LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Parts of Lake County experienced a white Christmas preview on Saturday thanks to afternoon snow showers.

Snow was first reported shortly after 1 p.m. on Cobb, where vehicles were reported to be spinning out and blocking the roadway in the area of Bottle Rock and Harrington Flat roads, according to the California Highway Patrol and radio reports.

A postal truck as well as about 10 other vehicles were reported to be stalled out in that area, with a layer of ice under the snow making it difficult to clear the vehicles, radio reports indicated. A fire truck also had trouble getting through the area.

Shortly before 3:30 p.m. the CHP reported a noninjury traffic collision in the Walker Ridge and Indian Valley Reservoir Road area, where a pickup went off the roadway and became stuck in a snowbank. There were concerns the CHP could not respond due to the weather.

In addition to Cobb, Lake County News readers reported snowfall in the Clear Lake Riviera, Clearlake Oaks, Elk Mountain Road near Upper Lake, Morgan Valley near Lower Lake, Kelseyville, Lucerne, Clearlake and Spring Valley. Snow also fell in the High Valley area above Clearlake Oaks.

The National Weather Service on Saturday issued a hazardous weather outlook for parts of Northern California, including southern Lake County.

Several inches of snowfall are expected at higher elevations across the northern part of the state due to a Pacific frontal system, the National Weather Service reported.

Lake County’s seven day forecast anticipates rain and light winds Sunday and Monday, with a chance of rain and snow on Tuesday, when the snow level is expected to fall to 1,600 feet. Forecasters don’t anticipate much, if any, snow accumulation.

Chances of rain are forecast through next Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

Hoping to expand our understanding of auroras and other fleeting atmospheric events, a team of space-weather researchers designed and built NORUSCA II, a new camera with unprecedented capabilities that can simultaneously image multiple spectral bands, in essence different wavelengths or colors, of light.

The camera was tested at the Kjell Henriksen Observatory (KHO) in Svalbard, Norway, where it produced the first-ever hyperspectral images of auroras – commonly referred to as “the Northern (or Southern) Lights” – and may already have revealed a previously unknown atmospheric phenomenon.

Details on the camera and the results from its first images were published in the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express.

Auroras, nature’s celestial fireworks, are created when charged particles from the Sun penetrate Earth’s magnetic field.

These shimmering displays in the night sky reveal important information about the Earth-Sun system and the way our planet responds to powerful solar storms.

Current-generation cameras, however, are simply light buckets – meaning they collect all the light together into one image – and lack the ability to separately capture and analyze multiple slivers of the visible spectrum.

That means if researchers want to study auroras by looking at specific bands or a small portion of the spectrum they would have to use a series of filters to block out the unwanted wavelengths.

The new NORUSCA II hyperspectral camera achieves the same result without any moving parts, using its advanced optics to switch among all of its 41 separate optical bands in a matter of microseconds, orders of magnitude faster than an ordinary camera.

This opens up new possibilities for discovery by combining specific bands of the same ethereal phenomenon into one image, revealing previously hidden details.

“A standard filter wheel camera that typically uses six interference filters will not be able to spin the wheel fast enough compared to the NORUSCA II camera,” said Fred Sigernes of the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Norway. “This makes the new hyperspectral capability particularly useful for spectroscopy, because it can detect specific atmospheric constituents by their unique fingerprint, or wavelengths, in the light they emit.”

These spectral signatures can then reveal subtle changes in atmospheric behavior, such as the ionization of gases during auroras. This form of multispectral imaging also will enable scientists to better classify auroras from background sky emissions and study the way they cluster in the atmosphere.

A new phenomenon

On Jan. 24, 2012, during the inaugural research campaign of NORUSCA II, a major solar flare jettisoned a burst of high-energy particles known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). The CME eventually slammed into Earth’s magnetic field, producing magnificent auroras and a chance to fully test the new camera.

The researchers were able to image the aurora in unprecedented clarity through a layer of low altitude clouds, which would have thwarted earlier-generation instruments (see Image 1).

