630am, it’s 88 degrees with 100% relative humidity. That’s 23 degrees higher than normal at this time of day. This heat wave is really something else. People here justify the high price of housing, saying “…we pay for the weather.” If that’s so, I want a refund.

September and October have always been bad weather months here in our slightly-inland part of San Diego County. Always hot, always dry, and the occasional hurricane-force Santa Ana winds. This is prime wildfire season. These two months are just something to suffer through while waiting for the pleasant weather of December and January. Next year I think I’ll just shut down the house for these two months and spend the time in Louisville.

While I’m whining about the weather, there is some indication that the extended heat in the West is going to produce an unexpected result. A new study published in Science Advances shows that as the Pacific Ocean heats up, it’s going to produce more frequent and more extreme “atmospheric river” conditions bringing rain to California and Nevada. A lot of rain. Their models show a high probability of Pineapple Express storms bringing deluges of water to California, up to 36 inches (!!) in a single month. The article is pretty dense, but it basically says as the ocean heats up, California is going to experience massive flooding and runoff damage due to these extreme storms. So yeah, we need water, but not delivered like this.

So I think I’ll view next week’s cruise up the coast of Canada and Alaska as a house-hunting trip. Get ahead of the crowd and buy some property in British Columbia, or Sitka. My descendants may thank me.