TAKEN THIS MORNING BY RON RATTRAY
KETTLE RIVER AS IT WINDS TO CANADA

THEN BACK TO THE US. IT ORIGINATES IN CANADA.

 Three boys who spent the night with their grandmother so she wouldn't be alone on Christmas died with her Friday morning as a fire engulfed her home, authorities said.

Fayette County coroner Dr. Dennis Mesker said the badly burned bodies were turned over to the Montgomery County coroner's office for autopsies and confirmation.

They were tentatively identified as 60-year-old Terry Harris and three brothers: 14-year-old Kenyon, 11-year-old Broderick and 9-year-old Braylon Harris. Terry Harris lived alone in the single-story, ranch-style house that was destroyed by the fire reported shortly after 4 a.m. The boys lived two houses down with their parents.

Over the past two weeks, California has gotten a deluge of rain, lifting its reservoir levels and hydrating the soil in a state that is in the midst of one of the worst droughts in history. The chart above shows the state's drought levels pre- and post-storm, and thankfully, there's a little less of the menacing "exceptional drought."
In its weekly summary, the US Drought Monitor emphasized cautious optimism:

A wet December (to date) has provided California a foothold for drought recovery, but 3 straight winters of subnormal precipitation will take time (possibly several consecutive wet winters) to fully recharge the reservoir levels and subsoil moisture back to normal. With several more months still left in the wet season, it is possible that additional storms similar to the ones that just occurred will continue to chip away at the long-term hydrological drought, and the addition of lower temperatures would help build the snow pack. "Cautious optimism, but still a long way to go" would be the very short summary for this week’s California drought picture

 El Nino is Leaving
Sea surface temperature in the equatorial Pacific Ocean . El Niño is characterized by unusually warm temperatures and La Niña by unusually cool temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. Anomalies (above) represent deviations from normal temperature values, with unusually warm temperatures shown in red and unusually cold anomalies shown in blue.

TONIGHT...Mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of snow showers. Lows 15 to 17. Windy. Northeast wind 15 to 25 mph. Gusts up to 25 mph increasing to 35 mph overnight.
MONDAY...Partly sunny. Highs 18 to 20. Very windy. Northeast wind 20 to 30 mph increasing to 30 to 40 mph in the afternoon... Gusts up to 45 mph in the afternoon. Wind chill readings 10 below to 5 above zero.
MONDAY NIGHT...Bitterly cold. Mostly clear. Lows 3 below to zero. Windy. Northeast wind 15 to 25 mph. Gusts up to 40 mph in the evening. Wind chill readings 3 below to 18 below zero.
TUESDAY...Bitterly cold. Sunny. Highs 11 to 14.
TUESDAY NIGHT...Bitterly cold. Mostly cloudy. Lows 4 below to zero.
WEDNESDAY THROUGH NEW YEARS DAY...Partly cloudy. Highs 13 to 19. Lows 2 to 6.
THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY...Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of snow. Lows 14 to 16. Highs in the lower to mid 20s.
SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY...Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of snow. Lows 4 to 10. Highs in the lower to mid 20s. 

 Out my bedroom window laying down.
Bob Shannon
This morning

To investigate how the Forbush Decrease propagated through the atmosphere, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a pair of radiation sensors to the stratosphere. Carried aloft by a helium balloon, their "Space Weather Buoy" reached an altitude of 117,900 ft. This photo was taken by a BuoyCam just seconds before the balloon exploded:

he payload parachuted back to Earth and landed in the Grapevine Mountains of Nevada (not far from Death Valley National Park) on Dec. 24th. A student-canine team have since entered the wilderness and recovered the payload. First impressions: The Buoy took some great pictures and recorded a complete profile of ionizing radiation from ground level to the stratosphere.  The students will be able to compare these data with dozens of previous profiles measured since 2013 and, thus, discover the effect of the Forbush Decrease on altitudes of interest to aviation and space tourism. Stay tuned for updates.

Hey thanks! The students wish to thank Gary Worrell of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab for sponsoring this flight. His generous donation of $500 made it possible to buy the helium and other supplies necessary to get this mission off the ground.

COMET LOVEJOY BRIGHTENS: It's official. Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) is now a naked-eye object. Science journalist and longtime comet watcher Mariano Ribas of the Planetario de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, reports that as of last night "Comet Lovejoy has reached magnitude 5.0, just above the threshold for human visibility from dark-sky sites. Even in the light polluted sky of Buenos Aires, the comet is a very easy object in 10x50 binoculars."

Seen through binoculars, the comet looks like a fuzzy green ball. A telescope reveals the comet's long, delicate tail.

Angie Curtis New Zealand

For the second straight season, the road through the NFC playoffs will go through Seattle.
Marshawn Lynch scored on a 9-yard run with 12:07 remaining, Bruce Irvin returned an interception 49 yards for a touchdown and the Seahawks wrapped up home-field advantage through the NFC playoffs with a 20-6 win over the St. Louis Rams on Sunday.
The two fourth-quarter touchdowns by Seattle (12-4) capped a six-game win streak to end the regular season. That earned the Seahawks a second straight NFC West title and the ninth division title in franchise history.

The year of 1898 must have been an exciting one for the new town of Republic. The news of the gold discoveries in Eureka Gulch had spread like magic through the western states drawing prospectors by the hundreds. Within the first two years, thousands of claims had been staked around the Republic area creating an enormous demand for supplies and services of all kinds.

At Riverside, the head of steamboat navigation on the Okanogan River, the Republic landing was overflowing with tons of goods waiting to be hauled over the mountains to Republic by heavy freight wagons drawn by large teams of horses. The same problem was taking place at Marcus, the rail head on the Columbia River near Kettle Falls.
http://ferrycountyview.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=814:the-big-republic-fire-1899&catid=75:views-to-the-past