June 2013, Blue Duck Weather News

June 2013 Weather News!



Before you knew it the time has come for a brand new edition of Blue Duck Weather. Just in time for miserable heat in the desert of Arizona with plenty of weather misery (and bliss I’m sure somewhere.) In Arizona this is the month where desert temperatures soar and records are not set until temps reach the 110s, 115’s and the all time Phoenix record of 122 degrees set back in 1990.This is the month of killer heat that has to occur to start drawing in the Gulf of Mexico moisture that finally ushers in the monsoon and our only chance for summer rain. But this is the month that catches some off guard, young and old, fit and unfit, the homeless and even people who think they are accustomed to the heat. This is the month that being outdoors too long with not enough water can kill you!

It seems murders rise when the weather gets to unbearable also. A friend of mine told me when she lived in Baltimore the weather stations would stop reporting the temperature and humidity when both were over 90%. ( I don’t quite understand the logic in that, maybe it’s just bad karma. But when it gets that miserable you don’t need to be told to know when being miserable turns to deadly rage.

And the misery began for so many again in Oklahoma as the El Reno Tornado set a new world record and the front page headline today was “Oklahoma hit again.” And for the first time three storm chasers lost their lives due to this massive tornado. These were not thrill chasers but dedicated scientists and professional trying to help all of us understand these violent weather events and eventually avoid them when possible.

Half a world away the weather bliss that Hawaii may be changing if not disappearing. The trade winds are declining for unknown reasons and more humidity has set in. Residents unaccustomed to the heat are complaining and using their air conditioners more. The winds are also becoming too weak to blow away volcanic smog.

And certainly don’t forget we are just now entering Hurricane season. Hopefully it won’t be a bad one but no one knows until it plays out in the pages of Blue Duck Weather in the months to come.

Blue Duck Weather is jam packed with useful information to share with your coworkers, aunts, uncles and anyone else you want to see run screaming from your lunacy such as; What recent tragic weather event set the record for the most rain ever for one hour ?, the most destructive wildfire ever in Colorado, more intentionally set brush fires this month, a tiny tidbit of information about terrorist threats to blow up dams in an already flooded region, what is the ideal warning window for a tornado, BP finally “concludes” its billions of dollar effort to clean up the Gulf Coast, the first massive wildfire this season erupts in northern Arizona, India’s tragic monsoon landslides, from the longest snow season in history to the hottest in parts of Alaska, find out what has caused the only two evacuation orders in New York City’s history, find out what a teotsunami is, pot fed pigs (?), and a disabled duck gets a new foot. (I swear, we don’t make this shit up.) And then on June 30th the unbelievable and tragic breaking news of nineteen Arizona firefighters losing their lives fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire near Prescott, Arizona. (Sadly we all will be reading and watching in the early part of July to find out just what happened. )

June was hot as I suppose they all are in the desert. Mercifully, every year in the winter, you forget how miserable it is or no one would live here in the Summer. There were 18 days it was 105 degrees or hotter, 2 days 110 or hotter and one day it hit 115 degrees on the Land. The average temperature on the Land was 87.23 degrees.

Talking Trees and Antelope Hill had an average June temperature of 66.40 degrees.

There has been no rain on The Land since April 8th.

Fortunately the lakes that matter to Arizona and the South West are holding their own. Mead is 47% full, Pleasant is 50%, Powell is 49% and Roosevelt 50%.

Before we begin June’s blistering weather journal we will introduce the quote of the month. “I’m miserable when it’s cold. I’m miserable when it’s hot. I’m a human being, never satisfied.

And as so much seems to be burning up in the South West the song of the month is “The Fields Have Turned Brown” by Seldom Scene.


6-1- At first five were reported dead in the tornado that hit El Reno, Oklahoma. But as the aftermath unfolded a total of sixteen perished. Some had drowned in flash flooding and were not found until days later. Eight inches or rain fell in some areas.

106 degrees at The Land today and in Phoenix five urban mountain rescues due to the hot weather.

Eight square miles have burned near Santa Fe, New Mexico and out of control along with another fire in the state.

The Powerhouse fire north of Los Angeles is out of control.

Three unconfirmed tornadoes near St. Louis, Missouri with 150mph winds.

Mountain lion sighting on the West Fork Trail in the Catalina Mountains near Tucson. The area has been closed to people until June 7th.

6-2- The body of a man has been recovered in Mount Vernon, Missouri after he tried to cross a low water bridge in a flash flood. His pickup was swept away.

Children dying in hot cars doubled the national average in May during a sixteen day period in four states. All but four were left by a family member.

The Powerhouse Fire north of Los Angeles has grown four times over night to 19,500 acres. It is only 20% contained and three firefighters are injured fighting this dragon’s breath.

The Phoenix mountain trails rescues yesterday included a 66 year old man who suffered a medical condition, a 45 year old woman who broke an ankle, a 56 year old man who blacked out and fell into a cholla cactus (ouch!), and a 31 year old that became severely dehydrated.

6-3- Three young men were four hours into a ten mile hike yesterday in the White Tank Mountains west of Phoenix. A 21 year old man in the group started complaining his legs wouldn’t work. He died and collapsed on the trail. Heat is probably the main contributing factor. ( I don’t think you could carry enough water for a ten mile strenuous hike in the desert in this heat.)

Arizona forest visitors are cautioned on target practicing. In fact it is illegal in the Tonto National Forest along with the ban on camp fires. So far eight fires have occurred in that forest this year. With extremely dry conditions all it takes is a spark from bullets striking rocks.

The Powerhouse Fire has blown up to 30,000 acres with 2,000 evacuations and is 40% contained.

As the massive storm system heads east the death toll in Oklahoma and Missouri has grown to 21 souls. Five are still missing and being searched for near the Oklahoma River.

The worst flooding in seventy years hits Passau, Germany. 8 are dead and 9 missing in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic.

6-4- The El Reno Tornado sets the world record for the widest tornado at 2.6 miles wide and confirmed winds of over 300 mph.

Emergency officials went door to door this afternoon urging residents of a small farming town near St. Louis to evacuate after a levee pounded by flood waters breached. The break opened on the Mississippi River and is cresting at 34.4 feet, the third highest on record.

6-5- The first tropical storm, Andrea forms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Death toll in European flooding up to 10 with 9 missing.

6-6- Andrea makes landfall in Big Bend, Florida with heavy rain. By eight a.m. this morning 4.5” of rain and 60 mph winds. But the biggest fear is tornadoes with 8 confirmed across the state.

Where has the most rainfall in one hour and in minutes ever occurred? Wiley Airport in Oklahoma City picked up 3.10’’ in one hour and 2” in thirty five minutes during the El Reno Tornado on May 31st.

The first 110 degree day in Phoenix. The average is June 20th.
115 fucking degrees in Bullhead City!

6-7- Fire fears in the White Mountains of Arizona as a low pressure system creates dry lightning and 45mph winds.

Tropical Storm Andrea struts up the East Coast after dumping heavy rains in Georgia and the Carolinas. Flash flooding a major problem in New York City with 3.8’’.

A few Arizona fire departments may not send crews to help with wild fires this summer because they are still waiting to get paid for fires they fought last summer. Issues with the federal government are to blame (isn’t that surprising?). Payments normally issued in 30-90 days are a year overdue.

6-8- Record 91 degrees in Flagstaff, 103 in Winslow.!

Tropical Storm Andrea is a mean bitch! Gale force winds, heavy rain and flooding on the East Coast.

The rare, but ever increasing Haboobs are back. A tsunami of dust blankets Albuquerque yesterday evening. Thunderstorms in the mountains near Los Alamos and Santa Fe produced the powerful outflow winds that caused the massive wall of dirt.

A 63 year old man is charged in March, Javelina shooting near Prescott. He said he was just “defending himself” when he shot and killed a stinky pig that was part of a herd outside his front door. Arizona Game & Fish don’t see it that way: He has been charged with disorderly conduct with a deadly weapon, four other felony charges and a misdemeanor.

