countries to hear a new voice from the U.S.” the director of climate and energy program said.

11-25- “A Fight For Chickens”. A Chandler, Arizona family is facing “criminal charges” for keeping nine chickens in their backyard. All they want to do is provide nutritious additive free eggs for their children. (Don’t cities have better things to do with their lawyers?)

11-26- Superstition Search and Rescue find human remains in the Superstition Mountains after three years of searching. The volunteer group found the remains in a crack in the mountain thirty five feet above ground about a half mile from the tent site of a hiker that went missing three years ago.

11-27- There are more mountain park rescues in the Phoenix metro area than any other city in the United States.

Three hikers lost and one injured while searching for the perfect Christmas tree in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona. Fortunately two of them made it to a forest service road before sunset and sought help. A call for help brought a DPS helicopter to the location of the injured hiker who had started a signal fire.

The Coast Guard ended a search yesterday for a boy whose parents were killed when the three tried to rescue their dog from strong surf in northern California. Ten foot waves pulled the dog into the ocean three days ago as it ran to retrieve a a stick. The boy went in after the dog. The father went in the ocean to help. The boy made it back but then he and his mom went out to help dad. All lost their lives. (sad, sad Thanksgiving weekend story.)

An autopsy has determined that a man that choked to death after eating dozens of roaches during a “contest” at a Florida pet store in October. The grand prize winner was to receive a python.

After more than a month with no electricity for folks in part of New York City they have received electric bills. The bills were based on last year’s electric useage.

11-28- Seven days of rain in Wales cause the Clwyd River to burst its banks. Parts of England also flooded.

Debris from the Tsunami almost two years ago in Japan are piling up in Hawaii. There is twenty tons of plastic and other shit on a ten mile stretch of beach. Every bird and fish caught has shreds of plastic inside when opened up.

11-29- Tomorrow will be the end of the Atlantic, Caribbean hurricane season where this year the most devastation has been by water, not wind. The National Hurricane Center is ramping up efforts to develop new tide surge warnings.

Large, early snowstorm drops eight inches of snow in twenty four hours in Moscow. This represents half of typical amounts of snow for all of November.

“Melting Away”- Polar ice in Greenland has shrunk five times the pace of the 1990s. Rising ocean levels made Sandy worse with storm surges.

11-30- The second of a series of storms slams Northern California today as heavy rains and strond winds knocked out power, ties up traffic and causes flooding. North Bay received seven inches of rain and Napa County six inches.

Seventy flights cancelled in San Fancisco and the famous bridge with the same name losing all lighting, causing thee hour traffic delays. One foot of snow in the Sierra Nevadas.

One month later folks without housing and electricity in Staten Island, New York feel abandoned and ignored.

And that concludes another outstanding edition of Blue Duck Weather. With Christmas approaching please reach out to the poor folks in New York and New Jersey who are still devastated by the monster Sandy.

Your fine staff at Blue Duck Weather will leave you with the song of the month; “Eye of the Hurricane” by David Wilcox.

As Always your humble, Distinguished, Professor of Quackery,
MR Blue Duck

October 2012 Blue Duck Weather News

October 2012 Weather News!

Welcome to another outstanding edition of Blue Duck Weather! Keep those hits coming to make sure this is the most frequently read weather news on the planet! Our viewing audience is growing rapidly with the incredible reporting your fine staff brings to you. Examples below are just a tiny piece of the cosmic puzzle my faithful readers.

A new method adopted by the Weather Channel to report winter storms, little known fact about one of last month’s tropical storms, grass thieves due to the drought, how it shaped up for rattlesnakes on The Land this spring and summer, one place that went from wildfires to snow in five days, a squirrel account that the Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck will smile at, bug invasion in one town turns to insanity, the possibility’s of approaching Hurricane Sandy, The President of the United States advised on the potential destruction of Hurricane Sandy, a shark that fell out of the sky on a southern California golf course and so much more in this latest edition of Blue Duck Weather.

This month’s weather news seemed fairly tame in comparison until about October 25th. Sandy was born as an usual tropical storm and your fine staff at Blue Duck Weather is cautious about “predictions” because many do not pan out and make for (more) boring reading. Once I read that the President was advised about the possible destruction of Sandy in the “Situation Room”, once I saw the computer models (the European model nailed the storm’s energy and path) I began to watch this thing blow up like a nuclear bomb.

