Today it is very hot.. but this isnt fooling the trees. The Bigleaf Maples up in the San Gabriels are changing. They know what they are doing, too. The weather forecast for this weekend calls for dramatically cooler temperatures and a chance of rain. There will even be snow on the highest peaks but these maples are a bit below the predicted snow level of 6500 feet. 

On the other side of the mountains, you could see all the way to the desert and the Tehachipi Mountains beyond. 

Yesterday i was on Gleason Peak in the San Gabriel Mountains where i work. This peak is the highest one in its particular part of the mountains, at almost 7000 feet tall... so it contains an island of ponderosa pine forest surrounded by chaparral and oak woodland. It is really neat up there. This is a viwe of the Santa Monica Mountains from the top. They look so tiny!  

Tropical System Strikes Spain, Portugal

This weekend a hurricane formed off the coast of Portugal - in an area of water temperatures which was believed to be too cold to support a hurricane. It was very small in size, but there could be no doubt that this was a hurricane, with sustained winds of at least 75 MPH and an well defined 'eye'.

Apparently there is record of a dying hurricane hitting Ireland in the 1960s, and of the 'Remnants' of tropical storms striking Spain and Portugal in the past. But this is the first time on record a tropical system actually maintained enough strength to strike the Iberian Peninsula.

From the National Hurricane Center:

The historical record shows no tropical cyclone ever making landfallon the iberian peninsula. Based on surface reports from FaroPortugal...the center passed just to the south of the coast ofPortugal...before becoming the first tropical cyclone to make landfall in Spain.

The area is in a severe drought so the rains were welcome, and by the time the storm hit land the winds were not strong enough to do much damage.

A 'hurricane-like' storm (like the one to hit Spain, this storm did not have all of the typical charactaristics of hurricanes) also hit Brazil this year, which is another first.

No one storm indicates a climate change, but all of these factors put together are definitely something to think about.

Everything put together falls apart.

Today i was doing a survey of impacts to a creek in a rather 'redneck' area. I will not post general details here, but suffice to say: do NOT drink out of a creek no matter how nice it looks. This particular creek is less than pristine but i had no idea that leaking septic tanks, etc, were so close to the water. There were some nice, fat trout in there too.. probably fat from bottom feeding off of the fecal matter... not to mention, the trout were probably meth addicts. Oh well. It isnt Yosemite here, but the work i do here is truly in the trenches of conservation. These lands, being so close to the city, are the most open to abuse of anything around, but they are also the most important in allowing people to appreciate and experience natural areas... if people do not experience them, they will see no value in their protection.
I worked late, and when i was driving home on the 210, the sun had already set. And lo and behold, as i approached Pasadena, my CAR TURNED OFF! Yep.. right on the freeway, going 65.. it turned off! I managed to coast to the side and had it towed to the ford dealer which is conveniently located a quarter mile from my house. So it could have been a lot worse. Tomorrow i will figure out what is wrong with it.
Upon arriving home I also made the pleasant discovery that my electronic door opener was dead. I was pretty disturbed, but i called John (my roommate) who is in Hawaii right now, and he told me where he stores the extra batteries. That is fixed now.
I am planning a fall trip up to the Cabin in a 2 weeks. It won't be the party that April was, but it will be good times with close friends, which is just as good. There could be some fall color, and there will be beer, and a good sunset, and hiking to do. Incidentally, i met one of the botanists who works in the area around Green Valley Lake. My first thought was 'OMG PLANT GIRL!' but i quickly realized she was dating one of the other employees of that forest. Anyway, they both seem cool, so I may invite them up to the cabin as well. (they also both live near major snowboarding areas so perhaps i will have more people to go boarding with now).
Anyway, other than the car, everything is good. My weekend plans call for hanging out in Pasadena friday night, going to Torrance on saturday night (i have friends to pick up at the airport early on Sunday) and seeing Dave on Sunday. Monday i also have off, it will probably be a Warcraft day, or else a visit to the close mountains.

