As of press time for this edition of the Messenger Mountain News, Fernwood has received 25.20 inches of rain. More rain is forecast to fall between now and when this issue actually reaches…
Southern California has been bathing in a long overdue, above-average wet season. The current buzzwords are “atmospheric river.” Some of us remember when it was popular to call this phenomenon “the pineapple…
“Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?” —Job 38:31 As the Sun, Moon, and planets make their way along the ecliptic through the winter sky…
A series of storms has drenched our fire-scarred hills in the last several weeks. All this moisture has given us a season total of 19.41 inches of rain. The average rainfall for the entire…
After four weeks without any rain, our water year kicked into high gear in January. Around the new year we fell behind our average precipitation after a promising start to the season…
“Out here in the perimeter there are no stars.” —Jim Morrison, The Doors, The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat) During the summer months, the evening sky is filled with countless stars…
The last three Wednesdays have brought us three storms that have finally put us “in the black” for rainfall for the first time in over a year. The water year runs from…
Last month The Backyard Astronomer explored The Wanderers: our Sun, our Moon, and the five naked-eye planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. While all the stars in the sky remained fixed…
“What are the uniform and ordered movements, by the assumption of which the apparent movements of the planets can be accounted for?” —Plato 4th Century B.C. As our ancient ancestors gazed up…
Perhaps no other object in the night sky is as compelling as the Earth’s Moon. Our moon is bright: second only to the Sun. Our Moon is large: its disk’s diameter can…