Super storm Sandy, the perfect storm Sandy, once in a generation Sandy, Franken storm Sandy, only a Category 1 hurricane but with lowest barometric pressure and outflow winds in recorded history. Yes, “only” a category one storm but with enough force to extend one thousand miles, cause unprecedented snow inland and with twelve foot high waves on Lake Michigan, made my feathered pinholes of ears perk up. This one was going to be a monster. And I am sure the effects will be felt for many months to come. And in the coming weeks, long after Sandy is gone from front line news your fine staff at Blue Duck Weather will be giving you information on all of its impact.

But first the necessary statistics that began this “scientific” weather journal.
The average temperature on The Land in October was 73.72 degrees, 15 degrees cooler at the end of the month than the beginning. Talking Trees and Antelope Hill had an average of 52.88 degrees and was only 7 degrees cooler.

No rain in October and the total for the year on The Land is 5.24 inches.
And the ever important, if not life saving lake water reports for the arid South West are as follows: Lake Mead, 51% full, Powell 57%, Pleasant only 39%, and poor old Roosevelt Lake at 44%! This leads us to the appropriate quote of the month. “But oh my desert yours is the only death I cannot bear.”
Richard Shelton


10-1- Two records this year for bald eagles in Arizona; the number of nests and the number of eggs. Sixty six breeding areas have been documented and eighty eggs.

Powerful Typhoon Jelawat headed toward Tokyo after causing black outs in southern and western Japan.

The amount of coral reef in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has been cut in half since 1985, two thirds since 1995 Tropical storms, coral predation, warming water and pollution account for 48%.

10-2- Your Editor in Chief doesn’t hold much stock in long term weather forecasts but the next ninety days for Arizona is likely to be wetter. (Let’s hope so.)

“During the upcoming 2012-13 winter season the Weather Channel will name note worthy storms. Our goal is to better communicate the threat and timing of the significant impacts that accompany these events. The fact is, a storm with a name is easier to follow, which will mean fewer surprises and more preparation.” Winter storms have been named in Europe since 1950.

10-3- There hasn’t been much news about Tropical Storm Nadine since it is so far away from the U.S. but after forming twenty days ago it has become one of the top five lasting cyclones in the Atlantic. It is headed to the Azores Islands in the north Atlantic.

With the ongoing drought grass thieves are “sprouting” in New Mexico. Some ranchers have started cutting neighbor’s fences or leaving gates open so their own cattle can graze on greener land. (Get a rope!)

From his secluded location in Colorado RyDuck reports a high of 82 degrees dropping to 40 degrees in five hours. Snow expected.

Tropical Storm Oscar, fifteenth named storm of the season has formed in the eastern Atlantic. It is 1220 miles west, north west of the Cape Verde Islands.
Tropical Storm Nadine dies in the Atlantic short of the longest active tropical storm on record.

Here comes Winter! Up to six inches of snow in Fargo, North Dakota and portions of Montana.

Arizona Game and Fish are analyzing a trail camera photo taken in Tucson of either a rare jaguar or ocelot. The photo was taken on September 23 by a hunter. Four of the last five sightings have been by Arizona hunters.

10-5- Rare October snowstorm for North Dakota to Minnesota with fourteen inches in some areas. Grand Forks, North Dakota had a record for this date of 3.5” breaking the old record set in1950. Six inches fell in Karlstad, Minnesota just after residents were forced out of their homes by wildfires earlier this week.

10-6- Heartbreaking! A landslide in China kills eighteen children in a school buried by the mud.

A man in Orem, Utah called police after he received a call on his cell phone from his home phone. He thought it was a burgler. He later discovered his pooch had grabbed the receiver and pushed redial as he was burying it in the backyard.

10-7- Many mountain lions are migrating west from Nevada into California. One theory is the Sierra in California has lusher habitat and greater selection of prey than the arid mountains of Nevada. The cat population is estimated to be almost double of Nevada, almost six thousand. Hunting lions is legal in Nevada, illegal in California. ( My theory is they are moving to get away from the shooters!)



10-9- There is a severe apple shortage due to spring freezes resulting in the smallest crops since 1986. Production is down 52% in New York and a whopping 90% in Michigan.

The Shinook salmon are making a big come back in Klemuth, California. 380,000 have doubled the record since 1978.

10-10- Due to the drought from the Dakotas to Oklahoma, cities are seeing more skunks. One animal control officer said they usually catch two skunks a week, but over the last three weeks 13.

