Kendall Stanley: Stormy weather
Did you hear the news out of Mammoth Mountain ski resort in California? They expect skiing to continue until at LEAST July!
The resort has tallied up 634-plus inches of snow this season, just shy of an all-time record of 668 inches which they will easily beat. There’s more than 300 inches of snow at the top of the mountain and 75-100 inches on the ground at the main resort.
If you haven’t noticed the weather this winter has been a real disaster for the state of California.
In addition to the literal mountains of snow in California’s high country, torrential rains have flooded many towns, ruptured levees and caused billions in damage.
It snowed in the mountains surrounding Los Angeles, a rare sight for the city and even rarer, two tornadoes hit communities in the eastern part of the LA basin.
Although a lot of the water from the storms has been shipped off to the ocean, several of the smaller reservoirs in central and southern California have been filled up to the 70-75 percent mark, and hopefully, spring runoff from all that snow will add to the water supply.
You can’t, of course, reverse decades of drought in just one snowy and rainy winter. California officials were working to divert water to some areas where it can recharge underground aquifers, which is a plus for the region, and the drought levels have dropped some.
The basically crappy weather in California has a spillover effect on those of us who call southern Arizona home in the winter.
It has been rainier, cloudier and colder than normal. We’ve had 3 inches of rain so far for the year, about an inch more than normal. And there was snow down in the valley and blizzards on the mountain tops, providing a long ski season for Mount Lemmon. Some years they don’t have a ski season.
While we haven’t had the near hurricane force winds that have battered the California coast, we’ve had plenty of high wind warnings with gusts of 50-60 mph. Since dense forests aren’t a feature of the desert Southwest, when it blows it really blows.
The only benefit of all this wet and snowy weather? The wildflowers are fully out in bloom across the area, with cars backed up for a couple of hours to get into state parks such as Picacho Peak to see the blooms.
Guess we shouldn’t be complaining about the rain after all.
Wowser!
I just learned that I’m a member of the Modern Day Nazi Party!
Yes folks, according to a delightful little graphic going around Facebook titled “The new logo for the Democratic Party” it shows a donkey with a Nazi logo on its body.
And then below that:
Socialism
Anti-America
Anti-Jews/Israel
Anti-Second Amendment
Pro-Eugenics
Pro-Hate
Modern-Day Nazi Party
Whew!
And all that before finishing my morning coffee!
Actually, I’m not anti- any of those things, although I’m not fond of Benjamin Netanyahu, I doubt that qualifies as anti-Jew, anti-Israel.
Who comes up with this stuff?
It’s one thing to list things that I’m not, but to suggest Democrats are all Nazis? Really? Suggesting we Dems are pro-hate is a little disingenuous if you are hating on me to start with.
And to the woman in Hawaii who apparently started sending it along, via your Facebook page, no, Donald Trump didn’t win.
— Kendall P. Stanley is retired editor of the News-Review. He can be contacted at kendallstanley@charter.net. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer and not necessarily of the Petoskey News-Review or its employees.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Kendall Stanley: Stormy weather