The camera also revealed something unexpected – a very faint wave pattern of unknown origin in the lower atmosphere.

The wave pattern resembles “airglow” – the natural emission of light by Earth’s atmosphere. Airglow can be produced by a variety of known sources, including cosmic rays striking the upper atmosphere and chemical reactions.

Its concurrent appearance with the aurora suggests that it may also be caused by a previously unrecognized source.    

“After the January CME, we think we saw an auroral-generated wave interaction with airglow,” said Sigernes. This would be an entirely new phenomenon and if confirmed, would be the first time airglow has been associated with auroras.

“Our new all-sky camera opens up new frontiers of discovery and will help in the detection of auroras and the understanding of how our Sun impacts the atmosphere here on Earth. Additional development and commissioning will also hopefully verify our intriguing first results,” concluded Sigernes.

A pair of NASA spacecraft that have been studying the Moon’s gravitational field are being prepared for a controlled descent into a mountain near the Moon’s north pole.  Impact is expected at about 2:28 p.m. PST on Monday, Dec. 17.

“It is going to be difficult to say goodbye to our little robotic twins,” said MIT professor Maria Zuber, principal investigator of the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission. “Planetary science has advanced in a major way because of their contributions.”

The two probes, named Ebb and Flow, are being sent purposely into the lunar surface because their low orbit and low fuel levels preclude further scientific operations.

Ebb and Flow’s successful mission to the Moon has yielded the highest-resolution gravity field map of any celestial body. The map will provide a better understanding not only of the Moon, but also of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved.

The spacecraft have been flying in formation around the Moon since Jan. 1, 2012. They were named by elementary school students in Bozeman, Mont., who won a contest.

The first probe to reach the Moon, Ebb, also will be the first to go down, at 2:28:40 p.m. PST. Flow will follow Ebb about 20 seconds later.

Both spacecraft will hit the surface at 3,760 mph (1.7 kilometers per second). No imagery of the impact is expected because the region will be in shadow at the time. The impact site is located near a crater named Goldschmidt.

Ebb and Flow will conduct one final experiment before their mission ends. They will fire their main engines until their propellant tanks are empty to determine precisely the amount of fuel remaining in their tanks. This will help NASA engineers validate fuel consumption computer models to improve predictions of fuel needs for future missions.

“Our lunar twins may be in the twilight of their operational lives, but one thing is for sure, they are going down swinging,” said GRAIL project manager David Lehman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Even during the last half of their last orbit, we are going to do an engineering experiment that could help future missions operate more efficiently.”

Because the exact amount of fuel remaining aboard each spacecraft is unknown, mission navigators and engineers designed the depletion burn to allow the probes to descend gradually for several hours and skim the surface of the moon until the elevated terrain of the target mountain gets in their way.

The burn that will change the spacecrafts’ orbit is scheduled to take place Friday morning, Dec. 14.

“Such a unique end-of-mission scenario requires extensive and detailed mission planning and navigation,” said Lehman. “We’ve had our share of challenges during this mission and always come through in flying colors, but nobody I know around here has ever flown into a Moon mountain before. It’ll be a first for us, that’s for sure.”

During their prime mission, from March through May 2012, Ebb and Flow collected data while orbiting at an average altitude of 34 miles (55 kilometers).

Their altitude was lowered to 14 miles (23 kilometers) for their extended mission, which began Aug. 30 and sometimes placed them within a few miles of the moon’s tallest surface features.

For more information about GRAIL, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/grail .

Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – A group of puppies have joined several adult dogs at the animal shelter and are ready for adoption.

The shelter has had the pups altered and vaccinated and all are ready to go to new homes.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).

Pit bull terrier-Australian Shepherd mix pup

This pit bull terrier-Australian Shepherd mix pup is 10 weeks old.

He has one blue eye and one brown eye, weighs just under 10 pounds, has a short tan coat and has been neutered.

Visit the puppy in kennel No. 4, ID No. 35066.

Terrier mix puppy

This male terrier mix is 14 weeks old.

He has brown eyes, floppy ears and a short black coat, weighs 11 pounds and has been neutered.