October is here..

October has arrived and with it a typical fall weather forecast: hot, dry winds which could persst through the month. This is a quite common weather pattern for this time of year, and one which is largely responsible for the abundance of fires in the region. It is likely that fires similar to the ones last week will occur throughout the month.

The valleys and canyons in the hot winds will feel warm, but a trip to the mountain peaks reveal that winter is only a month or two away.. conditions at 7000 feet are downright cold. Up there the maples are all bright yellow. Also, the Santa Ana winds are warmed by dropping over the mountains, so while they are still on the high ridge, they are not warm yet.

Today i was walking to the mailbox down at the corner. After i deposited the mail i just kept walking. I went a long way before i got back... down Lake Street and around Cal Tech. It was a good walk and when i got back, i was inspired and made a new song. If you want to hear it, click on the 'Sonic Colonic' link to the right of this text, and then choose the song called 'To The End Times'.

The end times may be on the way.. but for now things are pretty good. The world is full of neat plants, cute girls, and possibility. I've got nothing to complain about.

Setting sun shining through smoke plume. 

the smoke plume from the Topanga Fire.. those are the Simi Hills burning there, about 50 miles away. 

A fire in Big Tujunga Canyon.. the first one of the new fire season, at least that I saw. This one was put out quickly and did not spread 

Pasadena red light 

more neat clouds 

Fire and rain, but not in that order

Well, i tried to upload pictures today but 'Hello' and the blogger picture server seem to be down. But, in any event... the fire season has started. Last evening when I was driving home i noticed a small fire above Tujunga (i had a picture, too, but i can't post it yet.). This fire was quickly extinguished... just in time apparently because upon driving to work today i drove right into the start of a santa ana wind. The hot, dry wind was raging all day in the canyons, and sure enough another fire started some time late in the morning. This one was where the 118 crosses the Santa Susana Pass. With the dry winds of the fire season, the fire burned right across the 118 up towards Box Canyon and Rocketdyne (presumably not igniting any rocket fuel). Last I heard it was currently menacing the 'Bell Canyon' gated housing tract, which i'm sure will mean a lot of miserable republicans if it burns down. It's better if it doesn't though.. because burning houses smell bad.
If the fire continues it may spread into the Ahmanson Ranch area (mostly grass and oaks, the oaks will probably not be killed and the grass is mostly weeds anyway) and Cheeseboro Canyon (my private hell of the last summer). Perhaps the entire canyon will burn rendering our 'burnt' and 'unburnt' plots useless. As much as I would like to see the whole area turned to ash, it's probably best if it doesnt burn as too many fires just tend to convert areas to weeds. Also, hopefully the fire doesn't burn all of the chaparral in the higher part of the Simi Hills.. there is some neat relatively old brush up there.

At sunset last night there were lots of funky clouds.. it looked much like the weather before the storm last week. Sure enough, there were thunderstorms moving through Ventura and Santa Barbara through the night and today up at Little Tujunga Canyon we had a small, fast moving storm come by... it poured rain for about 2 minutes, accompinied by some close cloud to ground lightning... and then it was gone. The rain wasn't measurable here.. but nevertheless, it is quite unusual to be getting storms like this at this time of year. 

clouds 

Stick Shifts, Safety Belts, Bucket Seats

So, on Friday, I got in to work and went to pick up the truck i was going to use to move some furniture to my new office.

And... lo and behold.. the truck was a stick shift!

I haven't driven stick in about 5 years, so i was a bit worried. I went to go ask if they had any other trucks. They called around and couldn't find any. I realized that i am going to have to deal with the stick shift problem eventually. No one was averse to me taking the car, so after a bit of deliberation, I just did it. After stalling 3 times due to forgetting about the emergency brake, I was off into LA traffic. I did not stall out at all on LA roads, so I was very proud. I guess stick shift is like riding a bike.. once you get back into it, you remember fast.

Much of the rest of the day consisted of fighting with the copier. At the end of the day I got to take the truck out to start to get familiar with more of the park. I had a lot of fun driving the stick shift on mountain roads.