10-11- The entire state of Arizona is under a Weather Alert with rain, snow, wind and tornadic activity possible

Tropical Storm Patty forms in the Atlantic east of the Bahamas. Is it the 16th named storm of the season.

The north Pole has been losing ice in the water but the south Pole is gaining reaching a record of 7.51 million square miles in September.

Natural disasters have been raising dramatically around the world since 1980 but the trend is steepest for North America with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, record heat and drought.

Flagstaff, Arizona police are looking for the sick bastard who hung a puppy outside of its dog house. The owner returned home, found the poor thing and cut the noose so her children wouldn’t see it.

And from the I swear we don’t make this shit up file: Raw chicken parts fall out of the sky on a horse back rider in Virginia. Thanfully she was wearing a riding helmet. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality will investigate. ( I would rather deal with flying pigs or blimps. “Willie, it’s a blimp, Willie! That insane memory is from a “song” by Captain Beefheart. In this case it should be Captain Chickenheart.)

10-12- Last night’s storm brought a half inch or rain to Mesa, .82” in Cave Creek, the first snow in Flagstaff and the high temperature in the Phoenix area down to 73 degrees. We have not had highs in the seventies since last April.

Heavy rain and flooding in large amounts of Scotland bursting river banks and turning roads into rivers. Britain warned the region to brace for a month’s worth of rain in 48 hours. Thirty flood warnings are in effect.

10-13- Tornado Watches in parts of Oklahoma and Tennessee.

10-15- The one hundred acre Big Canyon Fire is burning fourteen miles east of Payson two miles from the Tonto Fish Hatchery. The cause is not known but cooler temperatures should help fires in the rugged terrain.

Tropical Storm Paul quickly turns into a hurricane and a Watch is posted for parts of Baja, California. The storm’s center is 530 miles south of the southern tip of the Baja.

Tropical Storm Rafeal tracking toward Bermuda after drenching the Caribbean’s Leeward Islands.

10-16- Paul blew up into a Category 3 storm last night but has weakened as it is close to landfall in Mexico’s Baja, California. Up to ten inches of rain in some places. A Warning is issued from Santa Fe north to Punta Abrejos.

Squirrel populations explode in parts of Vermont due to a mild winter and a good nut crop. One Orchardist says he hasn’t seen such infestations in thirty three years on sixty farms. The little bastards will wait until an apple crop is nearly ripe and then swarm into trees sometimes eating half the tree’s fruit in two or three hours.

10-17- The first Freeze Warning of the season issued for eastern Arizona.

Fifty homes are evacuated near Santa Barbara due to a wildfire. The fire began at eight this morning and has doubled in two hours.

Paul weakens to a Tropical Storm as is skirts Baja, California this morning.

Boxelder bug invasion in Portage, Utah. They are everywhere, on children, dogs, in the food, in the basements and along window sills. People are just beside themselves. (And Mrs. Blue Duck thought the flies were bad at the end of the summer.)

10-18- Five unconfirmed tornadoes in Mississippi and Arkansas. Two homes destroyed and thousands without power.

Up to 60mph winds knock out power to 50,000 in Denver, Fort Collins and Greeley two days ago. 5500 still without power.

The wildfire in Santa Barbara is 75% contained at forty four acres in a heavily populated area. It may have started by a downed power line.

Drought, frost and hail have combined to make Europe’s wine grape harvest the worst in 50 years. Crop harvest will be down 20% in France and Italy.

10-19- The tiny town of Bucyrus, North Dakota is all but destroyed by a wildfire fanned by 70mph winds burns 6,000 acres. The drought is to blame and one woman lost her home of forty five years. Twenty seven other residents are displaced.

This one sounds like the Arizona desert in the summer or perhaps the Dust Bowl in the thirties: Dust storms in northern Oklahoma shut down I-35 for several hours after three dozen vehicles pile up. Fourteen injured. One state trooper said he had never seen anything like it in thirty years.

10-20- It has been raining for five days in Lourdes, France. Parts of the city in front of the Basilica are flooded with up to five feet of water. Hundreds of pilgirms are evacuated since the grotto is under water.

Due to a cold Alaska storm moving south into California a tornado touched down north of Sacremento yesterday. Two feet of snow in the highest elevations of the Sierra Nevada. Chains required on Highway 50 south of Lake Tahoe. With winds up to 80 mph a Winter Storm Warning is issued for elevations above 5500’.

