Where I live in Southern California, we often have skies so boring that most people don't look up much. Partly it's smog, and everybody knows about that. Sometimes it's smoke from brushfires, which everybody also probably knows about. At other times, we have clear skies but cloudless, and again, why look up?
On the other hand, over the last several years, I've noticed something strange. Southern California skies are starting to become more interesting. Take the shot above. I took that with my G1 cell phone at about 7:50 a.m. in January, 2009. It is not a typical sky around here!
What's happening? What's the connection?
Are we experiencing a subtle change in our local climate pattern? Does it have to do with global climate change? I know there's an El Nino phenomenon going on, and would that account for this change?
Happily, I like what's going on here. Over the past few years, the seasons have shown some remarkable extremes here and there, yet overall I think the weather has been generally more subdued here than in other places around the country. I live in a community that once was mostly vineyards, planted by Mediterranean immigrants in an area their lore and expertise deemed appropriate. I'm glad that the founders of tis community knew what they were doing.
How often do we hear of a community suffering from a "century-level" disaster, such as flooding, dust storms, and mud slides? Is it possible that local lore is being studiously ignored?
I think so. I'm reminded of the founding of the city of Seattle. If I recall correctly, the immigrants to the region, intent on lumber, needed a place to call home, so they built their land on the tip of a peninsula that juts out into Puget. The local Native American population probably wondered why the fools did so, and the folks who'd emigrated from the Atlantic coast learned the hard way during the ensuing winter, when storms wiped out the settlement.
The story continues that the surviving band, intent on staying put decided to consult the locals to determine if it was okay to place their township in a different place on the sound. Perhaps a miscommunication occurred, or perhaps the locals were having fun at the newcomers' expense, but the local tribe was believed to have approved of the newcomers' next choice of sites - a low-lying flat in the eastern lee of the sound, where Seattle stands today.
Unfortunately, when the rainy season hit full stride, the newcomers found that their town was actually built on a mud flat. [You'd think at least of those New Englanders had seen the results of rain where they came from.] Nevertheless, this time they persevered, and the story takes some painful and humorous twists from that point forward, which I won't go into. But if you're ever in Seattle, take the tour of the Seattle Underground. It's an almost unbelievable story!
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