Find him in kennel No. 5, ID No. 35109.

Male German Shepherd mix

This male German Shepherd mix is 1 year old.

He has a short black coat, weighs nearly 50 pounds and has been neutered.

Shelter staff said he is great with other dogs – both male and female.

He’s in kennel No. 6, ID No. 34894.

‘Mia’

“Mia” is a 2-year-old American Staffordshire Terrier mix.

She has a short red coat, weighs 57 pounds and has been spayed.

Find Mia in kennel No. 7, ID No. 34847.

‘Brody’

“Brody” is an older boxer who recently fell on hard times and arrived at the animal shelter after his owner could no longer keep him.

He is 7 years old, has a docked tail and a short brown brindle-colored coat.

Brody is altered and weighs nearly 90 pounds.

You can find him in kennel No. 10, ID No. 34726.

American bulldog mix puppy

This 9-week-old female American Bulldog puppy is part of a big litter that came into the shelter recently.

She is 14 pounds, has a short white and brown spotted coat and has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 24a, ID No. 35082.

American bulldog mix puppy

This American Bulldog puppy is 9 weeks old.

Like her littermate she weighs 14 pounds, has a short brown and white spotted coat and has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 24b, ID No. 35083.

American bulldog mix puppy

This female American Bulldog puppy is 9 weeks old.

She weighs 14 pounds, has a short brown and white spotted coat and has been spayed.

Find her in kennel No. 24c, ID No. 35084.

American bulldog mix puppy

This male American Bulldog puppy is 9 weeks old.

He weighs 14 pounds, has a short white and brown spotted coat and has been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 24d, ID No. 35085.

American bulldog mix puppy

This male American Bulldog puppy is 9 weeks old.

He weighs 14 pounds, has a short white and brown spotted coat and has been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 24e, ID No. 35086.

American bulldog mix puppy

This male American Bulldog puppy is 9 weeks old.

He weighs 14 pounds, has a short white and brown spotted coat and has been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 24f, ID No. 35087.

Please note: Dogs listed at the shelter's Web page that are said to be “on hold” are not yet cleared for adoption.

To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .

Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.

Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .

For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – Lake County offers a rich tapestry of wildlife that’s display all the year round.

On Thursday evening, Lake County resident James Hershey photographed the Wilson Valley elk herd paying a visit to Cache Creek Vineyards near Clearlake Oaks.

The Bureau of Land Management reports that the Wilson Valley elk are part of one of the few free-roaming tule elk herds in California.

Follow Lake County News on Twitter, @LakeCoNews.

When an individual or a couple, as settlors, establishes a revocable living trust they are usually the initial trustees and beneficiaries. This gives them complete control to do as they please with their trust assets.  

Does this freedom change, however, if someone other than the settlor is trustee while the settlor is alive? Let us examine.

If the settlor’s trust appoints someone other than a settlor as the initial trustee then that trustee may obey the settlor so long as the settlor has the power to revoke the trust.

The trust usually requires the trustee to obey certain instructions by the settlor, such as distribution instructions.

The settlor’s power to revoke the trust is the power to amend and/or to end the trust and return the trust assets to the settlors. Thus, provided the settlors retains the power to revoke the trust, the settlor can do entirely as she pleases with the trust assets the same as if they were not held in trust.

For example, consider a father who appoints his daughter as initial sole trustee while he is still alive. He has not been adjudicated incompetent, but this fact does not mean that he is actually competent.

Father appoints daughter in order to let her direct his investments of trust assets on his behalf. Father tells daughter to invest in certain stocks which his other children – who are named in the trust as future beneficiaries to inherit upon father’s death – consider for good reason to be high risk.

They object and request the trustee/daughter not to follow father’s instructions. May the trustee/daughter nonetheless follow father’s instructions?

More than likely the answer is “yes.”

While father retains his ability as settlor to revoke his living trust, the trust assets are his to do with as he pleases.  

The trustee owes no duty to the future death beneficiaries (the children) while the settlor is alive and can revoke the trust.

