Rain and Hail, Oh My!

It's 11 am here, and we've already had nearly three quarters of an inch (about 18 mm) of rain.  Well, actually, for the past half hour or so it's been a mixture of rain and hail.  The individual pieces of hail are about the size of a kernel of corn, but there are so many of them that they're collecting into piles that look an awful lot like snowfall.  The air temperature is still well above freezing, so the hail is melting very quickly.

Jeez, it feels good to have this most affirmative end to the fire season!

A few photos from our patio (taken with a crummy cell phone camera):

It's Official Now: Fire Season is Over!

Oh, look at that lovely, lovely little blip on the graph at right. That's showing nearly a half inch (about 11mm) of rain since early this morning. We have puddles on the ground, and our yard is a sea of mud.

This is already more than enough rain to declare the official end of the 2009 fire season. Whew! We escaped without any serious fires this year!

Best of all: we're expecting even more rain today and tomorrow. And the snow level is supposed to be down to 4,500 feet (about 1,500 meters) this afternoon – we may have to go for a little drive to see the snow!

ClimateGate: Peer-Reviewed Studies...

Mark Steyn weighs in on ClimateGate.  An excerpt:

Look for the peer-reviewed label! And then just believe whatever it is they tell you!

The trouble with outsourcing your marbles to the peer-reviewed set is that, if you take away one single thing from the leaked documents, it's that the global warm-mongers have wholly corrupted the "peer-review" process. When it comes to promoting the impending ecopalypse, the Climate Research Unit is the nerve-center of the operation. The "science" of the CRU dominates the "science" behind the United Nations IPCC, which dominates the "science" behind the Congressional cap-and-trade boondoggle, the upcoming Copenhagen shakindownen of the developed world, and the now-routine phenomenon of leaders of advanced, prosperous societies talking like gibbering madmen escaped from the padded cell, whether it's President Barack Obama promising to end the rise of the oceans or the Prince of Wales saying we only have 96 months left to save the planet.

But don't worry, it's all "peer-reviewed."

Here's what Phil Jones of the CRU and his colleague Michael Mann of Penn State mean by "peer review". When Climate Research published a paper dissenting from the Jones-Mann "consensus," Jones demanded that the journal "rid itself of this troublesome editor," and Mann advised that "we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers."

So much for Climate Research. When Geophysical Research Letters also showed signs of wandering off the "consensus" reservation, Dr. Tom Wigley ("one of the world's foremost experts on climate change") suggested they get the goods on its editor, Jim Saiers, and go to his bosses at the American Geophysical Union to "get him ousted." When another pair of troublesome dissenters emerge, Dr. Jones assured Dr. Mann, "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

Mr. Steyn has caught rather exactly one of the central horrors of ClimateGate: the success of the CRU in perverting the standard science check-and-balance of peer-review. Go read the whole thing!