10-23- Tropical Storm Sandy develops and on course to Jamaica. Hurricane Warnings are issued.

10-24- Three hundred and eighty folks are evacuated west of Pueblo, Colorado as a wildfire has burned 1700 acres and twelve structures. Winds of up to 50 mph are not helping and the fire is at zero containment.

Sandy turns into a hurricane and hits Jamaica. All schools are closed and shelters set up.

Tropical Storm Tony forms in the Atlantic.

10-24- Major flooding in Istanbul, Turkey damaging homes and crops. Three are dead from flash flooding.

10-25- Forty nine degree low on The Land with a sixty nine degree high. It is about fucking time! Twenty two degree low at Talking Trees and Antelope Hill. Ooshy.

Hurricane Sandy strikes Cuba with 105mph winds knocking out power to the entire city of Havana and damaging homes. This powerful storm has a 90% chance of hitting the north east U.S. next week. The lead forecaster with the National Weather Service said “It’s going to be a high impact event.” Some models showing Sandy doing more damage than last year’s Irene. It may affect fifty million people.

10-26- State of Emergency declared in New Jersey as Sandy looms in the distance. All ships in Norfolk, Virginia sent to sea as a precaution.

10-27- Sandy “powers” toward the Eastern Seaboard. Tropical storm force winds extend for 650 miles. States of Emergencies declared in eight states. Evacuations ordered along some coastal areas, including Atlantic City tomorrow afternoon.

10-28- “U.S. superstorm threat launches evacuations.” “1991 perfect storm skipper leery of Sandy.”

Hundreds of thousands are ordered to evacuate, a possible threat to fifty to sixty million people. Closure of New York City subway, bus and commuter rail begins today at seven p.m. All NYC schools closed tomorrow. 375,000 evacuated off Long Island, New York. Federal government closing all offices tomorrow.

10-29- Sandy’s death toll in the Caribbean up to sixty five souls, fifty one of them in Haiti. Bridges have collapsed, banana crops ruined and homes under water.

And Sandy slams the United States: 2.8 million without power. Schools, offices, roads and transit shut down across an area of fifty million people. Parts of the Atlantic and New Jersey under five feet of water. According to the governor of New Jersey “Rescue is no longer an option.” 10,000 flights cancelled. The coastal tide in New Jersey is thirteen feet high, three feet higher than Hurricane Irene last year.

Being called a freak storm Hurricane Sandy matches no other model in history. Record storm surges in New York City. Hurricane force winds from New York to Virginia. Water beginning to enter the New York subways in Manhatten. No photos are coming from north of NYC due to power outages.
The first time in 124 years the New York Stock Exchange is closed for two days in a row.

And here in sunny Phoenix, Arizona three hikers are stung by swarms of bees. One hiker falls to his death. The young man had just enlisted to join the Marines. Rescuers had to wear bee suits and were stung themselves. The other two hikers managed to hunker down in some rocks but were stung hundreds of times. They are expected to survive.

10-30- On the front page of the Arizona Republic: “Superstorm Sandy slams the Eastern Seaboard.” Wall Street swamped, Boardwalk is damaged, record thirteen foot tidal surge at the southern tip of Manhatten, a construction crane collapsed on top of a luxury high rise building with winds estimated at 90mph.

“Sandy’s mammoth wake: 40 dead, millions without power. Once in a generation hurricane.” Twenty states from New England to Tennessee without power. Massive fire destroys one hundred homes in Queens, New York. Ten subways under the East River in New York are flooded. Four towns in north New Jersey are under six feet of water after a levee breaks. Six nuclear power plants are closed, all of New York City’s airports are closed and fifteen thousand flights are cancelled.

From the effects of Sandy there is a full blown blizzard, after mixing with colder air from the north, in West Virginia and North Carolina. Fourteen to sixteen inces of snow on the Newfoundland Gap on the Tennesse, North Carolina line, biggest October snow fall on record.

Alhough Sandy never grew to more than a Category 1 hurricane its center had the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in the northern hemisphere. This means it had enough sustained force to become one thousand miles wide and produce the damage that it caused.