6-9- A 50 year old hiker is rescued on South Mountain in Phoenix by helicopter in 105 degree heat. He was two miles up the Mormon trailhead and was too fatigued to get down.

This weekend’s heat in the Southwest claims two lives. A 69 year old Las Vegas native and boy scout leader was found dead yesterday in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area park. Rescue teams saved four boys and another man that was with him. Also a 15 month old baby boy died of heat exposure in Fresno, California left in a car with an outside temperature of 101 degrees.

The average tornado warning in the 1980s went out only after a twister hit the ground. Over the last five years residents in the U.S. have been given an average lead time of 13 minutes between warning issue and tornado touching down.

“There is a great philosophical discussion about what constitutes the ideal lead time.” When the El Reno tornado touched down on May 31st residents had nearly a half hour to prepare. With the additional lead time and Moore, Oklahoma still on their minds many panicked residents decided to flee their homes, and freeways and roads became gridlocked with people trying to outrun the approaching tornado. (So the point is I guess, if you have too much time to think instead of react immediately to the threat one does not take cover and instead flees.)

23,000 peoole are evacuated in eastern Germany where the Elbe River has flood and breached a dam. There have been 21 flood related deaths in central Europe.

Officials in Saxony- Anhalt are investigating a threat to destroy dams. Several media outlets said they received a letter threatening to blow up dams on the Elbe River. (Never heard another word about this, probably never will.) (Mrs. Blueduck here…also did we ever hear more about the 7 people found on the dam outside Boston at Midnight right after the Marathon bombing?)

6-9- New record high of 112 degrees in Las Vegas breaking 111 set in 1955.

6-10- And if you question the heat island effect of a city with concrete, asphalt, too many fucking cars and people consider this; the morning low at the wide open desert on The Land was 69 degrees. The morning low in Phoenix was 82 degrees.

The rain swollen Danube is approaching Budapest where soldiers and volunteers are building floodwalls. Parts of the Hungarian captial are already under water. One million sandbags have been placed after a week of heavy rain. (Kind of sounds like what is becoming a spring tradition in Fargo to hold back the mighty Red River with one million sandbags.)

A beach in Orleans, Massachusettes is closed due to a Great White sighting by an experienced lifeguard. A dorsal fin was spotted 150 yards off the beach and the bastard was estimated to be twelve to thirteen feet long.

6-11- Wildfires with gusty winds forcing evacuations in three different parts of Colorado. A 300 acre fire has jumped the Arkansas River near Canon County. Another near Colorado Springs and the third in the Rocky Mountain National Forest sparked by lightning. Five trails are closed and a Red Flag Warning is posted for half the state.

Earliest ever one hundred degree day in Denver.

Tornadoes and flooding from Kentucky all the way to Maryland.

An Alabama city closed all of its beaches yesterday after four men drowned in dangerous rip currents in the Gulf. Double red flag posted on all beaches. One of the elusive aspects of rip currents is the calm appearance of the surface water that gives swimmers a false sense of security.

BP has conluded work in three states from the massive oil spill in 2010 in the Gulf waters of Alabama, Florida and Mississippi. They have spent 14 billion dollars. ( Now lets hope they “conclude” the massive media ads telling us how fucking pristine the beaches are and all the tourists are back. Go talk to some of the locals down there and find out what the effects really have been and are continuing.)

6-12- Red Flag Warnings and Excessive Heat Warnings posted for much of Arizona. (Perfect ingredients for a hell fire.)

The largest blaze in Colorado right now is the Black Forest Fire in El Paso County. It has grown to 12,000 acres, 92 homes destroyed and 7,000 evacuations.

A sandstorm causes a 26 car pile up with one soul gone in Nevada. Humboldt County Sheriff’s dispatchers called in virtually every medical, law enforcement and fire worker in the sparsely populated area.

The Cubs and Reds play in unusual fog in Chicago.

6-13- Twenty tornadoes in 24 hours in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

The Black Forest Fire has consumed 360 homes!, 39,000 evacuations, 13,000 homes threatened and burned 15,000 acres.

The Arizona Humane Society received a surprise drop off two days ago, two bobcat kittens. The facility is not equipped to handle wildlife so the South West Wildlife Conservation Center in Scottsdale will take them. Hopefully they will be released back into the “wild” in about a year.

6-14- Now that two people have perished in the Black Forest Fire it has turned into a homicide investigation as authorities believe this fire is human caused. The lost souls were found in a garage trying to escape the flames and smoke. Four hundred homes destroyed or damaged, 50,000 acres burned and 40,000 evacuations!

The Wild Bill Fire has erupted near Flagstaff, Arizona and the popular lava tube cave near Flagstaff is closed. (Hell, I’ve lived in Arizona all of my life and don’t even know what the fuck a lava tube cave is!) The fire has burned 30 acres.

The Kingman Fire Department is offering a 10,000 dollar reward for information, the arrest and conviction of person(s) responsible for setting 63 brush fires in open field areas in the past two months.

A Mesa, Arizona woman is arrested on animal cruelty charges accusing her of abandoning two dogs in the desert. She was found by tracing a microchip in one of the dogs. She said she was moving and couldn’t take the pooches with her. She left them in late March with a small amount of food and water. A horseback rider found them earlier this month and gave them food and water. They are now in the care of Maricopa county jail inmates. ( First, it is amazing the dogs are still alive from March to June! Second if any asshole in Maricopa County is caught on animal abuse the mighty Sheriff Joe does not take this lightly and will punish you (rightfully) to the fullest extent of the law!)

6-15- The first “official” day of monsoon season in Arizona. Your fine staff at Blue Duck Weather will let you know the actual day it begins by traditional meterological standards.

The Black Forest Fire has damaged or destroyed 475 homes in Colorado and there are 20,000 ‘’refugees”.

Almost a year’s worth of rain in 36 hours with 17.05” in Eagle Pass, Texas near the Mexican border. Average yearly rainfall is 20.31”. 100 water rescues, some from rooftops and 450 evacuations.

Nine inches of rain in southwest Missouri.

6-16- The Black Forest fire has burned 15,500 acres and is 65% contained with 485 homes destroyed.

Ten inches of rain in Springfield, Missouri in a few hours.

The Secret Fire in Sedona caused by a lightning strike has burned 15 acres.

Finding tar balls from the BP oil spill isn’t difficult on some Gulf Coast beaches. But the company and the government say it’s common enough to end cleanup efforts. One tourist disagrees. After going for a walk in the surf last week he came back with dark, oily stains on his feet.

6-17- Helped by some blessed rain the Black Forest Fire is 75% contained.

6-18- The Doce Fire has erupted in Skull Valley, northwest of Prescott. It has burned 2,000 acres and is out of control. It began at noon and 300 homes have been evacuated.

Red Flag Warning for the Rim, Prescott, and southeast Arizona tomorrow.

6-19- The Doce Fire has now consumed 7,000 acres and the same evacuations in effect as yesterday.

Southeast Alaska hit four all time highs yesterday from 88 in Seward to 94 degrees in Talkeetna.

In the months following Hurricane Sandy New York City adds 60,000 more residents to its six evacutation zones totaling 3 million people. There have only been two mandatory evacuation orders in the history of New York, Sandy and 2011’s Irene.

Eighty six souls lost in LuckNow, India from monsoon flooding. 12,000 Hindu pilgrims have been evacuated, 63,000 people cut off, 46 injured and 22 missing.

6-20- At 10:04 p.m. tonight begins the summer solstice in Phoenix and the first day of summer. (Look at the bright side, the days only get shorter from here!)

The Dolce Fire northwest of Prescott, Arizona is 10% contained. With strong dry winds and only 3% humidity an Emergency Declaration is announced by the governor.

There are 19 “large incident fires” burning in the Four Corners states, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.

More records set in southern Alaska at 96 degrees and the beaches look like summer Florida tourist attractions.

Tropical Storm Barry makes landfall in Mexico today with life threatening flash floods and landslides. Up to ten inches of rain expected in southern Mexico.

The death toll from monsoon flooding and landslides in India is up to 100.

6-21- At 6,732 acres the Doce Fire is 15% contained.

