Look out! It's CLIMATE CHANGE!!!

One thing about living in Northeast Florida is if you don't like what the weather is now, all you have to do is wait a day or so (or maybe only a few hours) and it will change. Often, drastically.

Sunday was delightfully warm with the high temperature around 80 degrees. Sunny, too!

Herself and Da Kid invited me over for dinner and in the space of only a few hours, I was driving home in THAT, and flipping on the heater in my car because for some strange reason, I hadn't thought to bring a coat with me.

After a hard freeze two mornings in a row, yesterday's high was 43 degrees. At least it didn't get down to 16 yesterday morning like the weatherjerk had predicted.

Not that it made much difference as cold as it was. When I went out to feed Dingbat — my feet making crunch-crunch noises in the frozen dirt with every step going to his stall — the old fart almost ran me over.

No, he wasn't enjoying a brisk morning run. He was flipping out on a sugar high (he's always been overly sensitive) due to the excess of sweet feed I've been adding to his regular food so that internally, his system would keep him warm naturally.

That sounds so ... so, enviro-nutish: "...naturally." The truth of the matter is that Dingbat never left his blankets on so years ago, after untangling his feet and legs from the dangerously twisted mess he'd once again created for himself, I packed the horse blankets away for good. Not that the straps on them were good anymore because this time, it was so bad I'd had to slice through them one of them with a knife to get him undone before he panicked and hurt himself, possibly fatally as in breaking a leg.

Another hard freeze this morning and another one projected tomorrow.

One more day. Just one more this go-'round!

Aaaah, climate change! Bring it on! I can't wait!!!

According to the weatherjerk, Sunday will be in the 70's.

Busy work

This morning the local weatherjerk was STILL prognosticating that -- on his ten-point scale with ten being perfection -- today was going to be a nine.

I don't know about anybody else here in Northeast Florida, but I've been freezing my ass off all day and the sky hasn't changed one bit. It looks like the ones I grew up with when there's a snow storm coming.

In other words the local weatherjerk can't actually predict the weather. No weatherjerk can with any degree of reliability.

But that doesn't stop Colorado State University meteorologists Philip Klotzbach and William Gray from issuing their hurricane forecast today.

"Wait!" I'm sure you're saying. "Better check the date of the article, Doyle, because the hurricane season just ended November 30!"

Silly, Klotzbach and Gray -- those busy bees -- were predicting how many storms we can expect during the next hurricane season that starts June 1, 2008!

``With this early lead time, there's only so much you can say, because the season doesn't start for another seven months,'' Klotzbach said in an interview. ``The reason we do them is there's a lot of curiosity. People want to start making plans.'' -- Bloomberg

The weatherjerks can't even predict accurately what the weather is going to be tomorrow, but we're supposed to "start making plans" now based on their predictions for a hurricane season that doesn't even start for seven months?

Somebody needs to fine these two some REAL work to do.

Picture this?

Ed Gamble

Liquid Sunshine

Floatin' Down Memory Lane

Pam asked if like Houston, floods occur here each year. I tried to explain that it's kind of a yes and no situation. Overall, no. But in some spots . . . yes.

The reasons may be different for different areas, but let there be heavy, sustained rainfall it's ga-run-teed one of the places the reporters will ALWAYS talk about is San Marco. Its streets ALWAYS seem to be one of those under water. Especially this intersection.

Every time it floods there, for 30 some-odd years the media shows people from Public Works cleaning that particular drain. Probably longer than that, but before that I wasn't here and until just after that, I'd never been to Applejack's.

It's trendy, now. Spanish-styled exteriors and Applejack's long gone, but the corner itself hasn't changed. I recognized it immediately when I saw the pic in today's paper.

Usta be if you wanted a quick lunch at a good price -- take-out or eat-in -- the place to go was Applejack's. It wasn't every day but a bit fancier fare . . . say, on payday to celebrate surviving another two weeks on the job.

The only downside was trying to find a parking place, and doing that could eat up most of your lunch time. Unless you learned pretty quickly to park on the street behind, hoof it to their counter, and go.

Parking on the street behind Applejack's had an added advantage, too. Since it was (is still?) on higher ground than San Marco, you could be reasonably assured that your vehicle wouldn't be up to the middle of its hub caps (or worse) in standing water when it rained.

You might have to pull your shoes off when you left the car to wade to Applejack's front door, but . . . well, we were all young once.

