Take a look at the radar map for the Sacramento area today:

* Image via Weather Underground

Now usually when you look at a radar map and see green, you’re thinking, “Oh wonderful! We’re getting some much needed (or rather desperately needed) rain showers today!”. Your thinking would be wrong in this case. What you’re seeing here is the reflectivity - or in more plain words – a big stinking brown pile of smog in the air because it’s hotter than the blazes of places that have hot blazes!

Over the weekend I managed to stay cool by taking a dip in the pool – which incidentally by Sunday evening had gotten so warm it was like taking a bath…a nice bath, yes, especially when paired with a Domaine Chandon Sparkling Rose, but a bath none the less. When you have a Saturday of 105 followed by a Sunday of 107, a 10′ round pool gets warm pretty quickly.

It was disgusting to lay in the pool and look up into a brown sky. The smog didn’t clear until much later in the afternoon when it finally turned a normal shade of blue – yet this morning we’re back to brown again. This is really the only time I can’t stand the Sacramento valley. It captures and holds all the muck and nastiness that builds up in this heat and just deposits it right over my house.

And so I’d like to send out a message of hope today. I hope that everyone Spares the Air and stays home until it gets cooler!