And here in sunny Arizona the Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck spots a rattlesnake on the road near The Land. She also told me for the first time rural area trick or treaters should be on the lookout for rattlesnakes. ( I was going to comment in this edition of Blue Duck Weather about the lack of rattlesnakes on the Land this summer. But I did not want to comment too early. I suppose it is a bitter sweet relationship with the bastards. Not one did I see all summer. But I also saw few quail, hardly any prairie dogs and other food that snakes consume. I know I have killed so many snakes over the years, mainly because I didn’t want family and pets bitten. But it seems to be a sad irony to me. I can’t say I miss them, but the lack of them worries me for environmental reasons. Too little rain to support their food sources, too many people driving them away, or possibly to many people like me who shoot them on site. Now that I write this I will probably get bitten, caught off guard by cooler temperatures. In a just world it would probably serve me right.)

10-31- Halloween cancelled in New Jersey. Two million without power as the President visits. The New Jersey coastline is changed forever. 20,000 in Hoboken trapped by high water.

The famous Belleview hospital in New York City evacuated patients due to lack of running water. Nork York City is cut in half and a quarter of a million people are still without power. Mile long wait and hours for gasoline in New Jersey and New York.

And here in Arizona Dish Satellite employees are stung by bees in Maricopa and had to be airlifted to Phoenix.

Until next month, whether you are stung by bees or caught in “the storm of a century” remember Pioneers took bullets. Settlers took land.

With humility in serving our fine readers, MR Blue Duck

Blue Duck Weather News, September 2012

September 2012 Weather News!

Welcome to another exciting edition of Blue Duck Weather. I would like to take a moment to show gratitude to the brilliance of the Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck. It is she (not me of course) who set up this fantastic weather blog! To date there have been 5,119 page views of this incredible blog worldwide! From the United States to the Netherlands and Russia folks around the world are discovering the real truth in weather journalism. Please pass the torch and share Blue Duck Weather with your friends, enemies, uncles and aunts. Post a comment and I promise you will receive a reply from your brilliant Editor in Chief of this fine publication. Thank you so much for your support and readership.


In this exciting edition of Blue Duck Weather you will read the following:
Eighty three thousand dollars to treat a woman for scorpion stings in Chandler, Arizona, the long lasting effects and damage of even a “minor” hurricane, thousands of dead, huge swamp rats wash onto shore after Issac, worldwide health alert for visitors this summer at Yosemite National Park, west Sedona, Arizona bear encounter, the actual place the hottest temperature on the planet was recorded and when, the last roaring gasp of Arizona’s monsoon season (not by the official calendar date), where we can get enough energy to power the world, BP makes the news again with more oil turning up on Gulf Coast beaches, a little known fact about the distinction between hurricanes and typhoons, a wildfire churning up radiation from old mines, bizarre fire tornadoes, a half billion dollar weather tracking satellite fails for “no reason”, a man who jumps into a tiger cage to “become one” with the beast, a town of one hundred thousand in Texas about to impose water restrictions so severe they will ban the use of fresh water to fill swimming pools and more news you never knew or cared about.

The average temperature on The Land in September was 81.68 degrees and it was twelve degrees cooler at the end of the month than the beginning. Hallelujah! The average temperature at Talking Trees and Antelope Hill was 60.89 degrees. Summer is ending!

The Land received 1.47” of rain in September. We have had enough rain this monsoon season to sprout real, live dense patches of grass despite the heat. For the last several years the desert has looked like a moonscape except for the ever present mesquite, palo verde and creosote. For the year The Land has received 5.24” of rain, most of it during this monsoon. To date Phoenix has received 3.36” of rain.

You will read more in this edition about the effects of the monsoon runoff and the surrounding lakes but it ain’t pretty for my beloved Roosevelt Lake; 51% full, Pleasant is 55% full, Mead 50% and Powell 58%. Now let’s get on with the Weather News!


9-1- Residents of St. Tammany Parish north of New Orleans on Lake Pontchartrain are ordered today to evacuate immediately. According to authorities the failure of a lock along a canal is “imminent.” Three hundred and sixty thousand people are still without power from Issac.

Drought stricken Missouri and Illinois receive some much needed rain relief from the remnants of Issac.

Most of Montana has had a dry, scorched summer. There are ten uncontained fires burning in the state. The 19 Mile wildfire has destroyed a dozen homes.
This is Billings hottest summer on record with 47 days with temperatures above ninety degrees. The normal is 29.

Three people in Idaho are electrocuted in a ditch trying to rescue a dog.

Some Cape Cod beaches are closed this Labor Day weekend due to shark sightings.

9-3- Two rescued on Camelback Mountain in Phoenix by helicopter due to dehydration.

Wildfires in Nebraska and South Dakota triple in size from three days ago.

