h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

23:26 pm GMT

it's cloudy 12c

03.00 GMT, Cloudy and has just started to spot with rain but still warm

it's 03:58 am GMT

it's cloudy 14c

Its 08.56 GMT, very grey and ominously thundery outside, drizzling but warm

it's 05:40 am GMT

it's raning 14c

same time, dry now, has been raining

4:33 pm PST. Found a place where I can get a 140F thermometer recently. Necessary out here since we get occasional temperatures in the 130s.

No where near that hot, if anything, unusually mild for August, but its been hellishly hot, consistently between 110F and 120F the past week... like standing in front of an open oven door, only all around and all the time.

I'm taking a short break from the Coachella Valley at the moment to take care of some essential errands in the Perris Valley and will borrow my sister's swimming pool later tonight. Temperatures here are about 10 degrees lower.

I truly could not live in that heat, I’m so glad that our climate is so varied.

WTTN/AWTWL. 23.59 GMT, so pleasantly breezy as against to that still humid air of past, weather front crossing from the south bring mentioned breeze and heavy showers

Temp 111F, time 5:00pm PST

Hurricane season coming up. This winter promises to be pretty energetic.

About once every 20 years we get a hurricane force storm, a tropical storm working up the length of the gulf of California, spilling over the Imperial valley, the Coachella Valley, crashing against the Santa Rosa Mts at 8400 feet, Mt. San Gorgonio at 10,000 feet and Joshua Tree Nat. Park at 7000 feet plus, all overlooking a below sea level basin at 243 feet below sea level, (which is why it gets so hot, a stable inversion layer forms over the summer at the sea level thermocline), blood red sky in the morning before the storm, semi truck and trailer rigs blown off the freeway, palm trees bowed over and stripped of their fronds by the winds, flash floods, fantastic blooms of wildflowers the following spring.

In the height of the storm and its immediate aftermath, the Santa Rosas turn into a fantasia of waterfalls and the morning after the storm one sees rays of hope and rainbows along with sky and cloud colors including lime green and lavender.

Well nothing as exciting as that here, Its 10.36 GMT, it’s very wet outside, a procession of heavy showers coming from the south west, its warm out but with variable wind

94F 3:01am PST

Most of the time just very hot in the summer and autumn, mild in the winter and spring with occasional bouts of tempestuous weather.

Especially in September, temperature can fluctuate between a high over 120F and a low below freezing in the course of a single 24 hour period.

I could not cope with that degree of sustained heat, 10 days away on holiday to somewhere hot liken to Turkey is enough for me, give me dappled shade and a cool breeze any day. Now 11.19 am GMT and we have now got a window of blue sky, the heavy rain laden clouds look quite striking as they dash by

3:15am PST, temperature 100F. Wind coming up, nice(for the moment). Chill factor dropping effective temperature to between 85F and 90F. Wind chimes singing.

8:11am PST. Temperature 90F, sky partially clouded. The weather is changing.

10:34pm PST, 104F. The breeze has stopped and its just hot again.

07.12am GMT. 13c, Wind coming from the North. Well I’ve just opened the bedroom blinds and it got a still autumnal feel out there today. The lower clouds have a slight golden hue on them; there the odd gap of pale blue and the clouds do not seem to be in any rush today. Under foot its damp, we must have had a slight shower earlier, there’s a slight haze to things or is it that I just need to clean my glasses! the odd bird is making its presence felt, manly a pair of Doves near by. Well I will enjoy the cool breeze whilst I finish my and do the odd post

7:15pm PST, 100F Magenta sky in the east as the sun sets.

Considerable scattered strato-cumulous cloud cover the past week, but its doing little as yet to moderate the heat. I could see rain falling over the Santa Rosa Mts yesterday, a bit over fifty miles away. It put me in mind of tales of Australian aboriginals physically running to distant cloudbursts when they see them. I suppose I could have been there in a bit less than two hours.

8:50pm PST, gusty wind coming up, energetic heat lightning displays over the southern Orocopia Mts and Chocolate Mts, about one burst per second. Ionization of the air shifting to negative. Hint of ozone in the air. Chill factor delightful.

9:33pm PST. I can't believe it. Rain, big drops with much rolling thunder in the background.

11:03pm PST, temperature 94F. Storm's over, except a cumulo-cirrus cloud mass overhead and some continuing lightning southwest of the Chocolate Mts. Air still again. Tremendous lightning and thunder display, but less than a millimeter of rain.