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| - Approximately three weeks ago, a very small weather system passed over Northern California. It produced no rain, but much lightning, an extremely rare phenomenon in California (i.e. the lightning). As a result, over 500 fires were started in the Northern and Central part of the state. They raged for several weeks, and produced abundant smoke throughout the region. Every day the sky would turn brown and you could smell it day and night. It was very concentrated in the Central Valley of California, which sits between two mountain ranges with no easy outlet for such smoke. Every day during this 2-week period, the smoke would drift into the SF Bay Area where I live. In combination with an intense heat wave where the temperature went above 107, the physical atmosphere was turning poisonous. Eve
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| abstract
| - Approximately three weeks ago, a very small weather system passed over Northern California. It produced no rain, but much lightning, an extremely rare phenomenon in California (i.e. the lightning). As a result, over 500 fires were started in the Northern and Central part of the state. They raged for several weeks, and produced abundant smoke throughout the region. Every day the sky would turn brown and you could smell it day and night. It was very concentrated in the Central Valley of California, which sits between two mountain ranges with no easy outlet for such smoke. Every day during this 2-week period, the smoke would drift into the SF Bay Area where I live. In combination with an intense heat wave where the temperature went above 107, the physical atmosphere was turning poisonous. Even I was affected despite air conditioning and other attempted remedies. Over 1 thousand square miles of California burned and the air was getting worse with every passing day. The chance of rain or another system moving through was virtually zero since this is the dry season in the region. At one point, I thought back to last year when California hit nearly 120 degrees for several days, including where I live. Over 300 people died and thousands more were taken ill. What is not generally known however is the fact that had the heat remained for another two days or so, thousands, maybe as many as ten thousand could have died. Fortunately, the weather cooled somewhat, averting the tragedy. With this in mind, plus the fact that I was having headaches and felt I was slowly being poisoned by the air, and the fact that the skies were worsening and the fires were getting completely out of hand, one night before I went to sleep I felt an overwhelming aspiration for it all to end. I then explained to The Mother the situation in detail and with an intense prayer asked that the situation cease. I then fell asleep. The next morning I opened the curtain and looked at the sky. I noticed that there were several small clouds very high up. I looked out the window from the other side and saw the same. I then thought that these are produced when a system passes through. But these were tiny clouds, and I wondered what good they would really do. Then as the morning progressed, I noticed that this was indeed an upper atmosphere disturbance (not unlike the earlier system that created the lightning strikes, but smaller and completely benign; i.e. a few tiny clouds but without the lightning). Then at one point, it was clear that the sky was no longer brown, that in fact the normal deep blue of California returned for the first time in 2 weeks. Still I wondered if the Central Valley smoke would drift over and return; but it never happened. It turns out that this virtually cloudless upper level weather disturbance front had miraculously cleared out all of California. A day or two later the 460 of the 500 fires were under control. The smoke had virtually disappeared. Life returned pretty much to normal. The Divine Mother had altered the course of reality, and saved myself and countless others from what I believed was a looming catastrophe. --Roy Posner 19:48, 20 August 2008 (UTC) H
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