Angry sky

Tuesday afternoon Karla and I headed back from a big shopping day in the Big City during a big wind storm. The rain had ended, but clouds remained and expressed their defiance by threatening to explode. We just had to pull over onto a side road and stop to get pictures. In the distance, the Sierra was gray with new snow that was still clinging to the trees. Not white, gray. That’s because there was a mix of a thin veneer of snow with the colors of the things beneath the snow. In a few hours, most of the new snow would be blown away.

The valley air was especially clear since all the crud blew away to Nevada. There are too few people in Nevada to make much of their own smog, so I’m sure they welcome this early Christmas present from California. It will probably take days for significant smog to be blown back into the Central Valley from the Bay Area. Millions of gridlocked commuters plus the thousands of diesel trucks hauling freight from the Port of Oakland have their work cut out for them. Until things return to normal, I hope valley people remember to protect against the glare of a brilliant sky with sunglasses, and slap on another layer of sunscreen. Hats on, bald guys!