Weren't we?

And if we were ten minutes late getting back to work, "Queen Bitch" -- our supervisor -- just might not dock us. We weren't just going for our lunch. We were bringing back her lunch, too.

Applejack's was the place to go out with "the gang from work," too. Pizza, cheap wine, beer and on Friday nights a band. No one had much money to spare, so you pooled your change figuring out before you went in what everyone could have.

Inside, on Friday nights, local boys strummin' and singin'. Or trying to figure out if they placed their mic here instead of there, or moved their amplifiers a bit, maybe they could go back to playing because they'd stopped the ear-splitting squeal that could bust ear drums, and maybe be discovered and make it big.

Thunder outside. The sound of rain falling. Tapered candles burning -- stuck in dusty old wine bottles coated with the drippings of who knows how many candles burnt before them -- on the tables.

Powers out again. Shut off, actually, to make sure no one got electrocuted while Applejack's owners and employees grabbed sandbags from a storage area to stack them outside the door trying to keep the water from coming in.

Again.

Ah, the memories.

We all get older.

Times change.

The only thing that lasts is flooding in the "usual areas."

A little bit wet

The front page headline of today's paper reads, 'NIGHTMARE OF A DAY'. Like this has never happened before? The flooding, I mean. It has, several times over the years, and always in the usual spots. With as many newcomers as we have now, I guess they just don't know what areas to avoid.

What was different, though, is that while some areas had to deal with as much as 8 inches of rain, I didn't get even single drop.

Not one.

Not that it didn't get . . . uh, interesting from time to time.

With both Da Kid and Herself both at work, I'd planned on going over to their house around noon to let the Granddog out to commune with nature. Instead, after looking out the window around 11 and seeing an endless, particularly dark purple-blue cloud in that general direction I said, "Oh shit!" packed up stuff to do in case I got stuck there for a while, and headed out the door.

No need. Their sidewalk was a bit damp when I arrived and left about 30 minutes later. Their total rainfall accumulation, according to the National Weather Service, was a whole tenth of an inch.

I had a few other, "Oh Shit" moments during the day when it got VERY dark outside way too quickly, or when a strong gust of wind came out of nowhere.

Today was a repeat of yesterday -- dark and windy -- without all the rain and flooding south of me.

The weatherjerks are saying it might get . . . uh, interesting again tonight. Same system, too.

It's just sitting there off the coast, they're saying, maybe getting a bit more . . . uh, interesting.

$3.89 a gallon

Gasoline? No. That's what I paid for a gallon of milk today. Expect it to get worse. Much worse.

Fox News is airing a piece right now about how much more groceries are costing and are GOING to cost in the future. The reason, they are explaining, is that the price of corn is going up because it is being diverted to the production of fuels.

