Dark and rainy this early Friday on California’s north coast, and on my back patio, a sight of a half-moon hanging slightly southward, but seemingly way-up there in a broken-cloudy sky.
A lot of rain last night, and the few days. Rainfall totals for the area last month from the NWS — my little spot here was 200 percent of standard, nearly doubling our normal.

Not only was Humboldt County (where I live) getting more rain than typical, but appears the norm for October all across the northern tier of California.
As if a line drawn in dry sand, and the county just south of us: ‘The above normal moisture ends in Mendocino County, which is located along the state’s northern coast. ‘Northern Mendocino County reported near normal precipitation in October, while southern areas of the county reported below normal rainfall.’
Sorry about that…

Weather being weird, plenty of wetness here, but none hardly over there.
Hence, California as a way-whole is still caught in a prolonged drought. Earlier this month, rainfall totals for that first significant storm, though cool, didn’t do much to elevate problems — nearly 100 percent of the state remains under moderate to severe drought.

Notwithstanding the rains, hottest temperatures and dryest dry.
This morning from the LA Times:

Recent rainfall in Northern California improved stream flows, raised some river levels and spurred the growth of small plants and grasses. But overall, it barely made a dent.
The early November U.S. Drought Monitor map showed the percentage of the state in severe drought had only slightly improved, from covering 95.04 percent of the state at the end of September to 94.42 percent.
The percentage of California under exceptional drought conditions — considered the most extreme — improved, falling from 58.41 percent of the state on Sept. 30 to 55.08 percent this week.

Here in Humboldt, we’re still considered to be in the ‘exceptional‘ category — at least of a month ago, maybe the rains helped.
All the dry and record-high temperatures. California apparently will see 2014 as the hottest year in our history. And following suit, October the hottest October on record, as was September, and August…

And nationwide — via Raw Story:

37 of the contiguous 48 states experiencing above-normal temperatures, that put the national average temperature 3°F above normal.
That makes it the fourth warmest among the past 120 Octobers according to the new data from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).
Not a single state saw below normal temperatures, the first time that’s happened since July 2013.
Yet another measure reflecting the nation’s warmth is the percentage of the country with very warm temperatures, which NCDC defines as within the top 10 percent.
In this case, 40 percent of the country fell into that category.
In comparison, very cold conditions laid a big old goose egg.
A study earlier this year showed that extreme heat has been increasing in intensity and frequency globally over the past 15 years.
U.S. record highs have been outpacing record lows by an ever-widening margin since the 1950s, though last year — and likely this one — are anomalies.

This is the new-normal and will only get worse.
A major hurdle, though, will be looping assholes — also this morning from Mother Jones:

The presumptive Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said he was “distressed” by the US-China deal, arguing that it “requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years while these carbon emission regulations are creating havoc in my state and other states around the country.”

One can see where that kind of nasty shit will lead.
Rainy days, Mondays and Mitch McConnell always brings me down…

(Illustration above found here).