So I’ve noticed the early reviews of The Bird Saviors mention the dust storms and pink snow featured prominently at the beginning of the novel. Although that might seem fantastic, actually crazy weather is common & seemingly growing ever more normal in the West. To give a couple examples:
MUD RAINS: Due to the high winds (65-70 mph) over the mountains and the wide San Luis Valley that lies to the west of my home, plus the wildfires in New Mexico, last week we had the weird phenomenon of a “mud rain”: It rained over night, but everything was covered with spots of dust and mud after the rain, because the high amount of dust and dirt in the air. (The sky was hazy brown for several days.) I had to hose off everything—the car, house windows, deck, balcony, the cat.
CATASTROPHIC WINDS: Last November in our area (Custer County, Colorado) there was a wind storm that knocked down thousands and thousands of huge trees. Some of the locals have called it a “250 year” weather event, but I don’t know how one would calculate that. In my yard alone there were 50+ trees knocked down—huge aspens, ponderosa pine, and fir—and I was one of the least hit in my area. Trees fell on two of my neighbors cabins. The forest service cited the figure of 142 mph winds recorded during the storm. Along about a 20 mile swatch it looks like tornado damage in the forest.
Is this affected by Climate Change? I don’t know. Of course both weather people and climatologists would say the standard line that any individual weather event is not necessarily the result of climate change, but the locals here note that the weather here is noticeably different than, say, the Seventies or Eighties—drier, windier, less snow.
But that doesn’t stop a good parade on Memorial Day Weekend, witnessed below:
