Back on a Sometimes Muddy Road

Well, I'm back at the place I was working at about two years ago (see these three posts for more info), spending more time on a back paved road and on dirt roads than I was most recently while on the road to work (I'm still driving on the interstate some, but a lot less than during the last two years). I find that I prefer the back roads and the dirt: I feel a bit like I'm going out in the field every day, although I'm really not.

It means that the road is sometimes wet, muddy, snowy, icy, or sometimes it has been recently sprayed by a water truck or recently magged. I decided to take a few pics of what that looks like on my jeep (in this case, the road had been sprayed by a water truck to keep the dust down). I wasn't actually on the road to work when taking the pictures, but instead had pulled over on a convenient side road while traveling elsewhere after a couple/few days at work. Consequently the tags include two locations; the post location (below) links to the photos.

The front of said jeep, the Eugene Mountains in the background.

The right side, with part of the East Range in the background.
The rear tire looks low, but isn't.

The rear and left sides. That's a high part of the East Range with the snow.

And the door handle area of the left, driver's side door.

Circle 'Round the Sun in Water Canyon

Yesterday, when out hiking in nearby Water Canyon (before the Super Bowl), MOH and I slowly (at least for me) made our way up a variably steep, grassy to rocky hillside until we came to a large rib of quartzite. While standing there admiring the many geological and other features of the rib (including quartz veins, fractures and joints, bright greenish yellow lichen patches, and packrat middens), I noticed that a nice circle (22° halo) had formed around the sun. I moved into position behind the towering quartzite rib and shot a picture or two. The best one (which is enhanced to match the way it looked on the camera, which is the way it looked IRL except for the high contrast or excessive darkness of the foreground, where my eyes could see better than the camera) is shown above. You can also see just a bit of the bright greenish yellow lichen on the quartzite, barely shining through the camera-darkened foreground.

The lichen, also with a more common dark gray to black or dark brown variety and a pale green variety, can be seen better in this photo showing the same quartzite outcrop, although here I've moved over a little to the right to center the photo on a tall, narrow cleft formed along a couple parallel fractures or joints, possibly a small fault zone.

I immediately walked into the fracture so I could turn around and take this picture looking back to the north. The white bands in the center of the brownish quartzite, slanting shallowly to moderately to the right, are several of a complicated quartz vein set that are no doubt saying something about the stress regime during the time of their formation.

Escape from the July 20 Haboob in Western Nevada

At 3:37 pm, July 20th, my phone made a strange and loud noise in my pocket, and I took it out to find the first of two emergency alerts that I would receive from the National Weather Service.

The first NWS alert, for the Lovelock area, is on the bottom.

Besides the emergency alert sound, similar to that of the emergency broadcast system on radio and TV, the "Severe" and "Avoid travel" were phrases that caught the attention of the two geologists working that day, geologists who were hoping to leave in about an hour, but not particularly sooner.

UPDATE 29Jul2014: Also note that the Severe Alerts above mentioned "Dust Storm," not using the word "Haboob," which according to Wikipedia is derived from the Arabic word habūb, meaning "blasting/drafting." (I've seen other, similar derivations and translations of Arabic words and don't know which are most accurate.) Nevertheless, as you will see below, what we were about to witness was a huge dust storm with a miles-long wall of dust, often called a haboob in many parts of the world, including Arizona.

Our first glance outside wasn't too encouraging with regard to travel.

First view of the haboob on the east side of the valley: a wall of dust coming up from the south.

After looking around outside, we rushed to put things in order, piled into a truck, and left town. We didn't really want to hang around until 8 pm or whenever visibility would return.

To begin with, I thought the dust was a fairly localized phenomenon coming from the Humboldt Sink, which is about 10 to 15 miles southwest of Lovelock, or perhaps it was coming from the combined Humboldt and Carson Sinks. The Carson Sink is the very large sink for the Carson River, located 15 to 35 miles south of Lovelock, beyond the West Humboldt Range. I'd never seen the Humboldt Sink kick up quite this much dust on its own, so I had to entertain a larger possibility.

Shot of the haboob approaching Lovelock from the south. In this shot it has started to ride up over the south end of the Trinity Range beyond I-80, thereby already having overridden I-80 out near Toulon.

Three stitched-together photos of the same wall of dust, taken at 3:52 pm as we were scrambling to leave. The dust was already encroaching onto trees usually in view to the south.

As we got onto the on ramp for I-80, the dust looked like it would shortly pass over the Golden Gate truck stop (shown as Port of Subs and only approximately located by Google on this map)

A first look back at the dust after getting on I-80.

Many of the next shots (and the one above) were taken looking into the side mirror on the passenger side of the truck (the one that says "Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear"). I've reversed these mirror shots to show more accurately the shape of the hills and mountains behind us as we drove north and northeast toward Winnemucca.

The haboob is now about to overrun the Lovelock L in the southern Humboldt Range (Google Maps location of the L).

Somewhere between the Oreana and Rye Patch exits, I could see that the wall of dust had gone past Coal Canyon (Google Maps location) and was steadily moving northward.

Just past Rye Patch, it looked like the dust storm had fully moved into Rochester Canyon (Google Maps location) and possibly, though not clearly, into Limerick Canyon (marked as "Lovelock-Unionville Road" by Google on the previous map).

Shot of the haboob from just northeast of Humboldt House. The trees are at Humboldt House; the small reddish hill on the left is one of the heap leach piles at Florida Canyon.

When we rounded the corner at Humboldt House (Google Maps location) and the Florida Canyon Mine, the sight of the huge wall of dust engulfing the Trinity Range behind us reminded me of a giant pyroclastic cloud (not that I've ever seen one IRL). The dust was billowing and looked like it was eating everything it its path.

The haboob approaches a small rain shower in the Trinity Range.

Dust in Buena Vista Valley. The TA truckstop near the Mill City exit is visible in the distance to the right (west) of I-80.

As we went past the Unionville exit (behind us in the photo above), dust was rising from Buena Vista Valley beyond the low, brownish hills near the Star Point Trading Post and RV park, and I thought that all we were seeing was non-haboob from Buena Vista Valley and possibly from the Carson Sink.

At this point in this photo-log, you might notice that some photos are oversharpened, due to motion, relative darkness, and an obviously improper ASA (ISO) setting by the photographer. I probably should have switched to an ASA of 800 or higher, and was probably using a normally adequate setting of 400.

Another view of dust in Buena Vista Valley and the east side of the Humboldt Range. The trees are at the constantly closed Cosgrave rest stop
(Google Maps location).

A centered view of the Humboldt Range looking south-southwest down I-80.
The tiny-looking, triangular knob in the broad central part of the range is Thunder Mountain. Star Peak is the high point to the left; the high point to the right is probably Van Zant Peak.

I could now see dust on both sides of the Humboldt Range, and I began to suspect that there was only one dust storm.

Dust now appears to be coming over the top of the Humboldt Range in the gaps between Thunder Mountain and Star and Van Zant Peaks.

All three peaks top 9000 feet, with Star Peak coming in at 9840 ft or 2999 m. The valley floors on either side of the range are at about 4150 to 4500 feet, and Imlay sits at 4200 feet (< 1300 m) just north of the north end of the range (Imlay at MSRMaps).

Looking back at our final view of the Humboldt Range as we approach the Rose Creek exit just east of Winnemucca.

The haboob (above) has now moved fully into the valley of the Humboldt River at Imlay, and it looks like it's about to start riding up the south flank of the Eugene Mountains on the far right (Google Maps location of Imlay, with the Eugene Mountains to the north). Dust is coming around both sides of the Humboldt Range to potentially merge into one wall at the north end of the range. At about this time, I received the second of my wireless alerts (first image at the beginning of the post).

As we approach Winnemucca, dust is rising in Grass Valley ahead of a thunderstorm coming in from the south.

Dust devil in Grass Valley.

Dust in Grass Valley on the right, and what appears to be dust beyond the low, north end of the Sonoma Range, somewhere out near Golconda.

A shot more clearly showing that some of the dust is rising east of the Sonoma Range rather than being confined to Grass Valley.
This last photo was taken at 4:52 pm.

Until we rounded the corner going into Winnemucca near the Rose Creek exit, we had experienced no wind (or very minor wind, especially compared to the usual norms), and there had been absolutely none when we left work just ahead of the wall of dust. Now, the wind was strong from the south or southeast, and we were glad to have arrived in town just barely ahead of the main part of the dust storm. I settled into the apt, and, looking out the front and back windows every now and then, I noticed persistent though mostly patchy dust and a short-term disappearance of Winnemucca Mountain to the north — nothing like the wall of dust we had seen earlier! It rained later, and the next day we found out that winds had been strong upon the arrival of the haboob in Lovelock, strong enough to knock down tree branches. Streets were wet and puddled at work the next morning, and life went back to normal, albeit with less haze and fire-related smoke, which had been prevalent before the storms.

I had immediately, upon arrival at the apt, looked up the satellite photo for the area to see if the passage of the haboob could be seen. I thought maybe it could:

Visible satellite image for 23:30 Z, or 4:30 pm PDT.

What I noticed while running the loop that ended with this image, was that apparent wind and dust movement was to the north all along a zone across northwestern Nevada (above, from about Reno to north of Battle Mountain). Also, outward from Nevada and the Basin and Range in a very large circular "front," the many patches of combined storms, clouds, and dust appeared to be moving broadly or generally away from the center of Utah or an ill-defined area in northern Arizona. I don't know whether this was all part of the same storm system, but below I've drawn in bright cyan what I think was the approximate line of the haboob with trailing and collapsing (?) thunderstorms behind it, and I've put in a few arrows showing apparent drift of wind, dust, and clouds in bright magenta:

Cartoon of possible location of haboob across northwestern Nevada in cyan; wind directions as apparently indicated by moving dust and storms are shown by magenta arrows. These are my interpretations only and have not been verified by a meteorologist.

Dust hit Lovelock shortly after 3:55 pm; dust was moving across I-80 in Winnemucca by 4:50 pm; dust was about to move into Gerlach in a big way as of 5:57 pm. I didn't find a lot about the haboob online, although it was mentioned by a few local news broadcasts that I can't access, and was mentioned in this RGJ news story. There were a few pictures, a blog post, and two videos of people on I-80 driving farther into the storm than I would have thought wise. The first video in particular shows the movement of the dust storm fairly well; the second shows somewhat more prudent driving.

The original weather alert by the NWS for Churchill County "INCLUDING PYRAMID LAKE-INCLUDING THE CITIES OF. FERNLEY. FALLON. LOVELOCK. SILVER SPRINGS" and remaining in effect until 8 pm is archived here; the original NWS alert for Humboldt County "INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS. WINNEMUCCA. MCDERMITT. PARADISE VALLEY. GOLCONDA SUMMIT" and remaining in effect until 11 pm is archived here.

How to drive in a haboob or large dust storm (STOP DRIVING!!: DO NOT ENTER THE STORM!! DO NOT USE FLASHERS!! Pull farther off the road than shown in the above videos — ALL the way over past the paved or flat to sloping shoulder! READ THE PAGE AT THE LINK!!).

More about Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA).
Wikipedia on haboobs.
The Northern Nevada Haboob (of May 22, 2014).

P.S. This is my 1004th post!

New Snow in North-Central Nevada

We've been having unsettled to stormy weather here in western Nevada for about the last week, with at least light snow accumulating in the mountains, though the south facing slopes have gone back to being mostly bare, even under today's cloudy skies.

These photos are all from the first thin snowfall, which was occurred just about a week ago.

Winnemucca Mountain with a layer of Pogonip ice fog along the Humboldt River.

A closer view of the ice fog.

A phone-camera view of what the snow looked like the first morning.

