Winter in Carbon Canyon, Part Two

A couple of weeks ago, it looked and felt like winter here in Carbon Canyon. Temperatures were in the 50s and we'd had a few desperately-needed inches of rain from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Now, however, winter has left us and summer has shown up. In January! A high pressure system is, in the parlance of the meteorologist, "parked" over our region. Consequently, temperatures are now in the low 80s and there hasn't been rain for almost three weeks (and even the last big storm of three to four inches on Christmas Day failed to materialize). Tomorrow is supposed to be the hottest day of the week, with readings close to 85 degrees. In January! Yesterday, I had the surreal experience of going to a "snow day" at one of our Chino Hills parks, complete with a fenced-in play area and two sledding runs. Having artificial snow in Chino Hills is strange enough, but with the thermometer registering in the upper 70s? In January! Now, this is a blog about Carbon Canyon and not carbon dioxide, but wherever one stands on the issue of climate change, an 85-degree day in January might be cause for us to sweat for multiple reasons.