Powerful winds blasted through Central California Thursday downing trees, damaging power lines and causing all kinds of problems.

Wind gusted between 35-45 mph in the valley and even stronger gusts blew through the Sierra Nevada.

Here's a list of some of the peak gusts and strongest steady wind readings in the San Joaquin Valley:

CITY                  GUST     TIME           STEADY WIND
Kettleman Hills     60 mph   1:00 pm       40 mph
Coalinga             55 mph   12:00 pm      39 mph
Lemoore             46 mph   12:00 pm      32 mph
Fresno               39 mph   12:00 pm      29 mph
Merced              39 mph   12:00 pm      25 mph
Madera              33 mph   10:00 am      17 mph

Peak wind gusts occurred around midday in most areas of the valley

The winds will decrease after sunset tonight to about 10-15 mph.

With clear skies tonight and light wind freezing temperatures are expected for 2-4 hours Friday morning and 6-10 hours Saturday morning.

A Frost Advisory is effective for the San Joaquin Valley on Friday from midnight to 9 am and from 10 pm Friday to 9 am Saturday.

Temperatures will drop to 29-32 degrees on Friday morning and will drop a few more degrees to 25-32 degrees on Saturday morning.

What is NASA's picture of the day? Click to learn more! If you see a different image after clicking the link hit the < button at the bottom of the page.



                                                          Spitzer's Orion
                             NASA, JPL-Caltech, T. Megeath (Univ. Toledo, Ohio)

What is NASA's picture of the day? Click to learn more! If you see a different image after clicking the link hit the < button at the bottom of the page.



                                                Tisdale 2 Rock Formation on Mars
                      Image Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, Cornell, JPL, NASA

Explanation: Why does this Martian rock have so much zinc? Roughly the size and shape of a tilted coffee-table, this oddly flat, light-topped rock outcropping was chanced upon a few weeks ago by the robotic Opportunity rover currently rolling across Mars. Early last month Opportunity reached Endeavour crater, the largest surface feature it has ever encountered, and is now exploring Endeavour's rim for clues about how wet Mars was billions of years ago. Pictured above and named Tisdale 2, the unusual rock structure was probed by Opportunity last week and is now thought to be a remnant thrown off during the impact that created nearby Odyssey crater. The resulting chemical analysis of Tisdale 2, however, has shown it to have a strangely high amount of the element zinc. The reason for this is currently unknown, but might turn out to be a clue to the history of the entire region. Opportunity is already finding rocks older than any previously studied and will continue to explore several other intriguing rock formations only now glimpsed from a distance.

What is NASA's picture of the day? Click to learn more! If you see a different image after clicking the link hit the < button at the bottom of the page.



                                                 Comet Garradd and the Coat Hanger
                                     Image Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo

NOAA's National Hurricane Center has the most up to date information on Hurricane Irene.  It's a bit technical but if you want to get the latest information on the huge storm check here.

Here's the latest location of Hurricane Irene from the National Hurricane Center.

HURRICANE IRENE TROPICAL CYCLONE POSITION ESTIMATE
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL       AL092011
1200 AM EDT SAT AUG 27 2011

AT 1200 AM EDT...0400 UTC...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE IRENE WAS
ESTIMATED BY AIR FORCE RESERVE AND NOAA HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT...
AND NOAA DOPPLER WEATHER RADAR...TO BE NEAR LATITUDE 32.7 NORTH...
LONGITUDE 76.8 WEST...OR ABOUT 135 MILES SOUTH OF CAPE LOOKOUT 
NORTH CAROLINA.

RECENTLY A SUSTAINED WIND OF 56 MPH...91 KM/H...AND A GUST TO 
70 MPH...113 KM/H WAS REPORTED AT JOHNNY MERCER PIER IN WRIGHTSVILLE
BEACH NORTH CAROLINA. ALSO...A SUSTAINED WIND OF 46 MPH...74
KM/H...AND A GUST TO 54 MPH...87 KM/H WAS REPORTED AT CAPE LOOKOUT
NORTH CAROLINA.

SUMMARY OF 1200 AM EDT...0400 UTC...INFORMATIO 

    It's time I buy some new music.  Actually it's old music considering it was recorded when I was still in college an Age ago!

    A reissue of Nirvana's Nevermind will be released September 27th.

    The reissue will include demos and rough sketches of songs like "In Bloom" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" along with original mixes and an entire live show.   The set, assembled by Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl of Nirvana, will be available in several versions ranging from a single CD to a five-disc box.

    CDs were just taking off when Nirvana released Nevermind 20 years ago.  Now that digital music files rule the land CDs seem so yesteryear.  Too bad it won't be release on vinyl do I'd have a good excuse to scrounge up my turntable from my parents basement!

Check out more from Rolling Stone.

Fresno's Almanac





Mostly sunny and very hot with occasional high clouds.

Wanna earn 300 times as much as the average Joe?  Just become a corporate CEO. 

I was reading this Los Angeles Times article about new federal regulations concerning executive pay disclosures and I was struck by this statistic:

    "over the last 30 years, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and elsewhere cited by its author, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), it (CEO pay) has ballooned from 42-to-1 to more than 300-to-1. In the same period, according to data compiled by economist Emmanuel Saez of UC Berkeley, the richest 10% of U.S. income earners captured 98% of all income growth, and the bottom nine-tenths got 2%."

Ouch...that hurts. Unless you're a CEO I guess.

Fresno's Almanac 8/19/2011







Sunny skies with normal highs today in the middle to upper 90s.