These satellite photographs graphically demonstrate the effect of our usual marine layer inversions on the Santa Anas. They show the progress from Monday, Oct. 27, 2003, to Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003. The bottom photo shows no marine layer (clouds) over our area but the inversion layer is still there. The behavior of a water vapor/very cold methane plume within this weather system is currently under active discussion. There has been no scientific test of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) spill of any real size and never one under the weather conditions common to our ecosystem. Certified mathematical models contradict each other — mathematics is not a science but rather a tool usually used by scientists to formulate hypotheses which are then tested. Clicking on the photographs will take you to the original as presented on the NASA and NOAA websites. (The NOAA pictures are available for a price from http://www.osei.noaa.gov/.) These originals have huge file sizes!

Calfornia wildfires on Monday, Oct. 27, 2003, during Santa Anas with no onshore winds.


California wildfires on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2003, during weakened
Santa Anas but with onshore marine layer and inversions.


Wider view of California wildfires on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2003: The official caption on this photograph says, "In this NOAA-16 image, heat signatures (red) and smoke (light blue haze) are visible from wildfires raging in California. Smoke (indicated by the yellow arrows) is visible extending out over the Pacific Ocean." What the official caption doesn't state is the obvious effects of the incoming (from the west) marine layer with its associated low front and their affect on the Santa Anas and reversal of smoke flow.


Tight view of California wildfires on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2003: The official caption on this photograph says, "In this NOAA-16 image, heat signatures (red) and smoke (light blue haze) are visible from wildfires raging in California. More than 13,000 firefighters today will again battle fires that already have devastated hundreds of thousands of acres in five California counties. Fires have charred nearly 650,000 acres and destroyed at least 2,400 homes."


Wide view of California wildfires on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003: The official caption on this photograph says, "In this NOAA-16 image, heat signatures (red) are visible despite cloud cover over the area from wildfires raging in California. Officials estimate the damage so far at $2 billion and said more than 100,000 people have been displaced as a result of the fires. The blaze[s] have charred nearly 729,000 acres."

View of marine layer/inversion from Oxnard Airport at 6:18 a.m., Nov. 13, 2003.
(The "UFO" is a pigeon caught in mid flap.)