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

5:00pm, PST, temperature 106F. Withe a sudden 'Crack!' of desert mimosa pods shattering from the trees and helicoptering through the air, an electrophorus dust storm has come up. A special case, where the electrophorus force is driving the sand, which is rising vertically and and collapse of the sand columns drives the wind. Very blustery. Visibility dropped from forty miles to only about a thousand meters in only two or three minutes. Dust mask on.

12:18pm PST, Temperature, 95F, steady mild breeze blowing. The seasonal change is apparently coming early, usually this doesn't happen till about the middle of September.

it's 20;42 pm GMT



it's raning 12c

4:20pm PST, 95F, 35C Sky clear except for monsoonal haze.

it's 01:17 gmt

it's cloudy 5c

it's 03:00 GMT

it's cloudy 6c

it's 3:43 am GMT


it's cold and cloudy 3c

Wa'al, when I was driving from the eastern Coachella Valley W-16-Feb-2011: there was a brisk west wind blowing in the northern Salton Sea area; a dust storm along the 86hwy and 10fwy fronting Coachella and Indio, CA, reducing visibility to ~ 225m; brisk wind in the Rancho Mirage, Palm Springs, area; torrential rain from the San Gorgonio pass through Beaumont, reducing visibility to 25m, scattered showers in the Perris Valley.

Still pretty much the same except that the dust storm in the Coachella/Indio area has subsided.

it's 05:24 GMT


it's cloudy cold 2c

it's 03:55 am GMT

cold 2c clear

Time zone, GMT-8h, the Coachella Valley, CA.

Unseasonably warm.

The traditional weather signs suggest unexpected rain sometime between now and the summer doldrums in June. I hope so.

it's 04:40 am GMT

it's raining 6c

Unexpected rain there's been, flooding in the San Gabriel Valley (greater Los Angeles area) and other places, some of it spilling over into the desert, unseasonably late snowfall in the mountains, ski resorts staying open later in the season than usual. Weather signs still suggest more before the June summer doldrums (if they come this year).

Unseasonably hot most of the time, as though the torrid season may begin early, but a current cool snap, temperatures right now 22.5C/72F, 12:18am PST, sky lightly clouded, 1st magnitude stars barely visible with a hard squint. I just got hit on the face with a raindrop (one only) when I stepped out a moment ago to look.

...I've been seeing unusual numbers of albino desert mimosa seedlings (My single most ubiquitous weed, now that the rapeseed (canola oil plants) are under control. I finally got them with a heavy mulch laid down last autumn.)... ...I haven't seen a rate of albinism like this since the first Chinese H-bomb test back in 1979. The phenomenon may be related to the Fukushima disaster.