4,000 acres on fire in the Angelis National Forest. Twelve thousand people, including campers for the holiday weekend, are forced to evacuate.

Six days after Issac first hit 125,000 still without power in Louisiana. 2500 still in shelters. 65,000 people have applied for Disaster relief.

9-4- One inch of rain last night in a brief amount of time in Apache Junction, Arizona. Flooding in San Carlos and Kearny.

9-5- St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix has sent 41,000 pounds of emergency food and baby formula to a New Orleans food bank. This was done despite supplies down 50% compared with last year.

La Place, Louisiana is blaming fortified New Orleans levees for pushing flood waters into outlying areas. 17,000 homes are damaged from Issac.

Heavy rain, up to three inches hit’s the East Coast from Issac.

Tropical Storm Michael, continues to grow in the Atlantic.

Leslie, the 6th named storm forms in the Atlantic. It is 465 miles south west of Bermuda.

Twenty thousand dead swamp rats wash up on the beaches of Mississippi. The surge of water from Issac drowned them. They are a giant rodent introduced from South Africa. Most are glad to see the giant fuckers dead! (Mrs. Blueduck would like to know why anyone would want to see them alive and why would you introduce giant swamp rats to our country?)

9-6- At approximately five p.m. this afternoon .60’’ of rain fell on The Land in about twenty minutes. As your official weather spotter it was my duty to report it to the National Weather Service. Their guidelines are to report anything over one half inch of rain in thirty minutes. Needless to say it flooded with water making the desert look like a lake and the streets turned into torrential rain runoff. I can always tell when it is “no man’s land” and for how long. Until the lights of cars crawling their way down the road, hours after flooding, do I know it is time to give the Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck the “green light” to come on home when she is caught north of this mess.
There was also a fifteen degree drop in temperature in fifteen minutes.

Thirteenth Dust Storm Warning in Phoenix this summer. A wall of dirt twenty miles wide overtakes the Valley like a crawling halocaust. Flights from Sky Harbor conduct “ground stops” and are not allowed to take off.

Rain helps with the 4180 acre wildfire in the San Gabriel Mountains north east of Los Angeles.

9-7- A wild weather morning in the east Valley and Tucson, Arizona! Three inches of rain in Mesa at Broadway and Higley. Sixty five nursing home patients had to be moved out of flooded rooms. One school cancels football game. A fifty two year old woman was swept to her death in a flooded wash in Tucson. Her husband managed to escaped the car with a broken pelvis and was rescued alive.

2.91 inches of rain recorded at Sky Harbor Airport for the monsoon season so far, above the normal average of 2.77”.

Last night’s “massive dust cloud billows over Phoenix skies” makes national news.

A family hiking in west Sedona encounters an “aggressive” black bear and her cubs within twenty feet. The woman was terrified and used “moutain lion roars’’ to scare the poor bears away.

A world wide alert is issued for visitors to Yosemite National Park this summer. 29,000 people are at risk of contracting the Hanti Virus and two have died so far. The infections have been located to park cabins and tents.

9-8- High dew points in Arizona have persisted lately and according to one meteorologist they may persist through the winter. “Our dew points have stayed elevated as we are transitioning into El Nino condition could mean a wetter winter.”

Hurricane Leslie downgraded to a tropical storm in the Atlantic on a path toward Bermuda.

A rare tornado swept out of the ocean hit’s a beach front neighborhood in New York City today causing damage.

Two adults and an infant died in their mobile home after it was blown into a ravine in Nowata County, Oklahoma. Another man was killed when straight line winds flipped his semi onto a cement barrier trapping him inside. 17,790 people without power.

A cussing cockatoo violates noise law in Warwick, Rhode Island. Neighbors complain that the bird constantly cusses them out. But the neighbor’s just happen to be the woman who owns the cockatoo’s ex husband and his girl friend.

9-9- Flooding kills 132 folks in Nigeria and has displaced 36,331 people since July. (And we think our monsoon season gets rough.)

9-10- Sixty power poles down from high winds in Yuma, Arizona thousands without power.

There are 110 fires burning in central Washington state.

Idaho’s 408 square mile Mustang Complex fires are still burning after being started by lightning in July. Just yesterday hundreds evacuated.

9-11- NEVER FORGET THIS FATEFUL DATE!

A cool high of 77 degrees at The Land today with .64 inches of rain in the last twenty four hours. The total this month is 1.47 inches. Let’s try and kill the fucking drought we have been in for twelve years.

