Mostly it's been dry, dry, dry this year in Southern California, but a week ago Monday, as I was on the Pacific Crest Trail in the Big Bear section, big old clouds came in and hung over the moon:
Then Tuesday afternoon, heading over a ridge near Doble Springs, down came the hail.
Biggest hail I've ever seen! In July in Southern California! Who would've thunk?
Occasioned this one:
hailstones like lemon drops
crunching under my boot heels
summer storm at Big Bear
Discussed the question of monsoonal flow briefly with a couple of experts at Scripps. As I mentioned previously, some scenarios call for an increased monsoonal flow in a climate change scenario, but to date they haven't seen such a trend in our time — just natural variability.
Kit Stolz 