Furthermore, after father dies, the death beneficiaries (the children) cannot sue the trustee for following these instructions.  

Notwithstanding the major strains on their relationship, the trustee/daughter may try to protect the settlor/father by establishing his incompetence.

The trust may say that the settlor is incompetent if an examining physician provides a certificate of incapacity. In other cases, it may be necessary to petition a court to adjudicate the settlor’s incompetence.  

Once it is determined that the settlor is incompetent to revoke the trust, then the trustee/daughter may no longer follow his instructions.

This begs the question, “does the trustee owe the settlor a duty to determine whether he is still competent to revoke the trust?”

In Estate of Giraldin, the California Court of Appeals held that the trustee owed no duty to the settlor to inquire whether or not the settlor was competent.

The court said that the determining mental capacity was too complex and uncertain an inquiry to require of the trustee.

Thus, unless and until the settlor was ever determined to be incompetent by a court, the trustee could follow the lawful instructions of the settlor.

This decision is on appeal with the California Supreme Court. A decision is expected next year.

Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone at 707-263-3235. Visit his Web site at www.dennisfordhamlaw.com .

California Emergency Management Agency Secretary Mark Ghilarducci, the governor’s top Homeland Security advisor, urges California’s parents and educators to remain vigilant in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Connecticut on Friday.

“Friday’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was unimaginable and horrific. As a parent, I can only imagine the pain and grief that the victim’s parents, family members and fellow educators are feeling,” said Ghilarducci.  

He added, “This tragic event is a sobering reminder that threats like this, even as infrequent as they are, can happen anywhere. I urge all educators, teachers, parents and community members to pay attention to signs of distress in others and potential risks to the public. Don’t wait. If you think something isn’t right, report it right away.”

Ghilarducci recommends all schools should also review and ensure their emergency plans and security procedures are in place, up to date and understood.

Ghilarducci noted that Friday’s shooting was the second mass shooting in less than a week. Three people were killed at a Portland, Ore., mall after a gunman open fire on innocent shoppers this past Tuesday.

“Remember that the signs of a tragic event may be visible long before it comes to a violent conclusion,” said Secretary Ghilarducci. “If you know someone that is suffering from mental illness, grief, loss or exhibiting unusual behavior see that they receive counseling or treatment from a professional.”

The California Emergency Management Agency has put together a resource Web page for parents, teachers and anyone wanting to know how to get involved in making our schools and workplaces safer:

• Safety in Our Schools - California Emergency Management Agency: http://bit.ly/UoQXE0 ;
• How to Report Suspicious Activity - Department of Homeland Security: http://1.usa.gov/UJEueC ;
• Helping Children Manage Distress After a Shooting - American Psychological Association: http://bit.ly/UJED1M ;
• Gun Violence at School: Safety Tips – www.Kidpower.org (California workshop services) : http://bit.ly/USAjuV .

Additional updates will be posted to www.calema.ca.gov and Cal EMA’s Twitter feed.

The state's public health director and state health officer has released a new report on tobacco use and promotion in the state.

California Department of Public Health (CDPH) director and state health officer Dr. Ron Chapman released the state’s first “State Health Officer’s Report on Tobacco Use and Promotion” providing new data related to cigarette consumption declines, and the millions of dollars and lives saved.

The report also includes new data on illegal sales to minors, the disproportionate number of tobacco retailers and advertising in minority and low-income neighborhoods, the effect of tobacco advertising in retail stores, and troubling tobacco-use trends.

“The illegal sale of tobacco to minors is a serious issue and we are committed to working with retailers and inform the public in order to stop these practices,” said Chapman. “The tobacco industry’s advertising tactics towards a younger audience is disturbing and shameful. It is startling that the tobacco industry spends nearly $1 million every hour to market their products nationwide.”

Although not necessarily a trend, the increase in illegal sales to minors is a fact that CDPH takes seriously.

The department is concerned about any increase of youth access to cigarettes and aims to prevent any uptick in youth smoking. CDPH continues to find innovative ways to work with retailers and to inform the public to stop these practices.