6-22- Death toll in northern India has rapidly risen to over 600!

Record high waves, measuring 49’ from troughs to peaks during a brutal winter storm in New Zealand. Wellington, receives 69mph wind gusts and heavy snow. Flights are cancelled.

The Doce Fire near Prescott, Arizona is 45% contained and 450 evacuees are allowed to return.

A new fire is burning near White River, Arizona and has burned 800 acres.

Three fires are burning out of control in the Colorado mountains. The White Fork Fire Complex has grown from 12,000 acres to 30,000 acres overnight. Firefighters are reporting 100’ high flames with smoke rising to 30,000 feet. Six hundred residents of South Fork, Colorado are ordered to evacuate.

Four dead from major flooding in western Canada and 100,000 evacuations in Calgary. The Bow River that runs from Calgary crested more than five times its normal flow rate for this time of year.

6-23- There are twelve fires burning in Colorado that have consumed 133 square miles. The West Fork Fire Comples double in size overnight.

A young black bear, weighing between 75-100 pounds has been captured in Sierra Vista, Arizona. The young bruin has been “returned to the wild.”

Six months of rain in Calgary, Canada and the power grid is devastated. (I later read for the music community there it is much like the devastating flooding in Nashville, Tennessee a few years ago.)

6-24- The Doce Fire near Prescott, Arizona is 6800 acres and 50% contained.

A new fire has begun. The Rock Creek Fire near White River has burned 750 acres.

“The worst fire ever known to hit the Rio Grande National Forest in southern Colorado continued to be driven by hot, dry winds yesterday.” In two days the fire has grown from 50 square miles to 108 square miles. Firefighters are focused on protecting South Fork, Wolf Creek ski area and homes along highway 149. They are also trying to save the historic mining town of Creede, established in the late 1800s.

The Rock Creek Fire near White River is now 750 acres.

Tornadoes in Nebraska, 60 mph winds in Minnesota and eight inches of rain in Wisconsin.

Severe weather delays rescue attempts to evacuate thousands stranded in northern India. Despite fog and low visibility two thousand have been transported by helicopter to relief camps.

6-26- Excessive Heat Warning issued for Arizona for the next four days.

Fire officials believe that target shooting caused the Doce Fire near Prescott, Arizona.

A storm that hit the East Coast earlier this month may have caused a rare phenomenon; a tsunami. More than thirty tide gauges along the East Coast, Bermuda and Puerto Rico recorded tsunami like tide conditions. There was a strong outrush of water as the tide went out. Rocks normally 3-4’ deep were exposed. One possibility is a rare teotsunami or it could have been caused by a landslide off the continental shelf.

6-27- 128 degrees in Death Valley, California.

6-28- Excessive Heat Warnings for Arizona, California and Nevada locked below a powerful dome of high pressure. 112 degrees at The Land, 116 degrees in Phoenix and 120 degrees in Goodyear, Arizona.

It is so hot in southern Alaska stores are running out of fans and portable air conditioners.

A new brush fire is burning in San Bernandino, California.

Four inches of rain in parts of New York with flash flooding.

6-29- 115 at The Land with a twenty four hour average temperature of 100 degrees! Phoenix sets a new record of 119 degrees. A new Kingman record of 112 degrees, Salt Lake 105 and Las Vegas 115 two days in a row.

In Las Vegas yesterday 34 people were taken to hospitals for heat related illnesses after attending an afternoon and evening outdoor music festival.

Heat Warnings issued in 8 states with “life threatening temperatures.

A woman is presumed dead after her mobile home was swept away by the flooded Mohawk River in New York. Divers are searching for her body. She was warned by officials to leave her home.

A pig farmer and a butcher in Seattle are offering “pot pig” cuts. Bacon is seventeen dollars a pound, chops sixteen dollars. “It tastes like the best pork chop you’ve ever had.” Pot is legal in Washington State so the two men use the left over seeds and stems, ground up and placed in the pig slop. The cuts are signed on the packing paper with a drawing of a pot leaf. (I swear we don’t make this shit up.)

6-30- Late Sunday afternoon I saw that a new wildfire had started near Prescott. The Yarnell Hill Fire as it had burned one thousand acres and 120 homes evacuated. Fifteen miles of Highway 89 was closed.

Hours later when I was getting ready for bed the Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck came in to tell me that there was breaking news, nineteen fire fighters from the Prescott Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew had been lost in this wildfire that a few hours ago didn’t seem that bad as far as wildfires in their early stages go. But then I remembered the weather man saying earlier that strong downdraft winds from a storm in the mountains was heading down Yarnell Hill from the north. There were already strong winds coming in from the south west earlier as the flames grew. He said the wind conditions were “extremely dangerous.”

I told Mrs. Blue Duck I didn’t believe it, it must be premature information and the news media was jumping the gun. How could nineteen firefighters die in a fire that only a few hours ago was a thousand acres? I watched awhile of the unbelievable horror and tragedy unfold.

I woke up late Sunday night or early Monday morning, I didn’t look at the clock but the wind was howling outside. I felt nineteen souls in the sound of the wind and had a hard time going back to sleep. In fact sleep was fitful for me the entire night. I just didn’t want to believe this had happened.

Sadly the new is just unfolding about this devil fire and the devastation it is causing. Until next month your deeply saddened staff of Blue Duck Weather have their hearts at half staff for these nineteen firefighters who gave their lives to protect our forests, our homes and our lives.

With respect and sorrow. Professor Mr. Blue Duck

May 2013 Blue Duck Weather News

May 2013 Weather News!

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

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

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

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

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

Let us begin with all the news that matters now!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deadly rainstorm kills 55 in southern China with 14 missing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


Always humble, Professor MR Blue Duck

April Blue Duck Weather News 2013

April 2013 Weather News!

Welcome to another exciting edition of Blue Duck Weather. It is almost becoming a spring right of passage for Fargo to deal with major flooding of the Mighty Red River in April. Four out of the past five years the town has come together to sand almost a million bags. Many feel is brings a sense of community and unity (I say just get the hell out of Fargo.)

And for a lot of folks in the Country spring never did arrive in April. Thousands of snow records and low temperatures were broken almost to the end of the month. Many were begging for winter to end. Don’t worry. Before you know it will be hot, muggy and we will be sweating our collective balls off!
Add heavy rains and snowmelt and six Midwestern states have some of the worst flooding in history.

So on a note of eternal optimism and spring in the air your fine staff at Blue Duck Weather has this quote just for its faithful readers. “The best things in life are nearest; breath in your nostrils, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. (ponder the last two sentences.) -Robert Louis Stevenson.

April was mild on The Land. There was only one day it hit a hundred degrees and it only lasted a few minutes. The average temperature was 68.11 degrees, 10.50 degrees warmer than the beginning of the month. Talking Trees and Antelope Hill had average temps of 46.66 degrees.
Welcome rain fell on The Land on April 8th leaving the total for the year at 2.07” To date Phoenix has had 2.67”.

It seems the spring snowmelt and runoff in the high country has helped my beloved Roosevelt Lake but I fear it is short lasting. At 54% capacity it is bound to only shrink from here until next spring. Mead is at 51%, Pleasant 85% and Powell 47%.

In this edition of Blue Duck Weather satisfy your twisted weather craving with the difference one year can make in weather extremes, the scientific definition of a severe thunderstorm, do you know what causes the most weather related deaths in the United States?, the scientific definition of a severe thunderstorm, the name “Sandy” removed from the revolving alphabetical list of tropical storms and hurricanes (bad luck or too painful of a memory to have a named storm after her again I suppose), the heaviest fish caught in Arizona state history on April 12th, tornado chasing begins on April 9th by the NWS, seven rattlesnake bites in seven days in Maricopa County, Arizona (the fuckers are back!), “Winter Storm Waldo” ( I thought it was spring and where is the consistency of naming winter storm as first announced by the NWS months ago?), New Mexico woman charged with child abuse after letting her son cross a protective barrier and “pet” a bob cat, dire warnings about the Arizona river of my boyhood, the beautiful Verde, Which river is called the most endangered river in America though?, an amazing finding of the power of Super Storm Sandy last fall, the deadliest avalanche accident in Colorado since 1962 and debris from the Japan tsunami two years ago finally reaches the West Coast. Read on, there is so much more!