So far 2012 is the hottest on record for the United States.

Two women arrested in Pima County, Arizona flood rescues. Both, in separate incidents, are charged with reckless driving with children on board into flooded washes. They are also being charged for child abuse.

A new study claims there is enough energy in the wind to satisfy the world’s energy needs.

9-12- Flash flooding in Vegas with 45 homes damaged in the south east part of the town. 1.75 inches was recorded downtown, the wettest day on record.
The California deserts, Utah and Navajo Land near Tuba City also hit hard. Highway 260 near Tuba City is closed. One hundred and fifty miles south east of Los Angeles in Coachella Valley one storm dumped 5.51’’ of rain in one night, more than their annual average rainfall.
A dike breaches in Santa Clara, Utah and thirty homes are evacuated.

BP wants to “aggressively” clean up oil exposed on Louisianna beaches by Hurricane Issac. This is remnants of buried oil from the massive well blow on April 20th, 2010. ( They have been spending millions of dollars on ad campaings on National news welcoming all of us to the Gulf Coast and how pristine it is. Someone once told me “the Devil is in the details.” Well, let me tell you the Devil is buried deep in the water and sand polluting every living thing is it exposed to.)

A nineteen year old fisherman in Sitka, Alaska spends the night in a four foot by four foot plastic fish bin after his boat was hit by waves, overturned and sank. A Coast Guard helicopter rescued him twenty four hours after his “chilly” ordeal.

Leslie moves out to sea after pounding Newfoundland with wind and rain. Thousands are without power and all flights at the island’s main airport are cancelled.

9-13- The Hopi Tribe in Tuba City, Arizona declare a State of Emergency from flooding.

Nearly one hundred years later, California’s Death Valley has been recognized as having the hottest all time record high on the planet. It was 134 degrees on July 10th, 1913.

National health officials are convinced this is the worst year on record for West Nile virus deaths in the U.S. since it hit in 1999. 1405 serious illnesses and 118 deaths have been reported across the country, mainly in Texas.

As the tourist season winds down eight people have died visiting the Grand Canyon this year. Most deaths are accidental, including falls, heat strokes and drowning. Suicides are also recorded every year. Last year there were twenty one fatalities, the highest in ten years.

9-14- Typhoon Sanba heading for Okinawa and South Korea with 145 mph winds, equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane. Earlier this week 178 mph winds made it a Super Typhoon. (Interesting fact: Named storms west of the International dateline in the Pacific north west ocean are called typhoons, not hurricanes.)


Highway 264 east of Tuba City, Arizona has been reopened after flooding washed over a bluff and washed out six feet of dirt below the road closing it.

Tropical Storm Kristy causing life threatening surf and rip currents off the coast of southern Baja, California and south west Mexico. (Surfers, grab your boards!)

9-15- Typhoon Sanba unleashes torrential rains in Manila and Okinawa with streets under six feet of water.

The eighth hurricane of the season, Nadine is born in the Atlantic east of Bermuda.

9-17- Typhoon Sanba pounds North and South Korea with heavy rain. One dead, 170 homeless and 67,000 without power.

9-18- Tornado alerts issued for the East Coast. Winds and rain have left 4,000 without power on Long Island, 15,000 in Connecticut and 28,000 in Washington and Baltimore. This same weather system caused flooding in parts of Tennessee when five inches of rain fell resulting in eight water rescues.

9-19- Ocean temperatures off the North East U.S. coasts reach record highs for the first half of 2012. According to NOAA the average water temperature from North Carolina to Canada is 50.50.

A Tornado Watch is issued for most of Maryland and a foot of rain has fallen in some areas.

Arctic sea ice reaches new low levels breaking a record set three weeks ago. “We are now in unchartered territory”, said the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The record low of 1.32 million square miles and nearly half the average extent from 1979 to 2010.

And wouldn’t this sight make you shit your pants?; fire torandoes in Australia have swirling winds that mix with wildfires taking flames thousands of feet into the sky.

9-20- Wind blown chunks of flaming bark forcing new evacuations in Washington wildfires. The evacuations happen as the burning bark falls on Mission Ridge, blown in by the Table Mountain Complex fires six miles away. One fire incident commander called the combination of conditions so late in September unprecedented in twenty eight years of fire fighting. 30,000 acres have burned with 4% containment.

Deadly storm kills five and injures 81 in Paraguay, South Africa.

