There’s an Orange Moon Out Tonight

Posted on October 24, 2007 in Santiago Fire Weather

I left Portola Hills for the first time since Sunday. I stayed put mostly because we had heard conflicting reports about whether or not they would let us come back. Some said that once you were out, you were out. Others said you could get back in with an ID.

Tonight they merely redirected traffic off El Toro and up Glenn Ranch. They were dismantling the temporary helicopter pad on the Concourse Park lawn — pulling in the hoses, etc. A few people still continued to watch, evidentally in the hope that the whirlybird would take off one last time and disappear into the sunset. By the time we came back, it was gone and the crowd had dissipated.

I only got a passing glimpse at some of the incinerated areas. If I can get into Whiting Ranch, I’ll take some pictures of the devastation. But it won’t surprise me if it is closed.

We went to Rubio’s, a Baja-Californian venue where we had lobster burritos. The air smelled of a thousand barbecues and there was an orange moon out. After we finished dinner, we went to Ralph’s where we picked up a few inessentials. A fellow in line ahead of me was desperate for a cigarette. I wanted to say to him “What do you need that for? All you need to do is go outside and inhale.” But to tell the truth it would not have been nearly as fun because there was no way to blow smoke rings.

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This map from Weather Channel has me mystified. It is saying that rain is falling and falling hard. No, I checked the previous doppler scans. You can see the storm forming, just a little bit off the coast of San Diego and in the Santa Monica Mountains. These patches get rapidly large — in the course of an hour until you see the following result. We’re listening hard, wondering where the shower is.

UPDATE: Weather Channel says that we’re in the middle of a downpour but we don’t see it. Wonder what is causing the false positive?