Far be it for me to argue with their "experts," but all they're doing is selling advertising time.

~~~~~

Although I've mentioned him numerous times, let me finally introduce you to Dingbat (The Aged Quarter Horse). I've had him since he was a four-year-old and he's now closing in on 25. In equine terms that's very roughly . . . 75.

For his age Dingbat is in good health, but like we'd expect for ourselves IF we get to that age -- may we look as good if we do -- things don't work as well as they used to. Not that horses have a digestive tract that makes sense to start with.

Cattle can eat just about any ol' hay, but horse hay has to be of a particular kind and quality or it (among so many other things) can cause colic. I'm not going to waste your time going into it because this is only background.

I'm down to my last three bales of hay. Horse hay. By the time that's gone, I'll have Dingbat fully swapped over to soaked beet pulp (Doesn't it look just so yummy!) as a substitute.

Why? Because there is no hay.

I don't mean just in my hay shed or even horse hay. Because of the drought, there isn't any hay to be had.

Anywhere.

There's bales here and there of timothy or alfalfa at $20 per square bale, but Dingbat's aged digestive tract couldn't handle it. It would kill him.

Cattle farmers, whether beef or dairy, couldn't afford to pay that even if they could somehow find the quantities each cow would require daily. Cattle do very well with (what I think of as) crap hay. Except, there is no hay of any kind. So, months ago cattle farmers started culling their herds.

There are usually three cuttings of hay each season with the first coming in in April or May. The second, June . . . July. The third and final cut for the season (to get everyone through the winter 'til the next year's first cut) occurs some time in the Fall.

But first cut never occured this year. It didn't exist. Second cut, even with the recent rain, is a month to six weeks away and who knows how much of that there will be. Third cut . . .who knows.

Don't expect a reprieve any time soon. With nothing to fall back on 'cause what was normally stored from the year before already long gone, the lack of hay this year is already affecting next year's supply.

Since there will be nothing socked away from last year, it will be used as soon as it grows.

If next Spring, there's even enough rain for hay to grow.

The first impact (demand / supply) is dairy. We're seeing that now. Next will be the price of beef in the grocery store stores, so if the price of beef looks damned good right now, the market's flooded.

Buy, and sock it away in your freezer.

I know we need the rain, but . . .

. . . if it's not too much trouble could we pa-LEEZE skip the weird stuff?

Thank you!

Not that I was sure we would when my weather alert radio began warbeling at 8:30 this morning. Instead of the old one going off every time somebody (anybody!) in an 8-county area even farted, the new one has allowed me to fine tune the area (my county and the one I'm not that far from) and the type of alert.

After listening to the details of the notification, I fed both Dingbat (The Aged Quarter Horse) and Starbuck a bit earlier than usual. Neither one, of course, minded.

At nine, when I snapped this pic, with deep thunder beginning to roll I was STILL outside with Starbuck, telling him if he didn't want to get wet, it was time for him to stop playing games and get serious about cranking his tail. Not that he, of course, paid any attention to what I was telling him.

What he did pay attention to was a gust of wind.

He stuck his nose up in the air and smelling the coming rain said, "THIT!" And wasted no more time in doing exactly that.

Minutes later -- as it was getting really dark -- we were already back in the house when the wind and downpour began.

By two the sun was out again.

The weatherjerks are prognosticating more severe thunderstorms tomorrow.

We need the rain, I know. But if we could avoid the weird stuff, again -- like the hail and twisters that hit elsewhere -- I'd really appreciate it.

Are you ready?

Unlike last year I didn't have to buy anything big. Still, the start of Florida's sales tax holiday on hurricane supplies on June 1 was a perfect time for me to pick up a few extra tarps, and since I don't have a clue how old the ones I have are, a big package of fresh D batteries. Oh, and a new weather alert radio -- one with S.A.M.E. technology -- because the one I have doesn't and it drives me nuts, and has done so for years.

Big spender that I am, I bought one for Herself and Da Kid, too. I figure they're worth the $25.

The sales tax holiday ends in a few days. I thought I was set, except this morning I suddenly remembered something I'd wanted to check out that I'd spotted in a Home Depot circular when the holiday started. I didn't think I really needed it because there's already something similar that Hubby bought several years ago, that's still in a box sitting on a shelf in the garage. The only difference, I remembered thinking when I'd looked at the circular, was that this new one had the ability to recharge cell phones, too.

The bottom line is I went over to Home Depot just to look at it, and ended up buying the damned thing. At $45, it made absolutely no sense to me not to.

Smaller than a two-slice toaster (it's similar to this) it's an all-in-one AM/FM radio, black and white television, NOAA weather alert radio (but with no S.A.M.E., I won't be using that function), LED flashlight, AND cell phone charger. It is powered by regular house current, or nine C batteries, or its own built-in NIMH (rechargeable) battery. The latter is charged (and recharged) by using regular house current, or by plugging it into the cigarette lighter in your car (adaptor included) or the hand-crank.

There's only one problem, and I didn't realize there even was one until I got home.

This is the only thing in the entire house that requires C batteries. And I don't have any.

Shit.

Pleath make it thtop!

It rained all night and it'th thtill raining.