I'm wondering how many one- to two-inch snowfalls it will take to fill up Rye Patch Reservoir, which has looked nearly empty this winter.

Huge Amounts of Smoke in Nevada from California Fires

Yesterday while I was at work, a large, relatively high, cloudlike layer of smoke moved in from the southwest. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, but I took some pictures after work.

This is what the smoke bank (after "cloud bank") looked like over Winnemucca Mountain at about 7:00 pm yesterday evening.

The leading edge of the smoke bank had already moved past Winemucca, and I got a shot of it while it was probably already as far east as Golconda.

Today's trip to work was highlighted by an orange, just-past-full moon and a red, rising sun. The smoke thickened through the day, blocking views of all but the closest mountains on the trip back this afternoon.

This is what the top of the mountain looked like this evening at 6:16 pm.

The sun was orange at that time, becoming red before it sank behind the mountain.

Smoke from three major fires was streaming into western Nevada through the day, with two shown on the satellite image below, a screen capture from Intellicast. While watching the visible satellite loop, I was surprised to see a bright flash at the end of the oop (on both Intellicast and NOAA). I've circled the flash below. The flash (the fire itself, I think), and the associated smoke plume is from the huge Rim Fire located north of Yosemite Valley. A second streaming plume is visible to the NNW, west of Carson City (and west of Lake Tahoe); that plume is from the smaller American Fire. A fire south of Yosemite Valley, not seen in the screen capture below, was also streaming smoke into Nevada: that may be the relatively small and mostly contained Aspen Fire, or maybe another fire I'm unaware of.

Screen capture from about 2:30 pm, of visible satellite channel from Intellicast.com. Cyan circle outlines the bright flash at the center of the Rim Fire.

UPDATE 25Oct2013: There's a great satellite a GIF of the fire for the period 16Aug through 3Sept on the Google Earth Time Machine blog (h/t +Brian Schrock).

Things You Find in the Field: Another Rock Wall

Is that a dike leading across the far field to the brownish outcrops?

As I mentioned near the end of my last post about "Slickenside Ridge" , MOH and I had seen a rock wall the first day we hiked up the north side of the canyon to investigate some dikes of rhyolite porphyry. The photo above shows our first view of that rock wall, looking from east to west, before we knew for sure it was a wall and not a dike.

We eventually meandered over to the brown quartzite outcrops and found for sure that we were indeed looking at a rock wall.

We determined to walk back along the wall to discover what we could about who or why it was built.

Aha! Barbed wire.

A former fence post?

Barbed wire and flowers with boulders of dike rock.

More wire, strung along more or less parallel to the length of the wall.

A rusty, old can of unknown age and purpose.

Looking back toward the quartzite knob from a wired exposure of dike rock.

By now we've made it to the middle of the expanse between the location of our first view on the east and what we thought would be the end of the wall at a couple ribs of dike rock in the middle of the area — but the wall, and its associated wire and posts, continues on farther than we expected.

The wall continues on toward a fairly large rib of dike rock.

Fence post with barbed wire attached.

The wall here is composed mostly of yellowish-brown dike rock
and barbed wire.

Post sticking out of a pile of rocks.

Here we've walked to the far eastern side of the large rhyolite porphyry rib, to find a post or two stuck in a cairn made of the same rock.

And the wall continues on toward the dirt road we hiked up.

The truth is, I don't really know who built the rock wall or why, though it was obviously used at some point as a base for a barbed wire fence, presumably a cattle fence. The wall is made mostly of fairly large boulders of both rhyolite porphyry and quartzite, not particularly neatly stacked (or since fallen into disarray), and the wall uses large outcrops and ribs where possible, saving some of the effort that would be required to build wall its entire length were the outcrops not present.

A view of the lower part of the rock wall as seen from across the canyon.

It was after climbing Slickenside Ridge that we discovered that the wall extends at least all the way to the floor of the canyon, where it's built below a rocky section of hill with a lot of outcrops. I suspect that the wall winds up through the rocks as it did near the top of the hill, but we haven't walked that steeper section to check it out.