False October

We had an Autumn day, yesterday.

There's something I'd like to point out, about the Summer we've been having here in lovely, moderate, seasonless California. Namely, the Central Valley thereof. Namely, Turlock. That is this: Turock has had 25 days at or above 100˚F (the usual was 10-14 days of 100˚F+, until Madness set in). There was one week, late June, where the temperature was in the low nineties, but since May, that's it. It's been upper nineties and above. We have broken 4 records, this summer, and that's only the ones I'm sure of and checked, not the ones I suspected. We've had half the normal amount of rainfall, and only a quarter of the regular snowpack. So we're also headed for a drought, to complement all of our wildfires.

And the wildfires bring us here, to Autumn.

After a week and a half of no day where it was under 78˚ by midnight, or after 10 am, and where the high temperatures ranged from 101-106, it has all of a sudden not broken 90 for two days. Yesterday morning it was fucking cold, for August.

The sun was bright, the sky was hazy, it was 62˚F, the sky was hazy and the air was crisp. And smoky.

Because the valley is On Fire.

But at least I could pretend it was because it really was Autumn, and people were building fires in their fireplaces, and the joys of October were just around the corner. It was a very good day, apart from the ash in the lungs.