9-21- The massive wildfire in Idaho has burned through three old mining sites containing “traces” of radioactive thorium and uranium. Environmental authorities plan to take air samples in North Folk. “This is new ground for us, but we are dealing with the issue at this time.” The risk of human exposure stems from the potential for radioactive material consumed by fire to become airborne. (Mix this with the fire tornadoes in Australia and you have Hell at your door!)

A large cargo of marble stonework that sank to the bottom of Poland’s Vistula River four centuries ago has appeared after drought and record low water levels.

9-22- First day or autumn and the high on the Land was 102 degrees with a dew point of 49 degrees. (Feel the “cool” in the breeze?)

The recent monsoon and seasonal rains have reduced the drought conditions in Arizona. 32% of the state is in severe or extreme conditions compared to 94% a month ago. But our desert lakes have not recovered. Roosevelt is down to 48% capacity from nearly full two years ago. Bartlett has shrunk to 50% down from 92% and Horseshoe Lake is dry.

On August 30th the Associated Press published a photo of a soaked, bearded man being helped by two rescuers in Slidell, Florida after he nearly drowned in flooding from Hurricane Isaac. The homeless man’s identity was not known. Because of the photo the man has been reunited with his daughters that he has not seen in 16 years.

A visitor at the Bronx Zoo in New York jumped from an elevated monorail and landed in an exhibit were he was mauled by a four hundred pound tiger. His injuries are serious.

9-23- The man mauled by a tiger at the Bronx Zoo said he wanted “to be one” with the four hundred pound animal. He claimed despite serious bites and punctures he got to “pet” the tiger. (This dude should be locked up for his own safety.)

Tropical Storm Miriam forms over the eastern Pacific 640 miles southwest of the southern tip of Baja, California.

9-24- A brush fire near San Diego destroys and damages 30 homes. The fire began yesterday in a densely populated area and has burned 2,000 acres. It is 10% contained.

A record 154 water spouts this year recorded over the Great Lakes. The old record is 94 set in 2003. The cause is a hot summer with very warm water.

Floods in India have displaced one million people and left 33 dead.

An avalanche has killed nine climbers on a Himalayan peak in Nepal with six missing.

Hurricane Miriam is a Category 3 storm.

9-25- Smoke from the San Diego fires settles over the Phoenix area.

Miriam weakens to a Category 1 hurricane.

A one half billion dollar satellite that tracks worldwide weather has failed for no apparent reason. Future forecasts may be less accurate. (?)

9-26- Tornadoes and golf ball size hail pound towns in southern Illinois. Three confirmed tornadoes.

A police officer shoots a pit bull in a Mesa, Arizona Target store. Employees had asked the dog’s owner to leave because he was sitting in the middle of an aisle with his dog for “quite some time.” When cops tried to speak to the dog’s owner he ignored them and was speaking on the phone asking his grandmother to pray with him. The dog attacked and bit an officer after an attempt to arrest the man. The man was tazed, the pooch was killed.

Ninety four thousand people in San Angelo, Texas are running out of water due to the prolonged drought. The city says it only has enough water to last one more year. On October 16th the city will enforce the highest levels of emergency measures; banning water of lawns, golf courses, gardens, close car washes and ban fresh water to be used to fill swimming pools. ( I recall in the early seventies Fountain Hills, Arizona banned the construction and filling of pools due to severe water shortages in the town. Ironic since the Verde River is only a few miles away.)

Residents in Globe, Arizona are urged to boil water for drinking due to the presence of E-Coli bacteria.

Arizona Game and Fish is on the look out for “serial” elk poachers in northern Arizona. It seems the bastard’s only goal is trophy antlers. Witnesses are urge to call “Silent Witness.”

9-29- Seven killed and hundreds evacuated after flash floods roared in Malaga, Spain.

9-30- The last “official” date heralding the end of the monsoon season in Arizona. (But due to the brilliant record keeping of your Editor in Chief the last blast was 9-11 or the day after, depending where you lived in this state.)

The ever important song of the month (and I hope you add all the songs we share with you to your vast song libraries) is Backwater Blues by the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band.

And the quote of the month may seem dark and mysterious but it is eloquent and beautiful in its own right. “Here in the last minutes, the very end of the world, someone’s tightening a screw thinner than an eyelash, someone with slim wrists is straightening flowers…….’’
James Richardson

Until next month always remember Pioneers took bullets. Settlers took Land.
The Distinguished, Honorable, PHD MR. Blue Duck.