4-1- March 2012 to March 2013; from extreme warmth to cold. On March 17 last year International Falls had a record high of 77 degrees. This year it was 28 degrees below zero. That is a 105 degree temperature swing!

Coldest opening day on record for baseball in Minnesota with a temperature of 35 degrees.

4-3- A record 6.1 inches of rain fell in two hours in Buenos Aires yesterday. Flooding kills five by electrocution and drowning.

4-4 forty six more killed by flooding in Argentina and fifteen hundred evacuated. Water rose so fast it trapped people in their cars and walking on city streets. Twelve to sixteen inches fell in two hours.

It seems like an annual event in Fargo as they stock pile one million sandbags in anticipation of major flooding from spring snow melts.

Two young mountain lion cubs are photographed trapped on a fence by five coyotes in Wyoming’s National Elk Ridge. Eventually one cub ran off with the ‘yotes chasing him and the other dropped down from the fence and hid in the grass. Both cubs were later spotted alive. (I bet if mama was around the fucking coyotes wouldn’t have messed with the cubs.)

4-5 A stranded hiker is rescued in Sedona on a ledge seven hundred feet high after being trapped for twenty four hours. (The photos sure looked like it was near Junipine Resort on Oak Creek.) ((Thank God it wasn't Jesse and Tommy May)

This is the last weekend for skiing at Flagstaff’s Snowbowl. There is a fifty seven inch base and they had an amazing season partly due to the piss water snow blowers they used after a lengthy legal battle.

4-7- Red Flag Warning for central and western New Mexico tomorrow. High wind advisory issued for most of Arizona.

A report by the Natural Resources Conservation Center states that the mountain snow pack in Arizona is 40% of normal. The Southwest is in “tough shape” of water outlook for the rest of the year.

According to a meteorology professor at Plymouth State University the biggest U.S. weather killer by far is car accidents with seven thousand a year. Weather related crashes are those that occur in adverse weather like rain, sleet, snow, fog or on slick pavement. Multi-car pileups get media attention but single or two car accidents on wet roads cause the most deaths. (Dust storms are not mentioned but are deadly also. In my opinion dust can blind you more unexpectedly than fog.)

All people who have free time in Fargo are urged to fill sandbags at “Sandbag Central” as they prepare for the mighty Red River to hit flood stage, expected in ten days.

4-8- What a wild weather day for Arizona, the Phoenix area and The Land! 35mph peak wind gusts at the official weather station on The Land. A totally unexpected and appreciated .19’’ of rain. The pressure fell from 28.05 to 27.88 in a brief amount of time (I was getting worried about tornadoes.)
65mph peak wind gusts recorded at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. I-10 closed in both directions near Pichaceo Peak due to jack knifed rigs in the blowing shit. Forty mile stretch of I-40 closed near Flagstaff. Highway 89 south of Flagstaff closed. Four inches of snow in Lakeside, Arizona. Snow level drops to five thousand feet.

70 mph winds in Southern California and up to two feet of snow in some of the higher mountains in Colorado.

There have been seven reported rattlesnake bites in the last seven days in Maricopa County. One man was bitten getting out of his hot tub. Last year there were two hundred and seventy rattlesnake bites in Arizona, one hundred and sixteen of them in Maricopa County. The last fatality from a snake bite was last October in Chino Valley. The unfortunate 63 year old woman was bitten by a Mohave rattler, the most venomous rattlesnake in the world.

A quiet beginning in March for tornadoes. The fewest number in “decades” were reported. There were ninety eight tornadoes reported in March. Last year there had already been one hundred and fifty four reported with 43 deaths.

A Severe Tunderstorm is defined as “any thunder storm that produces either tornadoes, hail at least one half inch in diameter and wind gusts 58mph or greater.” ( I have had severe thunderstorms at The Land that haven’t met these requirements but the effects of flooding and downed trees and power lines were just as real.)

4-9- The annual tornado hunt begins today by the NWS with an official vehicle and storm chaser assigned to the task. On this first day severe weather was tracked and chased in northwest Kansas and Colorado observing 60mph winds and hail. (sign me up for this job!)
Forrest Lakes, Arizona received seven inches of snow yesterday, described as December weather.

Eighty two degrees in New York City. Seventeen degrees on the west side of the state of Kansas and seventy four degrees on the east side.

4-10-Winter Storm Waldo in the Plains breaks new snow and temperature records. Rapid City, South Dakota records twenty two inches with twenty inches falling in a twenty four hour period, shattering a sixty nine year old record.The foothills of Colorado received eighteen inches of snow. Yesterday in Denver it never got above twenty two degrees, the coldest on record. Cheyenne, Wyoming had a high of twelve degrees, the coldest on record.
71mph winds damaged a a marina at Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming.

In Nebraska searchers on snowmobiles find a nineteen year old man alive after they found the body of his mother in a field near Berea. The woman called her husband to tell him she was stranded by heavy snow and was leaving her car to walk home. Her son left home to meet up with her. Her son was later found holed up in an abandoned farm house with severe hypothermia. ( This struck me not only profoundly sad but tragic in a simple way. Apparently the mom thought she was close enough to home she could make it on foot and her son could meet up with her to makes sure she got home. It must have been blizzard conditions, bearings lost, or the killing cold underestimated. In the worst of weather conditions “home” might as well be a thousand miles away.)

`4-11- Confirmed tornadoes strike Mississippi, Arkansas and Birmingham, Alabama. One person killed, three homes destroyed and fifty damaged. One tornado was on the ground for 56 miles! One hundred mile per hour gusts in northern Arkansas and the governor declares fifteen counties disaster areas.
Hurricane name Sandy will be dropped and will be renamed Sarah. Only the names that have caused the worst damage are “retired.”

4-12- This contribution is from the Lovely Mrs. BlueDuck: A hundred and twenty pound mountain lion is “arrested” after prowling and jumping fences in Los Angeles. The trouble maker is is tranquilized and taken to the hills. (How would you like to be enjoying your back yard tranquility only to see this beast jumping the fence into your yard? I like animal “terrorists” in the city.)

4-13- A Surprise, Arizona man has caught a 75.52 pound flathead catfish at Bartlett Lake north of Scottsdale. Arizona Game & Fish delared it the heaviest record fish of any species in state history. The previous record was a 74 pound flathead caught in 1988.
Winter Storm Xerxes bearing down on the northern Plains. The Red River flood is delayed as parts of South Dakota and Minnesotta may have another ice event this month. Winter Storm Warnings are posted from Montana to North Dakota.

Red Flag Warning issued tomorrow for the Little Colorado River Valley and northern Arizona.

4-14- Winter Storm Xerxes is the fourteenth named storm in the Weather Channel’s alphabetical list of winter storms for 2012-2013. (How come this is only the second named one I’ve read about? Seems like local forecasters haven’t caught on, even the ones on The Weather Channel.)
Sixteen inches of snow in western North Dakota. Tornado Watch issued in the Florida Panhandle.

The Fisher Fire near Flagstaff triples in size to thity five acres and is 40% contained. Wind gusts up to 60mph aren’t helping and the fire is human caused.
A sixty year old hiker is missing in a Washington State avalanche in the Cascade Mountains west of I-90.

A New Mexico woman has been charged with child abuse after the child was mauled by a bob cat at the zoo. She took her son across a protective barrier to get a closer look. His brother said they were petting the cats. One cat grabbed the boy by the head and began pulling him away. It took eight staples to close the head wound. (Mrs. Blueduck thinks they should have just taken that sorry excuse for a mom and tossed her into the pen....)

4-15- More High Wind Warnings are issued for northern Arizona tomorrow.
According to a U.S. Geological Survey report population growth and ground water pumping are taxing the Verde River in Arizona to the point it may dry up in summer months. Area leaders are calling for conservation programs to prevent “an economic and ecological crisis.”