On a side note though, the USFS seemed to think it would be a good idea to buy some 2 wheel drive trucks in an area with lots of muddy fire roads which gets substantial snow in the winter. Who the hell comes up with this stuff? Why would you buy a 2*2 truck in these mountains, ever? So ultimately, the problem isnt the stick shift, just the fact that some of the vehicles are not 4 wheel drive.

Yesterday I was down in torrance hanging out at a party with my friend Cambria... Anyone who knew me in High School finds this extremely strange because me and Cambria were basically arch enemies in high school.. we did NOT get along. But who the hell holds a 7 year grudge?? Besides, i don't blame someone for disliking me back then... haha. In any event, the party was a 'sausage fest' so there wasn't much meeting of new girls or anything... but sometimes it is fun just to hang out with a bunch of loud, drunk guys too.

I didn't get drunk. I had to drive.

Oh yeah... I have declared this weekend the start of 'Party Period 3'. Party period 1 was a really fun part of college and Party Period 2 was the time spent with Eli and the SCA's making music (and the cabin trip). It'll be fun.

In the pines...

Today for the first day I was actually way up in the mountains. I didn't get to stay long, but it was nice. I was up on Mt Wilson and the Chileo Flats area. Up high in the mountains there are ponderosa pines and white firs and other trees more representitive of places like the Sierras. Since these mountains are so steep, the area densely forested with pines is smaller than that of the San Bernadino mountains (they prefer more gentle slopes, it seems) but the mountains also have a variety of other things like bigcone spruce and oak forests, and deep canyons full of oak and alder forest.

It's a neat area.. well, most of it is. There are dirty urban fringe areas just like in Malibu. It's definitely in the 'front lines' of habitat preservation.

My office is in a canyon right above the Valley. I will be in a trailer (which is all the forest/park service seem to ever have) but i will have a window and my own office area. And hopefully i will be in the field a lot.

Other than that... I am really enjoying my place in Pasadena. I haven't done too much social stuff yet but i hope to soon.

Oh yeah.. Josh, if you read this... we were hoping you could help us get a password on the wireless connection. Call/email me when you guys get back.

Oh yeah.. i forgot to mention that on Monday night and Tuesday morning, the Pasadena area as well as many other parts of LA expereienced a series of thunderstorms accompanied with lots of lightning. The thunder woke me up at least 6 times during the night.. and since my head is next to a giant sliding glass door, i got to watch lots of lightning. After all was said and done, between a quarter and a half an inch had fallen in the area... easily breaking the records throughout the LA basin where the prior rainfall records were on the order of .08 inches. Things are definitely weird now. The picture here was not taken by me, it is from photos.surfline.com. This is Hunnington Pear. 

This is an image of the internal structure of hurricane Rita, using wavelengths that highlight the center of the storm. It shows the 'skeleton' of the storm and what you can see is a nearly perfect eye with a perfect eyewall and feeder bands. In theory, this is about as strong as a hurricane can get... Gilbert was slightly stronger and this one will probably be stronger too before it hits land. Hopefully it will diminish before landfall but unfortunately, storm surges do not weaken as fast as the rest of the storm... there is going to be a lot of talk of climage change, and it is impossible to say that this is the reason for these storms. However, we can say that the extremely warm water in the Gulf is a big reason why they are getting this strong. Whatever is going on... it isnt good for the coastline of Texas. 

Mt Wilson area after the storm. The thunderstorms which lasted all night and through much of today ended up producing a lot of lightning, and not much rain... about .25 inches in the lowlands and up to an inch in the mountains.. not much by winter storm standards but more than the average rainfall for the entire month of September. 

Mt Wilson area after the storm. The thunderstorms which lasted all night and through much of today ended up producing a lot of lightning, and not much rain... about .25 inches in the lowlands and up to an inch in the mountains.. not much by winter storm standards but more than the average rainfall for the entire month of September.