The Forgotten West 1/19/14

Most of the weather attention this year has been focused east of the Rocky Mountains with the bitter arctic outbreaks and the big snows that have many places already passed their seasonal averages in only ½ the winter.  This week starts no different with another snow system whipping down out of Canada bringing a swath of 6 inch snows from the high plains through the western lake and into the Ohio valley.  That will be followed by yet another arctic outbreak pushing temperatures down below zero again. 


Meanwhile, in the west, severe drought conditions have set in.  It has gotten so bad that California declared a state of emergency due to the dry conditions.  Experts are predicting a very dangerous fire season as tinder is bone dry and could be ignited by the slightest spark.  This was the case in Southern California where some homeless men started a camp fire in the strong Santa Ana winds that sparked a fairly large wild fire that caused thousands to be evacuated and did damage some structures.


There does not seem to be anything soon that would spark a pattern change.  To relieve the drought conditions, it would take a lot of rain over quite a long time.  Remember two years ago, much of the plains states were also in severe drought.  That has been turned around.  I’m sure some areas would be glad to ship some of their excess snow to the west coast


This Wildfire picture taken by a friend of my sister in S Cal 1/16/14.  This was the fire started by homeless men camping.



Here is an interesting shot from Rio De Jeneiro, Brazil of the famous Jesus statue being struck by lightning during the last week. 

Snow on the 18th caused this serious accident near Lafayette IN






A little interesting News came out of China this last week.  Scientists have observed ball lightning in nature for the first time.  Ball lightning is very rare and little is actually known about it.  St. Elmo's Fire is a common layman term for it.

Scientists observe ball lightning

And we will close with this picture of Folsom Lake in California.  It is about 25 miles NE of Sacramento.  Notice how far the docks are from the water?  Yeah, the water is supposed to be at the docks.