Still dark-thirty this early Thursday on California’s north coast — some heavy rain overnight, and at least the NWS local conditions are still reality.
On their forecast boards, ‘Heavy Rain‘ means what it means.

The problem with the NWS satellite feed — I noted yesterday afternoon — supposedly is semi-fixed, but — via Mashable: ‘Satellite data has been partially restored, the National Weather Service stated in online messages to forecasters early on Thursday morning.
However, enough data is still missing from computer forecast models that it is likely to have an increasingly noticeable effect on the accuracy of weather forecasts in the U.S. and potentially elsewhere.’

Odd how shit breaks-down right when you need it.

Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Harlequin Head,’  found here).

As the earth warms, and all the related-shit continue to react, weather is the mud that holds the water. Extreme weather events are now part-n-parcel of the nowadays, and some help in adapting/handling/coping with this shit would be outstanding, but…
From the Washington Post in May 2013 and a story on America’s weather-related infrastructure — piss-poor and falling apart:

On Wednesday, the weather satellite that keeps an eye on the sky over much of eastern North America and the western Atlantic ceased operating.
The satellite, known as GOES-13, had failed one time earlier last fall and was restored.
As a temporary solution to the current outage, NOAA switched its other primary weather satellite, GOES-15, which focuses on the West Coast and parts of the Pacific, into “full-disc mode” to provide broader coverage and fill the gap left by GOES-13.
But meteorologists warned the quality of the substitute imagery would be compromised due to the larger viewing angle.
“The satellite coverage from GOES-15 results in distorted images of the eastern U.S. and the western Atlantic and would be a significant concern for forecasters and the public at large going into the Atlantic hurricane season,” wrote AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.

And that was just one failure/glitch/problem documented by the Post. A look at a bad accident just waiting to happen.

Meanwhile, but still focused skyward, this afternoon a partial solar eclipse — via Slate: ‘Instead of passing directly in front of the Sun, cutting straight across it, the Moon passes the Sun at an angle off-center, so it only partially blocks our star. That’s why this is a partial eclipse, and not a total one.’

Except where I’m located (and some other places, but they don’t matter): ‘Across much of Washington state, Oregon and Northern California, a cold front moving inland from the Pacific Ocean will probably generate cloud cover as well as scattered precipitation, which likely will hide much, if not all, of the solar eclipse from view.’
Yet down south:

Clear skies are expected throughout Southern California Thursday afternoon, but viewers are urged to not look directly at the sun because of the potential for permanent eye damage…
The West Coast will have some of the best views of the eclipse because of the sun’s position at the time of the event.
“The west coast will be able to see the eclipse easily, while the eastern portion of the United States will have the sun very low in the horizon during the maximum eclipse time,” said Mario De Leo Winkler, researcher in the UCR Department of Physics and Astronomy. “The farther north you are in the country — Alaska, Washington, Montana, Minnesota, North Dakota — the more the moon will cover the solar disc.”
In other parts of the world, the eclipse won’t be visible at all.

Thanks a lot.
Now back to our regular-scheduled programing of quarrels, politics and pestilence…