I don't wanna get wet. I hate getting wet. Pleath don't make me get wet!

I gotta pee tho bad, but I don't wanna get wet.

Pleath make it thtop raining.

Tropical Storm Barry

Hi, Barry! Happy June First!

You're not much, just a tropical storm. If you weren't aware of it before, let me be the first to tell you that according to a poll conducted by Mason Dixon, when one of your big brothers or sisters smacks into the U.S. this year everyone in the affected area is gonna die.

Or something.

That's what this article says the poll results indicate, and what numerous news sources have been echoing all day.

I'm gonna be one of the dead, I guess, 'cause if we're flooded I don't have any axes handy to chop through my roof.

I mean, I do have one but it's in the garage. Not that I'd be able to chop through the roof with it because it's so damned big and heavy. How I'd manage to swing it around in the attic much less haul it up there remains a mystery. A hatchet , I think, would be far more sensible. If I did somehow manage to climb on top of the refrigerator and clammer up . . .

Not that I'm in a flood-prone zone or live on the coast, but if the media reports the poll results as if they apply to everyone, who am I to disagree.

If the flood waters don't get me, Barry, I'm gonna burn to death.

Like 82 percent of those the survey says have made preparations, I have a "fire hazard" -- candles and and kerosene lamps -- in my "survival kit." But I'll probably bleed to death before the flames get me, if I drop any of the containers the candles are in and the glass breaks. All I can say is thank gawd the poll didn't ask about big-assed flashlights. If it had, it would be scaring people with the possibility of broken bones if they dropped one on their foot.

I haven't fortified my home, either, Barry. I'm not even sure what "fortified" means. If fortified means "boarding up" windows and such . . . I really don't want to hurt your feelings by making you feel inadequate, but you're only a tropical storm. We don't "fortify" here until there's actually a reason to do so.

Then again, we don't live on the coast.

Come to think of it, I don't think anybody I know even knows anybody rich or dumb enough to live on the coast, which just might be the population Mason Dixon surveyed. Not that you can tell from the media reports that nobody is ready for anything, so everybody's gonna die.

It's June 1. The official beginning of this year's Atlantic Hurricane Season. Let the media's annual hysteria begin, right?.

Anyway, thanks for the bit of rain a little while ago. It's been so long since we've had any, when I went out to feed Dingbat, the old Quarter Horse, he almost ran me over because the strange sound spooked him.

Send more.

Fire and Rain

Andrea was a bust. The half-inch of periodic rain that fell where I am came down gently giving it a chance to soak into the dust ground. "Anything helps," Da Kid had said. But said after the showers stopped while the gusting winds continued well into the next day, "This is the worst kind of storm with all the fires," because in the end all Andrea did was fan the flames.

From The Disaster News Network:

The lightning-sparked Bugaboo Scrub fire, which began Saturday in the Okefenokee Swamp and jumped into northern Florida forcing evacuations Tuesday in the small town of Taylor in Baker County, had grown to more than 40,000 acres.

No buildings were burned in Taylor and authorities said it appeared the fire would skirt the town. The fire forced the closure of several roads in the area and had spread to about 500 acres.

Firefighters in Florida continued to battle an 18,000-acre blaze in Bradford County, which they said was 20 percent contained, and a 2,000-acre fire in Alachua County. They said there was a possibility the two fires could merge. Numerous roads in the region were shut down due to the fire.

About 1,000 people were evacuated in Bradford County but about half were allowed to return to their homes Wednesday. One home was reported destroyed there.

A wildfire burning at the Flagler-Volusia County border was reported 50 percent contained. It had scorched some 6,800 acres. In Collier County, 13,000 acres had burned and one home and two mobile homes were destroyed. The fire there also forced the closure of a portion of Alligator Alley and Florida's Turnpike. Lake County reported two large fires, one at 2,600 acres which was only 15 percent contained, the other 850 acres with 55 percent containment.

The Bugaboo Scrub Fire -- the one that started in Georgia last Saturday and crossed the state line into Florida Tueday -- is now larger than the southern component of the Sweat Farm/Big Turnaround Fire.

Not that they are often right, one of the local weatherjerks just reported a likelihood of rain on Sunday.

I don't know about anyone else out there, but I can't think of a better present for Mothers Day.

GIVE ME AN "A"

GIVE ME AN "A"!
GIVE ME AN "N"!
GIVE ME AN "D"!
GIVE ME AN "R"!
GIVE ME AN "E"!
GIVE ME AN "A"!

Smoke and ash

Yesterday dawned hazy as the wind began driving thick smoke from the massive wildfires in Southeast Georgia into my part of Northeast Florida for the first time since February 18.

The news was reporting that the wildfire in Waycross, Georgia, was 70 percent contained, which made it sound like it had been beaten or soon would be. Meanwhile Da Kid, who was on duty -- between calls to put out fires in his own county -- sent me an image of the ashes falling outside his station dozens of miles away.

I'm, and I'm guessing, 80 to 100 miles away from it and yet this morning I found a fine coat of white ash on my car.

The other day Da Kid showed me a Youtube video of a convoy of firetrucks, some from his department.



With the way the wind is blowing here today it's smokey again, and the news is reporting that the wildfire in Waycross, Georgia, is now 64 percent contained. That's just one of them up there.

Here, fire sirens have been yowling all day with engines zooming in all directions. Or maybe it just seems that way.

And still, no rain.

~~~

Satellite image via Weather Underground

Fire and Rain

The smoke here today wasn't as bad as yesterday's, but that was only because of the wind's direction.

Instead of three separate windfires in Southeast Georgia there are now five. The biggest one, the 10,000-acre one that started when a tree blew down and hit a power pole, doubled in size in less than two hours and as of the last report, has now grown even more and become a 25,000-acre "monster," generating clouds of smoke over 8,000 feet high.

The big worry, the most important thing, according to some news reports (only one of which I bothered to link to) is not potential loss of human life or peoples' homes or livelihoods.

Nope!

It's that this particular, particularly-massive wildfire, is threatening the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refugee.

What's in the Okefenokee?

Swamp.

Yeah, there's alligators and bears and other animals living in the swamp . . . just like they have for hundreds of years and more. You think this is the first time fire has affected it or them? Not just no but, Hell, no!

I don't have any links but a few years back windfires burned well into the Okefenokee. Relatively so, anyway. The same hysterical reports were rampant except something funny happened. People who know what they're talking about went back later to see what the actual effect had been.

Except for new growth, there wasn't any.

Mama Nature's cleansing fire had cleaned out the old growth to make way for the new. Just as she'd done for hundreds of years. And more.

Da Kid's off duty tomorrow, at least after comparing calendars Herself and I think he is. Not that means much of anything right now.

Wildfire-trained and just recertified two months ago, since he's not on duty or at school tomorrow, he's on standby.

(Still no rain here. The weatherjerks are now saying maybe this weekend.)

Fire and Rain

That's not fog, folks. That's smoke blowing into Northeast Florida from the fires in Southeast Georgia.

Da Kid, who's on duty in a county adjacent to the wildfires, said this morning that the largest one -- the one started when a tree was blown over into a live power line -- has grown to one mile wide and eleven miles long.

With as dry as it is here again, people are spooky and with good reason.

With so much smoke in the air, callers flooded 911 to the extent that the first thing I heard when I turned the radio on this morning was a plea issued by Jacksonville Fire Rescue for people to STOP calling them. They KNOW about the smoke and it's not coming from any fires in this area.

Still -- and already knowing this when I went outside for the first time this morning -- I was very tempted to call 911, anyway, just to have them make sure. The smoke was that thick and the smell of burning wood, that strong. Then it got worse.

The winds shifted direction around 3 this afternoon sending the smoke elsewhere. The weatherjerks are saying we may get more rain tomorrow afternoon. I sure hope so, not that the storm we got over the weekend gave us much more than an inch and a half. But, anything helps.

Wet

It was sprinkling when I dashed into the grocery store around noon yesterday. The weatherjerks were predicting we'd be getting "weather" starting later in the day and I wanted to be home if, for a change, they were right.

For a change they were.

I'd just come in from feeding Nuthatch (The Horse) when the rain began falling. Nothing bad but it had picked up when a sister-in-law who lives over by Tampa called around 6:30. By 7 when I talked to Da Kid who was on duty in South Georgia, it was really starting to come down. And then, the bottom dropped out.

No wind to speak of, but listening to the roaring rain outside and the occasional plink-plink-plinkity-plink (Hail?) I realized I hadn't heard anything like that since the 2004 hurricanes.

By 8:30 the ground by the back steps was under water. And then, except for showers during the night, it was over.