4-16- A Mesa, Arizona man gets two years probation in last summer’s Sunflower fire near Payson. The man has admitted to starting the 18,000 acre fire last May 12th when he was camping with friends at a bachelor party. (I think this was the dude that shot a cardboard box in dry grass with an incendiary shotgun shell. The fire got away from him obviously.)

“Winter Storm Yogi (you have to be kidding me, how fucking fierce does that name sound?) Bears down on the Plains.” A half foot of snow in Nebraska and western South Dakota. Northern Colorado may get two feet of snow.

So far April has been one of the coldest for Fairbanks, Alaska. The average temperature is 9.7 degrees, sixteen degrees below normal and what the weather should be like in early March. On April 11 it was 21 degrees below zero.

4-17- Colorado River named, once again this year, as “the most endangered river” according to the non profit American Rivers. “The current trends are not sustainable” with an ever expanding population, a shrinking Rocky Mountain snowmelt and plans to build new pipelines to carry water away from the river.
Possible unprecedented flooding on the Red River prompts new forecasting plan. Fargo has received double the normal amount of snow in March.
Tornado Watch in Oklahoma.

A thirty four year old man is missing in the Superstition Mountains. Family said he didn’t have much water. ( Thankfully it has been cool and windy and the nights there are probably cold with out the proper clothing. I doubt a man on a casual hike would be prepared for any weather other than what he was blessed with on the day he set out.)

4-18- Up to four inches of rain in parts of the Midwest with major flooding in Chicago.

Severe thunderstorms and damaging winds from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi Valley today and tonight.

Snow and ice have closed roads in Colorado and Wyoming. Flooding rivers in Iowa and Illinois. Tornado damage in Oklahoma. Lightning temporarily knocks out electricity to a nuclear power plant.

Forty one degree low at The Land this morning! I suppose this cool of a temperature is gone until next November. ( The Lovely Mrs. BlueDuck will be cussing me soon for having us live in this hot desert.)

4-20- Missing hiker in the Superstition Mountains in Arizona has been found dead after five days. His body was discovered yesterday near a canyon south of Siphon Draw. A helicopter could not get to the rugged terrain so hikers are going in to recover the body.

Thirty eight counties in Illinois are declared disaster areas due to severe flooding. Floodwaters from the Illinois River are near record levels in Utica, Illinois. Many homes and businesses are flooded and two deaths reported.

Flooding closes roads and schools in northern and central Indiana.

4-21- First 90 degrees at The Land. (Here we go.)

Major river flooding in six Midwestern states have forced evacuations, closed bridges, flooded homes and caused three deaths.
State of Emergency in Clarksville, Missouri. People have been sandbagging for four days to keep water out of town. Last week a months worth of rain was dumped in a few hours.

According to scientists Superstorm Sandy registered on earthquake sensors all the way to the Pacific Northwest. As Sandy hit New Jersey and New York last October the force of waves slamming into each other shook the sea floor. Energy generated by Sandy was equivalent to a magnitude 2 or 3 earthquake.
Yesterday five back country snowboarders were killed in an avalanche near Loveland Pass, Colorado. A sixth man was buried but able to dig out and call for help. The group may have set off the avalanche while hiking up a drainage area. The snow wave was 650 feet wide, 1,000 feet long and 8 feet deep. Four feet of snow had fallen in recent days. This was the deadliest avalanche accident since 1962.

4-22- Earthday 2013. Hayduke Lives!
From his secluded location in Colorado RyDuck reports fifteen degrees with the wind chill and snow. (And here in the desert it is in the nineties but last year on this date had a record high of 105 degrees!)

Two hundred evacuated in the foothills east of Los Angeles due to a brush fire sparked by equipment a gardner was using in a back yard.

The continuing river flooding in the Midwest from a week of rain and winter snowmelt are becoming dangerous in six states.
Missouri governor declares a State of Emergency and deploys the National Guard to help fight flooding. (How the hell do you fight it?)
State of Emergency in Illinois. The Wabash River rose fourteen feet, the highest since1959.
Two drivers killed in Arcadia, Indiana when their cars were swept into flooded Cicero Creek.

4-23- Winter Storm Zeus dumps more than a foot of snow in South Dakota. High temperatures are ten to thirty degrees lower than normal from the Mississippi Valley west to the Plains and Rockies. Low record temperatures in South Dakota and Kansas.

4-24- Floodwaters rising to near record levels along the Illinois River in central Illinois. In Peoria Heights roads and buildings are flooded and riverfront structures completely submerged.

4-25- A tornado leaves a two mile swath of damage near New Orleans.

4-26- The Mighty Red River near Fargo threatens to break records. This poor town has had to prepare with a million sand bags four times in the past five years. (Is this just a spring right of passage for these folks?) The President declares a State of Emergency for South Dakota.
Chicago has experienced the wettest April on record.

4-27- A barnacle covered fishing boat has washed ashore in Crescent City, California. It has been confirmed as the first debris from the 2011 Japan tsunami to reach California.

4-28- First one hundred degree day in Phoenix. Average is May 2nd.
105 degrees in El Centro, California.

“Out of Nowhere.” Severe flash flooding in Texas and parts of the South. Houston received eight inches of rain in a few hours! One hundred and fifty water rescues in five hours. 40,000 without power.

Officials begin bear proofing Payson area campsites after last year’s attacks. Twenty seven of two hundred and sixty campsites have metal storage containers for food and bear proof trash receptacles. ( I have seen bear proof trash containers in south east Arizona, Montana and Alaska but I have never seen metal storage containers for food.)

Federal wildlife managers are releasing two pairs of the endangered Mexican gray wolf in Arizona and New Mexico. The first pair will be released in the Apache National Forest in southe east Arizona. They will be crated and taken into the back country on speciall trained news. Supplemental feed will be provided while the wolves learn to catch prey.

2-29- First one hundred degree day on The Land but it was brief.
The Phoenix Rescue Mission hopes to deliver 400,000 bottles of water to the valley’s homeless population this summer. Instead of focusing on downtown and south Phoenix the non profit organization plans to expand to Guadalupe, Buckeye, east Mesa and Sunnyslope. These areas have high numbers of homeless people but few agencies. Last year there were 106 confirmed heat related deaths.

4-30- April was the snowiest on record for Rapid City, South Dakota, Duluth, Minnesota and Boulder, Colorado. Eleven hundred snow fall records and thirty four hundred cold records have been set across the nation this month. On April 24th, a twenty one degree low in Amarillo, Texas was the coldest on record.
One meterologist said “the weather map lookes like something out of the Twilight Zone” last week.
The third day of heavy rain and flooding in San Antonio, Texas.

A woman has been given rabies vaccines after being bitten by a bobcat behind a store in Show Low, Arizona.

And that my faithful readers concludes another exhausting edition of Blue Duck Weather. But before we sadly leave you until month we will leave you with a very appropriate weather song for this April; “When it’s Springtime in Alaska it’s Forty Below” by Johnny Horton.
Remember Pioneers took bullets. Settlers took Land.

The Honorable, Distinguished Professor MR Blue Duck
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　


March 2013 Blue Duck Weather News

March 2013 Weather News!

In this mind blowing feature of Blue Duck Weather we will get a taste of Wildfire season already?, “Heart Attack” snow, the flooding tragedy remembered in California in 1938, the world’s most expensive mice, shark infestation just in time for spring break, The tail of Mr. Stubbs, bees respond to caffeine more often when pollinating, what happened to the named winter storms?, changes will be made in the Iditarod Dog race after one of its own dies in the snow, inbreeds in the wolf population hurting reintroduction efforts and so much more.

By the end of this month winter was getting old and aptly named “The Endless Winter by many folks. Even Punxsutawney Phil was indicted on federal charges of falsely representing spring. An Ohio attorney is requesting a death sentence to be carried out by fifteen hunters.
But I’m afraid as I write this the beautiful winter on the Land is over. The last gasp was a powerful wind and rain maker on March 8th. What little spring grass is drying out, the high temps are in the low eighties, I am on the look for rattlesnakes and the beautiful blue skies we had are turning that foreboding white to indicate real heat is on its way.

