Is that a person peeking at the camera on top of an isolated desert mountain at midnight? See lower right corner. @alertcalifornia.bsky.social Verdi Peak Lookout camera...

The Bug Fire, which has burned from California into Nevada and could threaten Reno, is producing pyrocumulus clouds this afternoon. View from Verdi Peak @alertcalifornia.bsky.social webcam.

Smoke from the MP18 fire drifting over the topography made for a picturesque sunrise this morning viewed from the @alertcalifornia.bsky.social Horse Mountain 2 webcam.

Congratulations to Alexia Reyes for defending her Master's thesis this afternoon, "Assessing the Health Impacts of PM2.5 and Ozone Exposure: A Study of Hospitalizations in El Paso."

Congratulations to Benjamin Ojo for defending his PhD dissertation in Environmental Science & Engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso, today. His work is titled, "Geospatial Assessment of Fine Particulate Matter Pollution, Extreme Heat, and Their Co-Occurrence in El Paso, Texas." Go Ben!

Current view of the "Little Fire," not too little at 700 acres last estimate, east of Sunol: view from the Sunol Ridge 1 @alertcalifornia.bsky.social webcam.

View of more or less the neighbourhood I grew up in, in California. Uh-oh, that's a smoke cloud there in the distance. Can't be good news. More in a minute...

I officially received a Distinguished Career Award today from @aeolianresearch.bsky.social - International Society for Aeolian Research. I am incredibly humbled and honoured: I feel like a little person somehow placed to stand with giants. I hope it doesn't mean that they think my career is over...

It was ten years ago today that I revealed the dangers of SPONTANEOUS HUMAN SALTATION to the world. Sadly, not everyone has gotten the message.

Haboob's a'comin' again to El Paso, Texas. This one is not as dramatic as the ones last week. It's moving in from the south, from Chihuahua.

El Paso is experiencing Dust Storm conditions tonight with a haboob blowing in from the west. It's our first Dust Storm of the year: last year by this time we'd had a dozen of them.

The moment a 5.6 magnitude earthquake hit 11 miles from this @alertcalifornia.bsky.social camera site. Did the camera or the trees visibly shake? No, at least not enough to notice.

Kilauea webcam, 14:07 local time: The webcam is pelted by tephra as an ash-laden vortex approaches the site.

Kilauea webcam, 12:35 PM. The vortex made a sudden right turn and is now approaching the stream of red molten lava flowing away from the fountain. (The vortex dissipated when it crossed the lava stream and I could see no evidence of it again. End of story. That was fun tracking it.)

Kilauea webcam, 12:32 PM: The vortex (ash devil? landspout volcano-nado? I can't tell what's above) is heading towards the webcam, getting a little closer.

Kilauea webcam, 12:21 PM: The vortex has tightened into a nice rope.

12:18 PM, Kilauea webcam: the circulation has tightened into a cyclonic-spinning, funnel-shaped vortex.

12:10 PM, Kilauea webcam: Wind swirls between camera and lava fountain start to tighten and rotate.

11:35 AM: some larger pieces of tephra (the black dots and such) can be seen flying towards the Kilauea webcam.

11:34 AM, Kilauea webcam: The little black dots by the arrows are not bugs or image flaws, but flying pieces of tephra. They can be seen occasionally falling like hailstones and plinking off the ledge at the lower left.

Several small volcanic ash devils can be seen this morning in this screenshot from Kilauea, at left of photo. 11:10 AM.

Fountaining started in earnest again at Kilauea after sunrise this morning.

Volcano devil or possible volcanic landspout tornado (volcano-nado? vol-nado?) formed off fountaining lava at Kilauea at 12:21 PM Hawaii time.

Haboob currently impacting El Paso, Texas.

Lava is really fountaining at Kilauea this morning. Watch it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXKu...

Some unusual May showers have been falling in California the last few days. Which means some rainbows as well- this one at the Buena Vista Kern 1 @alertcalifornia.bsky.social camera site.

Usually, it's raptors that we see perching on an @alertcalifornia.bsky.social camera platform. But here's a House Finch posing a while ago on the Henrietta Peak cam.

Twelve years ago today, six persons were killed in traffic wrecks in blinding dust at Lordsburg Playa, New Mexico. Right by the dust hazard signs. Pull aside, stay alive!

I hope Nick Bosa comes back healthy for the 49ers this fall, so he can go back to making the billeren of ass again.

Now that's concise scientific writing.