Ugly

There's been an ugly brown cloud in the east for most of the afternoon, and it's been getting uglier and darker as the day has gone on. I noticed an article this morning talking about the fire danger associated with the kind of weather we're having:

A fire warning is in effect for many areas in the Cascades as dry conditions combined with high winds have crews on alert. Any blaze that starts in the mountains could quickly blow up into a major fire under the current conditions, according to fire officials.

But I hadn't seen any news about any large fires that were actually ongoing. A little while ago I stuck my head out the door, and it seemed noticeably worse, so I came in and Googled Oregon Fire. Yeah, there's a pretty bad one.

The likely culprit: Fire officials said the Tumblebug Complex exploded in acreage overnight from 500 acres to more than 2,200 acres.

Markos said she has fielded reports Tuesday morning of smoke and ash in south Eugene along Willamette Street; in Lowell, Ore.; and in downtown Eugene.

"As long as we have really low humidities and the wind speed picks up, that fire is going to get larger and we are going to get smoke in the valley," Markos said.

It seemed to smell a little smokey last time I was out, but I'm not certain. 2200 acres isn't huge for Oregon, but it's substantial. The hot, dry weather and the east winds that are causing it are expected to last through tomorrow, then taper off through Thursday.

Most Oregon wildfires are in the Cascades or the east side, and the prevailing winds are most often from the west, so we don't generally see serious smoke here in the valley. It's ominous, and I don't like it.

Shucks! I Missed the Equinox

It was an hour and a half ago. In case you don't know, "equinox" means equal night; it alludes to the fact that during the autumnal and vernal (spring) equinoxes, the nights are equal in length to the days. The "opposite" variations are called solstices, and occur during December and June. "Solstice" comes from roots Sol, meaning sun, and sistere, latin for standing still. It means the sun has stopped moving south and will now start moving north from day to day as it rises and sets along the horizon (winter) or has reached it's northernmost position on the horizon and will now start rising and setting further to the south (summer). At least in the northern hemisphere.

As far as I'm concerned though, it's still summer; it's 91 degrees outside, and supposed to be another hot one tomorrow. Yesterday morning it was 39; yesterday afternoon it was 90. A 51 degree diurnal temperature range is sort of weird.

Water Logged

There's been some rain in the southeast...
In the chart above, from NASA's Earth Observatory, the darkest blue indicates greater than 300 mm (1 foot), and the lightest tone indicates 50-100 mm (2-4 inches). I had heard about the flooding, but I didn't realize how severe it was. Below is a roller coaster at Georgia's Six Flags Amusement park.
This is going to be a horrid mess to clean up.

Alien Tattoos

Checkout this great collection of some quality space alien tattoos. They seem to be quite a popular tattoo design among those who believe in the little green men in flying saucers (UFO).

Enjoy this neat picture gallery of Alien tattoo artwork.

About That Turtle...

"We've gone from 'it could be a turtle' to 'it could be a tortoise' to 'it's one huge rock that's still one of the biggest concretions we've ever seen on the Oregon Coast,'" DiTorrice said.

"We're not sure what it is, but it's a hazard," Hanshumaker said.

And that's it.

Part one, part two, part three.

Followup Sept. 22: The Oregonian has a nice little article that, amazingly, gets the science pretty much right! The headline is pretty much FAIL, though.

New Record?

Earlier, Accuweather was predicting a high of 99 today; they've dropped that to 97. Either way, it's about as hot as I can tolerate already. I was just outside, and FYI, I still don't see swarms of people rising into the sky. But there's lots of sunshine pouring down. The record for the date is 95, and it seems pretty likely we'll break it.

Bleah.

Followup, 5:15: Current temp is only (only) 90 degrees; it's unlikely to get any warmer. We had brisk winds from the north yesterday, indicating a high from the west was moving in. When a high moves to our east, it can drive desert air over the mountains and into the Willamette valley. The high desert is about 3000 to 5000 feet elevation, so as the air descends into the valley, it compresses and warms up. My suspicion was that this phenomenon was the reason the prediction called for several days of unseasonably and unreasonably hot weather. OregonLive confirms this.

He's Coming to Take You Away, Ha Ha!

It's sine waves, so it must be true; mathematics is always true. I've seen in a number of places (Pharyngula, Bing McGhandi, Buzzfeed) that today is the rapture. So if you're one of the Xrazy Xristains who believes in that kind of thing, ta ta, bon voyage, toodle-oo, and such like. Don't let Heaven's gate hit you in the butt.

I'm not sure if it's an all-at-once sort of thing, or if it proceeds in an orderly manner around the time zones. Since it's already tomorrow in some parts of the world, I'm assuming the latter. I'll keep an eye out to the east from time to time, and report here if I see clouds of people rising into the sky. I'm also looking forward to checking out the website tomorrow and finding out if Gabriel also raptured the godly parts of the innertubz.

If I follow the storyline accurately (and I'm not sure I do, or even can), we now get seven years to make a start on cleaning up all the messes that mindless adherence to bronze-age religions has created.
Yes, it is. And Frabjous Day, Calloo, Callay, it's leaving earth today.