Temperatures on The Land were fifteen degrees warmer by the end of the month than the beginning . The average temperature was 64.62 degrees. Talking Trees and Antelope Hill had an average temperature of 44.27 degrees. It seems that land in New Mexico ranges about twenty degrees cooler than here despite the month. And I have noticed many of the weather patterns there are similar even though it three hundred miles to the north east.

.49 inches of rain for the month at The Land giving us a total of 1.88’’ this year. Phoenix has had 2.55’’

With winter melt off of snow my beloved Roosevelt Lake rose a bit bringing it to 52%, Pleasant is at 82%, Mead 52% and the mighty shit hole Powell at 48%.
Now for all the weather news that fits-



3-1- Red Flag Warnings for south central New Mexico with 35mph wind gusts expected.

Crews are making progress with a wildfire near Riverside, California. The blaze damaged one home and cut power to 2,000. The fire that began in the Santa Ana River bottom is 40% contained at three hundred acres.

Twenty three Gray whales spotted near San Pedro, California. This is a big deal and the whales have been making a comeback since hunting bans were set in 1947.

3-2- In 1938 from 2-27 to 3-4 thirty inches of rain fell on some Southern California mountains killing 210 people. There were forty five deaths in Orange County alone. Forty three were the result of an eight foot wall of water that went through Atwood, California. The Santa Ana River flooded most of Orange County.

3-3- A fast moving brush fire shuts down I-95 and the evacuation of three hundred homes in Ormond Beach, Florida.

And from “This is a fucking outrage” file: Growing numbers of geese and ducks are forcing some communities in the Phoenix area to ban feeding the poor birds because of all the shit that is accumulating everywhere. The problem reached a “crisis” level last summer in Scottsdale so they passed a “law” banning people from feeding the pests. With less handouts the “bird” population is down but not significantly. (Why don’t you just line up the poor bastards and shoot them? Is this where the term “sitting duck” came from? )

3-4- Midwest storm drops heavy snow from Minnesota to Tennessee.

Two men cross skiing on the western side of Cameron Pass this past weekend trigger an avalanche that buried them. One killed and one critically injured. Both had avalanche locator beacons. The man found alive late in the afternoon had been buried for about ninety minutes. Because of the terrain and snow it took five hours for rescuers to get the man to a location where a helicopter could land and airlift him out.
Four fatalities so far this season- a snowmobiler in Utah, a skier in Wyoming and a climber in New Hampshire who were all killed by snow slides three days ago.

3-5- Heavy snow in the Midwest with the “hardest punch of winter.” Eleven hundred flights cancelled in Chicago. All of its 466 snow plows deployed. Called “heart attack” snow, it is heavy and wet and shoveling it causes over exertion. Snow collapses the roof of a popular banquet hall in Chicago.

3-6- Ten inches of snow in Washington, D.C. and the federal government declares a “snow day” and closes all offices.
Eleven inches of snow in West Virginia and 170,000 without power.

3-7- As a brutal snowstorm batters New England parts of the Sandy damaged Jersey shore is dealing with flooding. Pounding surf broke a dam in Mantoloking sending water onto Route 35, closing it for several hours.

The Phoenix fire department warns hikers on urban mountain trails that rattlesnakes are out sunning and will bite your ass off.

A female volunteer at a California animal park has her neck broken by a lion. She entered the beast’s enclosure alone. She was found with the lion near her. After trying to unsuccessfully lure the lion into another pen, it was shot and killed so the woman could be reached.

This one is a bizarre aftermath story of Hurricane Sandy: Water flooded a hospital in New York including the laboratory basement that housed seven thousand cages of mice used for study of cancer, diabetes, brain development and other maladies. Each cage held up to five of the rodents. Four months later nobody knows exactly how many perished or where they are.

About fifty scientists are going through the slow process of replacing them . What they lost in one night will take more than a year to recover, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. They simply cannot replace the mice from a cage on a shelf. Most were engineered to carry specific mutations to mimic human conditions and diseases. Some breeds can only be found in a few labs worldwide!

Thousands of sharks are seen of the Florida coast (just in time for spring break.)

3-8- What a wild weather day in Arizona and on The Land. Strong winds knock a tree down on my dad’s power line bending his electric panel sideways. Incredibly his electric did not go out or the sagging power line fail.

Hail in Ahwatukee, one inch of rain in Apache Junction, sixty mile per hour winds in Tempe, a massive dust storm in Phoenix (despite the rain), and a foot of snow in Flagstaff.

Two feet of snow in some New England areas. A seaside home in Plum Island, Massachusetts is leaning at 45 degrees after being battered by waves.

Two years after the deadly Tsunami Japan is still struggling with recovery. Dozens of temporary housing camps were meant to be used for two years. Now it could be six to ten years before all is rebuilt. ( Just think about it, can you even imagine being driven from your home for ten years or even ten days?)

Federal prosecutors have decided not to file charges against two young elk hunters in Wyoming when they shot and killed a grizzly bear last fall. The bear charged the two and their father from forty two yards on Thanksgiving Day. The father at first fired pepper spray that did no good stopping the bear. The sons opened fire when the bear was only ten feet away. (I commend this family of hunters. It took great courage and respect of the bear to allow it to get only ten feet away before acting in a life or death defense. Most would have ran, shit their pants or fired at the bear when it was a quarter mile away.)

According to the Science Journal 11,300 years of data show dramatic planet warming in the past century. Scientists used fossils of tiny marine organisms to reconstruct global temperatures back to the end of the last ice age. The decade of 1900 to 1910 was one of the coolest in the last eleven thousand years, cooler than 95% of all other years. The decade of 2,000 to 2010 was one of the warmest.
Global thermometer records go back to 1880 and those show the past decade to be the hottest on record. One scientist said “We’ve never seen something this rapid, even in the ice age.” (spooky shit no matter what your opinion is of the cause.)

3-9- A body is found in a flooded wash in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was first called in as a water rescue but that statement has not been validated.

One inch of snow falling per hour in Denver. Five hundred flights are cancelled.

A helicopter flyover the forty three square mile McDowell Sonoran Preserve has revealed a stable population of deer and javelina. The area is north of Scottsdale, Arizona. Bow hunting is allowed but not rifle hunting. Activists say the sport has the potential to harm unsuspecting hikers during hunting season.

3-10- In the past twenty four hours Sunrise Park Resort in Greer, Arizona has recorded more than two feet of fresh snow. Flagstaff received 14.6” of new snow by noon yesterday. Ten inches of snow recorded fifty miles north east of Payson, Arizona. A whopping twenty six inches of snow in Forest Lakes.

Fourteen inches of snow in Denver, Colorado.

A seven foot long alligator has been given a three foot long prosthetic tail attached firmly with nylon straps and an orange float wrapped around the tail helps stabilize the ‘gator when it is swimming. As far as anyone knows Mr. Stubbs is the first alligator to tolerate, if not wear, a prosthesis. The beast exercises in a pool in north Scottsdale.

The death of an intern last weekend ruled as an accident and the family believes the zoo followed proper protocol and her death was a tragic accident. Investigators believe the lion lifted the door of a partially closed feeding cage with its paw and killed the woman while she was cleaning another enclosure. She died instantly from a broken neck.

Study: “Caffeine shot in nectar improves memory in honeybees.” If they get a shot of caffeine from certain flowers it spurs them to return to the same type of plant. ( Try a “shot” of Jack and see if they can remember to return to the same type of plant. They will remember but the big question is if they are able to fly back?)

3-11- North Carolina Highway 12 is closed due to flooding. It is the only highway to Hatteras island on the Outer Banks.

One sailor is dead in Southern California when a thirty two foot sailboat taking part in a race is driven into a rocky shore and breaks apart by stormy seas. Two nights ago the crew radioed the mayday call and also deployed a rescue beacon but then declined assistance and requested a tow boat.

3-12- First eighty degree day at The Land of the season. Say goodbye to a precious winter of cool days and cold nights.