It hadn't started yet for those in Central Florida where, as of right now, fourteen fatalities have been reported so far.

~~~~~Later: Nineteen now.

Brother-in-law in Ohio called a bit ago to make sure we were okay, saying he can't figure out why anyone would want to live in Florida. "You just told me you're expecting a temperature of zero degrees or less tonight," I replied. "California has earthquakes and New York, Hillary Clinton. I'm staying put, theng-que-veddy-mush."

Checking the Florida Bloggers who always put the media to shame when it comes to hurricane reporting, nothing from Florida Cracker who I believe is in the affected area.

Rita approaches shore, and a rant

If this offends anyone out there please accept my apologies in advance. I'm sick of hearing about New Orleans and Louisiana.

Rita is coming in and there's more attention being paid to New Orleans and Lousiana than any others who will be affected.

I've never been to New Orleans or Louisiana but I have a couple of friends whose roots are there. I also have friends and family in Houston. They're fine and will be especially since Rita won't be hitting them directly. That doesn't mean they won't be affected. And now that they're out of the crosshairs I'm not saying that they should be the focus, either.

Where Rita hits and the people who are there should be.

But when NOLA began flooding again this morning that's all the coverage was.

IT'S EMPTY FOR GAWD'S SAKE!

Or it should be.

It wouldn't have been if someone hadn't gotten through to Ray "I'm the Mayor!" Nagin (I wonder who it was.) and convinced him to terminate and reverse the re-entry of New Orleans residents he was having news conferences about every ten minutes.

Funny thing, I haven't seen him at all today. I wonder if he's spending the weekend with his family, in the new home he bought for them outside of Dallas.

Oh, but Goobernor Kathleen Blanco was out there. In her stumbling press conference this afternoon she announced "Task Force Rita" is ready to . . . uh, do something.

They're positioned just outside of the storm area, she said, and will ride out the storm . . .

Wait, which is it?

Not shown in the transcript is her hesitant, uneven delivery or where she confused Katrina with Rita, and then had to start that part of her prepared statement again from the beginning.

Rita's coming in, but . . .

"Let me take a moment away from discussing our preparations for Rita to focus on the recovery from Katrina.

Yeah, New Orleans is under water again. And Blanco wants more money from the Federal government.

"In another effort to help our local governments, today, I asked President Bush to change the rules and allow FEMA to pay the base salaries of our police, deputies, firefighters and other government workers."

What about Louisiana picking up the tab, Goobernor? How much is your state kicking in to help to support its own communities?

Oh, and . . .

"The announcement from HUD and Homeland Security today about rental assistance and housing vouchers may address the needs of our friends in Alabama and Mississippi . it does little for Louisiana citizens who want to come home."

While I don't live in Alabama or Mississippi if I may be so bold (and I can do any darned thing I want here 'cause this is my blog) I'd like to speak on their behalf for a moment.

Up yours.

Rental assistance and housing vouchers are okay for them. But for Louisiana, Blanco wants "FEMA to speed up the purchase of hotels and motels where we can provide complete services for our evacuees where we can provide complete services."

The purchase? Ain't she just so speshul!

I don't think so.

I have little doubt that while Blanco wants our dollars to be used she expects what's bought with them to either be put into Louisiana's name OR run under their management.

And "Naggin" Nagin wants any and all rebuilding dollars pledged for NOLA to go through his local and state government, with only local and state businesses allowed to do the work.

Somehow, I don't think that's going to work.

At least it doesn't work for me considering indictments for missing FEMA funds, misspent funds for evacuation planning and growing indications that the levees gave way not because of lack of funding, but substandard design and materials once the locals got their mitts on it.

I wonder if the reason Blanco seemed so shook today was that she was imagining herself in the near future, clothed in always slimming, vertical stripes.

LATER: I turned to FoxNews for Rita coverage last night and who was jolly on the spot but Geraldo. I looked at Hubby, he looked at me. I nodded and he zapped the remote to a different station. Then another one and another one after that. Each one had a fearless reporter or reporterette braving the storm to provide the same breathless live coverage that it was extremely windy and very rainy and would be getting worse. So, we watched the Sci-Fi Channel instead. This morning, Fox's coverage included replays of Shepard Smith getting knocked on his ass last night by the wind, and also last night from ABC, one of their dingbats chasing an overturned planter around an empty hotel lobby to show viewers just how windy it was.

Bumped up from comments, a link to Joe from Attaboy's commentary on the evenhanded and uplifting reporting being done by the Associated Press.

It's still there.

Mount St. Helens that is.


7:19 a.m., October 3, 2004

Even after all of the media-hyped furor that it was going to erupt . . .


9:05 a.m., October 5, 2004

. . . and wipe out all life as we know it . . . or some such.

If you're wondering why the coverage faded out so quickly, I'm guessing other stories (like an upcoming election) took more of the air time, especially since those stunning photos the media couldn't transmit to its viewers fast enough were no longer available.

No, it wasn't a dastardly plan by Karl Rove.

It was the annual arrival of something called fog.


4:14 p.m., October 8, 2004

Yep, it looks like Mount St. Helens is still there. And quite beautiful, too.



6:36 p.m., November 12, 2004

All pics collected via the live VolcanoCam located at Johnston Ridge Observatory.