Tuesday, 24 June 2008

Smoky skies....

About thirteen years ago, I was on ANZ plane, descending through a beautiful, clear blue sky, heading towards the American coast and Los Angeles.

All of a sudden, we were flying through this horrible, yellow, yucky gunk. I asked a fellow passenger what it was. He told me it was smog.

Getting off the plane, I remember looking skywards and thinking, there is a beautiful clear blue sky up there, somewhere.

What was even more bizarre, was hearing someone say, 'It's a beautiful, sunny, Californian day.' They called THAT sunny??? Didn't they know what was up there, above that layer of smog???

Normally, here, in the NV High Sierra Desert, we have plenty of clear, sunny, blue skies. However, currently there are well over
700 fires burning in Northern CA and brother, is it effecting us!!!.

Looking at the map, there is a huge swathe of fires, just over the Sierras from us. As a result, the wind is blowing smoke and ash over the mountains and into our area. Reno is set in a basin, ringed by mountains. It's part of the Western Great Basin area. So the smoke has filtered in and settled. LA fog has nothing on what we're experiencing right now.


Taken at the bottom of my street, looking towards the Atlantis casino. Normally you can see other structures and part of the mountains behind it.



There are hills and mountains in there, somewhere!! Oh, and this and the previous photo were taken at 10.30 in the morning, when it should have been sunny.

Hawken fire Day 5

This is what the previous photo should really look like. Taken in 2007 after the Hawken fire, which you can see still smouldering.

My heart and prayers go out to those people in CA, that are affected by these fires. Combined with the floods and tornadoes that have been hitting elsewhere in the US, all I can say is that Mother Nature must either be PMSing or going through Menopause, because she's sure being a right b***h this year!

Was just listening to the local forecast. We have the possibility of thunderstorms over the next few days. Sighhhhhhh.....

Cheers...

5 comments:

Anne said...

Mother Nature is doing strange things here too this year!

LOL - had a giggle at your post re the Beatle boots, Dinah Lee hair style - me too! Thought I was the bees knees!!

Lula! said...

Oh, what a mess. Truly.

And we so need to be friends, as I adore Peter Jackson and all Kiwis in general. Yeah, I'm an enormous Ringer. I feel certain I'll one day travel to "middle earth" and meet all kinds of fabulous folk there.

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

In the summer we have levels of smog warnings here in Atlanta. And today's was in the red zone...meaning it's unhealthy for anyone to be outside. At all. What we need is some rain...cause it's been over a month now...

Heather said...

Even here in Colorado we have pollution problems. Mother Nature does seem to be off of her rocker lately. Wierd weather this summer.

Apple Joos said...

QUICK! Someone get some chocolate to Mother Nature before we all implode!