A heavy snowstorm in north west Europe closes Frankfurt Airport with record traffic jams in Belgium and thousands of British and French drivers stranded in their cars by snow closed roads.

Red algae bloom kills record one hundred and seventy four manatees on the south west Florida coast. Scientists believe the manatees are dying after eating sea grass that algae has settled on. Once afflicted they lose coordination and the ability to swim upright or lift their heads out water to breath. There is no sign when the algae may die off.

3-13- A deadly fungal infection that has killed millions of bats has been confirmed for the first time in Georgia and South Carolina, bringing the total to twenty two states. White nose syndrome spreads among hibernating closely clustered bats eating away at the bat’s reserves. 5.4 million bats have been killed since 2006.

Record high 89 degrees in Tucson.

3-14- Record high in Phoenix of 93 degrees. Old record 91 set in 2007.

3-15- It doesn’t even seem possible. One week ago today it was barely fifty degrees with heavy rain, wind a downed power line on The Land. Today was 92 degrees and the first time to reach ninety in a very long time. (Not long enough.)

Hungary deploys tanks to reach thousands of motorists trapped in heavy snow and 200,000 without power.

Worst drought in New Zealand in thirty years. Wellington has issued a ban on all outdoor water use. New Zealand’s capital of two hundred thousand folks have a nineteen day supply of water left in its rivers and reservoirs. Auckland, New Zealand issued an outdoor fire ban yesterday.

3-16- And just what we need, a new species of scorpion discovered near Tucson.

Rare cut off low totally unpredicted brings rain and snow to Flagstaff.

Eight hundred acre wildfire fueled by erratic winds threatens fifty homes in Northern California.

3-17- The Galena Fire north west of Denver is 45% contained and evacuation orders are lifted.

3-18- The National Weather Service issued Blizzard Warnings for the Dakotas and Minnesota with 50mph winds and twenty states are in the storm’s path.

Intense thunderstorms produce softball size hail in Jackson, Mississippi.

Two hundred acres in the Great Smokies have burned and twenty four vacation cabins are damaged or destroyed.

A British climber and his twelve year old son are dead after plunging down a mountain in the French Alps. The father had alerted rescuers by phone that his son had fallen. The father also fell after apparently trying to rescue his son.

3-19- Late winter storm slams New England with heavy snow and ice. Seven inches recorded in Boston this morning and five inches in New York.

A big jump seen in hurricane related storm surges. For every 1.8 degrees of warming scientists have found a two fold to seven fold increase in the increased storm surges seen when Katrina hit in 2005.

3-20- First day of spring in Phoenix arrives at four a.m. And while we bask in sun and mild temperatures snow totals in New Hampshire above sixteen inches today and high teens in the Midwest.

3-21- The top four to six feet of the seventy two year old Wade Stadium collapses from “weather.” The walls will be repaired and the team playing baseball by June 1st.

A powerful snow storm in Alberta, Canada on Highway 2 between Edmonton and Calgary has left one hundred motorists hurt in a mass collision.

3-22- Wind and drying conditions lead to Fire Watches for Graham, Cochise and Greenlee Counties in south east Arizona. (Fucking already?)

Punxsutawney Phil indicted with felony charges by Ohio attorney after falsely and purposely with false calculations mislead people that spring would come early. The death penalty will be sought and fifteen hunters will be selected for the execution.

Changes are planned for Alaska’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race following the death this year of a dog of asphyxiation. The dog was buried in snow after high winds. Planned changes include construction of dog shelters at two major check points. “… historical commitment to the improvement of the welfare of canine athletes that annually participate.”

3-23- If one uses weather data it is easy to see that wildfire season is approaching rapidly. The winter rains are gone, the grass is drying and soon even the hillsides will be yellow with dead grass. The humidity at The Land today was 8% with a dew point of 11%, bone fucking dry!

Powerful winter storm Virgil (what happened to all the named winter storms that we were supposed to remember?) from the Rockies to Kansas. Colorado hit the hardest and I-70 closed from Denver to Kansas.

A woman’s body was recovered yesterday from the Colorado River in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Her body was spotted by people on a river trip. The cause of death is under investigation.

3-24- No sign of spring today with heavy snow from Missouri to Pennsylvania. Ten inches of snow in St. Louis and fifteen states are affected.

Coney Island is back in business five months after Hurricane Sandy.

A tornado in Bangladesh, India kills five and injures one hundred.

With the spring like weather more urban mountain rescues in the Phoenix area. A twenty eight year old woman has to be rescued after passing out in the McDowell Preserve. A fifty six year old woman rescued after becoming injured on Picacho Peak. Even an eight year old boy has to be rescued after getting stuck at the top of Hole In The Rock at Papago Park.

Yellowstone bison hunt yields two hundred and fifty animals, the most since 1989. The high numbers are driven by American Indians who harvest the animals under long standing treaty rights. According to wildlife officials the large harvest is relieving some of the pressure of an expanding population.

3-25- “Endless Winter”. Record snows in the Midwest. Seventeen inches in Springer Ville, Illinois.

3-26- Earliest one hundred degree day in Phoenix was set in 1988.

3-27- Massive unexplained landslides may cause thirty homes in Washington State to fail. The single highway to the island area is closed. Late spring snow dumped a half foot on already saturated soil.

Supplies on the way to snowed in farmers in northern Ireland.

3-28- The pollen count in the Phoenix area is eleven out of twelve leaving thousands sneezing and itching their asses off. (Thanks to all of the trees and plants transplanted from other parts of the country over the last fifty years. The dry desert used to be the place to go to get away from respiratory infections and asthma. Everyone who moves here from out of state wants their yard to look just like where they fucking came from!)

Flagstaff, Arizona considers a ban on feeding deer. They shit everywhere, cause vehicle accidents and attract predators. (How about just shooting them and giving the meat to the local food banks?)

Feds want to crack down on the mating of dogs and the endangered Mexican gray wolf. It doesn’t happen often but keeping a pure breed is one of the keys to making the wolf population a success. In 2011 four wolf dog pups had to be put down that belonged to a Mexican gray wolf in the Gila National Forest.

A Colorado man has dies after his guided horse slipped during a ride out of Supai in the Grand Canyon. The pair fell twelve feet into a dry wash with the horse landing on the man. His wife and five year old son were present.

3-29- There is a storm so massive in the Atlantic Ocean it spans the entire ocean and the center is as powerful as a Category 3 hurricane.

In 1848 a massive ice jam “dried up” Niagara Falls to just a “trickle” of water. The phenomenon lasted forty hours. (Can you imagine the before and after photos? It would have been a once in a lifetime event.)

3-30- Massive rescue efforts are under way for 948 starving sea lion pups on Southern California beaches. Scientists don’t know why but the pups are dying of hypothermia, have no body and are one third of normal weight.

3-31- Massive mudslide buries eighty three workers up to one hundred feet in gold mine in Tibet. Eleven bodies have been recovered and the chances of finding anyone alive is slim.

Happy Easter: The New England cottontail was once so common that “The Adventures of Peter Cottontail” and the song was inspired by an author in Massachusetts. But now its habitat is disappearing. (I’m glad ducks aren’t disappearing.)

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

Professor MR Blue Duck

February 2013 BLUE DUCK WEATHER NEWS

February 2013 Weather News!

Find out what defines a “clipper pattern” storm, a tsunami when an ice dam breaks loose in Montana, and from the "We knew it was coming" file, for the first time in history the federal government says it can no longer bail cities and states our for natural disasters, blizzard warning for the Phoenix metro area that proved not to be so far fetched and so much more to read!

This may be the shortest Blue Duck Weather edition you have ever bored yourself to death with. On the big level not much was happening around the world, but what did happen for the U.S. was snow. Even the Phoenix area was one of the most active spots in the United States for wild weather and snow in the desert, as rare as “tits on a boar hog” as my dad used to say.

The average temperature at The Land in February was 52.81 degrees. Talking Trees and Antelope Hill had an “ooshy’ average of just 29.75 degrees. February saw cooler than average temperatures by four degrees below normal in Phoenix and three degrees cooler in Tucson.( This is actually a big deal in the weather geek world. Remember swings should only vary in the tenths. If these temperatures were warmer than normal they would be preaching doomsday and hell fire!)

The rain total for The Land to date this year is 1.30’’. Phoenix has 1.70’’.

Lake Mead is 53% full, Powell is 49%, Pleasant 71% and Roosevelt rose some this month and is 47% full. And now, sit back and read yourself to sleep for this month’s amazing issue of Blue Duck Weather.

2-1- The feds want to list the “mountain devil” or wolverine on the endangered species list. Due to lack of habitat there are only 250-300 left, primarily in the northern Rockies of Montana, Idaho, Washington and Wyoming. ( They are fierce little fuckers! They can hold their own against a mountain lion and even take down a deer given the right opportunity.)

2-2- Camelback Mountain and Squaw Peak in the Phoenix area log the most calls for mountain rescues. Together last year they totaled 149 calls for help. Camelback is one of the most dangerous technical rescues because its angle of inclination is more than 40 degrees. This often involves special equipment including helicopters.

2-4- The first sign of spring on The Land? Being a duck call me a slave owner. I “own” chickens. They are not free ranging chickens because coyotes and dogs would eat them alive. They “live” in a pen and I feed and water the mindless fuckers. The little bitches have not laid an egg in months. I gave up on them and swore to myself once they died out I would get out of the chicken business. Lo and Behold the eggs are coming again. The Lovely Mrs. Blue Duck pointed out to me that this means spring is coming. Pux or whatever Phil aint got nothing on the “little laying ladies” on The Land.

2-6- Blizzard Watch issued for the East Coast while many are still waiting for help almost one hundred days after Sandy.

Great Lakes Huron and Michigan have reached all time record lows since record keeping began in 1918.

“National Weather Person’s Day” (you have got to be kidding me. How about Weather Duck Day?)

2-7- Blizzard Warning on the Eastern Seaboard may affect fifty million people in the North East. With hurricane force winds “Potentially history making storm” as two weather systems merge known as a “clipper pattern.”

2-8- Snow Advisory above seven thousand feet in Arizona. 41mph winds in Winslow.

Due to the pending blizzard the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut order all non essential vehicles off the road today by four p.m. People should be prepared to be snowed in for at least two days.
New York airports are closed with 1800 flights cancelled. Amtrak rails closed from New York to Boston. Gas stations in New York already out of fuel.

2-9- Twenty one inches of new snow at the Snow Bowl, north of Flagstaff, Arizona.

Nine deaths blamed on the blizzard in the Northeast. Portland, Maine received thirty two inches of snow, a new record. 83 mph winds in parts of Massachusetts.

And this just in from our contributing reporter, GilleonDuck, from snowy Montana! “Gallatin River Tsunami”- Between Bozeman and West Yellowstone an ice dam breaks loose sending a torrent of water, ice and felled trees down the Gallatin. One person said “This is why you don’t want to go wading the rivers in winter when an ice dam can break loose. Everybody pay attention to your river this winter and be safe out there. Wading mid river downstream of a tight bend, with hearing dampened by warm winter headgear could be damned interesting when this wave popped around the corner.” ( My question is why anyone would be “wading” in freezing water? I would rather be caught in a summer flash flood in Arizona. At least I wouldn’t freeze to death before I drowned.)

2-10- Eighteen inches of new snow in Williams, Arizona.

Almost three hundred thousand people without power after the blizzard in the North East. President declares a state of emergency for Connecticut.

Blizzard Warnings for North and South Dakota.

2-11- At seven this morning I heard a traffic reporter in a plane say they had to land due to ice and snow above Camelback Mountain in Phoenix. At three thirty in the afternoon there was thunder and rain on The Land. Table Top Mountain south of here was dusted in snow. (a very rare desert occurrence.) This weather disturbance was totally unpredicted. That is what I love about weather. Sometimes the science and computer models just can’t get it.

Sixteen degrees below normal in Phoenix.

Flagstaff, Arizona cancels school for the day due to snow.

2-12- Freeze Warning issued for the Casa Grande, Arizona area.

2-14- For the first time in history the Government Accountability Office has announced “climate change” on its 2013 list of items presenting a high risk to the federal government. “Significant financial risks related to extreme weather events, and cities and states can no longer depend on the federal government after such events occur.”

2-16- Rare winter snow in parts of North and South Carolina.

New technology allowed forecasters in Mississippi to quickly confirm the tornado that hit Hattiesburg last week and alert the public. Dual polarization Doppler allowed experts to see shapes and sizes of debris inside a tornado. In the past visual reports were relied on, sometimes impossible to obtain at night.

Warmest day on The Land this year at 75 degrees.

2-17- Recent rain triggers landslides in northern Indonesia killing ten with a thousand homes flooded.

2-18- Red Flag Warning issued for southeast Arizona tomorrow.

Two hikers stranded on Humphrey’s Peak in northern Arizona are lucky to be alive. High winds prevented helicopter rescue but was able to drop them food and warm blankets to get through the night. They were rescued the following morning by snowmobile with a temperature of 16 degrees.

Twenty six injured after snow causes accidents on I-95 in Connecticut. East Maine Blizzard Warnings with wind gusts up to 50 mph causing wind chills of fifty below zero!

Sunken debris from Hurricane Sandy still lingers and is dangerous and threatens summer tourism in the coastal areas of New York and New Jersey. “Swimmers could cut themselves on submerged junk, step on thousands of boardwalk nails ripped loose or suffer severe neck or spine injuries diving into solid objects.” One area cleaned up just three weeks ago and still debris are coming down a wash.

In Southern California thousands of dolphins on surface of water at one time near San Diego. “Mega pods” are probably due to available food sources. Dolphins usually swim in much smaller groups.

2-19- Winter Storm Warnings for northern Arizona and even a Blizzard Warning for the Phoenix metro area.

2-20- Six inches of snow in the White Mountains, snow in north central Phoenix and snow on the 101 and Via De Ventura freeway interchange. Cave Creek golf course covered in snow. White out at Salt River fields baseball park. There are imbedded thunderstorms and lightning. All schools closed in Flagstaff. A mountain rescue takes place at Squaw Peak in Phoenix. (In this weather?)

A fifty one year old hiker has been missing in the Superstition Mountains since last night.

I-5 near Bakersfield, California closed because of ice.

Eighteen states and thirty million in the path of dangerous winter storm from west to east. Rare tornadoes in California.

2-25- Snowstorm with hurricane force winds batters the Great Plains. Authorities are urging people to stay off roads. 75mph winds in Amarillo, Texas and eighteen inches of snow on the ground, the most in 110 years. This is the same weather system the slammed Colorado yesterday with 200 flights cancelled in Denver.

2-26- Heavy snow from the Plains to the Great Lakes. Snow caused a roof to collapse in Woodward, Oklahoma killing one person inside.
February snow totals in Wichita, Kansas twenty one inches, breaking a hundred year old record for the month.
Charlton, South Carolina broke record for the month with 10.48’’ of rain.
Waterspout in Tampa, Florida and 90mph winds in Cedar Key, Florida.

2-27- Snowstorm causes sixty students to spend the night in their Colorado school when a state highway is closed due to dangerous conditions.

Tens of thousands without power in Michigan. In Wisconsin hundreds of cars stranded or in crashes due to snowstorms. The storm reaches from Missouri to Maine.

2-28- Sandstorms push Beijing pollution levels “off the charts” combined with some of the worst smog in the world. ( I think I would rather cover my face with a bandana and endure sand instead of no wind and stinking, shitty polluted smog. I would think the blowing sand would scour the smog and blow the shit somewhere else. The question is where?)

The wisely chosen song for the month is a new ditty by Gary Allen called “Every Storm runs out of rain.” Depending where you live on this planet that is a good thing or a bad thing.

With the end of this relatively short weather journal remember Pioneers took bullets. Settlers took land.

Humbly at your service the Distinguished, Honorable, Award Winning MR Blue Duck. (Quack!)