In addition to the latest data on illegal sales to minors, the state report draws attention to the disproportionate number of tobacco retailers, advertising tactics, the effect of tobacco advertising in retail stores, and examples of emerging tobacco use.

Specific information about Lake County was not available in the report. CDPH spokesman Corey Egel said the county's prevalence estimates are included in regional figures, as the sample size for Lake County is too small to estimate the prevalence by detailed age grouping (i.e. young adults age 18-24).

Highlights of the report include:

• Since the inception of the Tobacco Control Program, the annual number of cigarette packs sold in California dropped by more than 1.5 billion per year, from 2.5 billion packs in 1998 to 972,000 packs in 2011;
• Illegal tobacco sales to minors rose to 8.7 percent from 5.6 percent in 2011, which was the state’s lowest rate since the survey began in 1995;
• Prevalence of smoking was higher at schools in neighborhoods with five or more stores that sell tobacco than at schools in neighborhoods without any stores that sell tobacco;
• In 2011, young adults 18-24 had the highest smoking prevalence among any age group in California;
• The popularity, promotion and availability of smokeless tobacco have greatly increased – examples include snus (a smokeless, spitless, moist-snuff product), cigarillos (small flavored cigars that are often sold individually), as well as dissolvable and flavored “orbs” and “sticks” that are currently being test-marketed in other states;
• In less than a decade, sales of smokeless products have nearly tripled, from $77 million in 2001 to $211 million in 2011; and
• Nearly one-third (32.3 percent) of California stores that sell tobacco had at least one cigarette advertisement less than three feet above the floor, where it is easily seen by children.

“In 2012, smoking and the use of other tobacco products continues to be a major public health concern in California, with approximately 3.6 million smokers in the state,” added Chapman. “More than 34,000 deaths from tobacco-related illnesses occur every year, and the cost of adult health care related to smoking in California is projected to be $6.5 billion this year, about $400 per taxpayer. The most cost-effective way to decrease health care costs is to encourage and support tobacco cessation. I strongly urge all Californians who still smoke to quit.”

Chapman also unveiled new ethnic-market advertisements that will continue to educate Californians on the harmful effects of tobacco use.

In addition to the ads, a new Spanish Web site, www.CAsinTabaco.com , was launched to complement the campaign and to provide the Spanish-speaking community the tools they need to quit. Ads will start airing in early January and can be viewed at www.TobaccoFreeCA.com .

The California Tobacco Control Program was established by the Tobacco Tax and Health Protection Act of 1988.

The act, approved by California voters, instituted a 25-cent tax on each pack of cigarettes and earmarked five cents of that tax to fund California’s tobacco control efforts. These efforts include supporting local health departments and community organizations, an aggressive media campaign, and tobacco-related evaluation and surveillance.

California’s comprehensive approach has changed social norms around tobacco-use and secondhand smoke, resulting in dramatic results.

It is estimated California’s tobacco control efforts have saved more than one million lives and have resulted in $86 billion worth of savings in health care costs. Learn more at www.TobaccoFreeCA.com .

Follow Lake County News on Twitter, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County officials on Friday directed flags on all county buildings to be lowered to half-staff through Tuesday, Dec. 18, in honor of the victims of Friday’s deadly school shooting in Connecticut.

The incident at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown has claimed the lives of 27 people, including 20 elementary school students, according to police.

The seven adults killed included the school’s principal Dawn Hocksprung and the shooter himself, identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, law enforcement reported. Lanza had fatally shot his mother before going to the school.

President Barack Obama addressed the nation on Friday.

“The majority of those who died today were children – beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old,” he said. “They had their entire lives ahead of them – birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own. Among the fallen were also teachers – men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams.”

The president added, “So our hearts are broken today – for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children, and for the families of the adults who were lost.  Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors as well, for as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children’s innocence has been torn away from them too early, and there are no words that will ease their pain.”

The Connecticut shooting has been reported as the second-worst in the nation’s history, surpassed only by the Virginia Tech shooting of April 2007, which claimed 32 lives. The 1999 Columbine shooting resulted in the deaths of 12 students, one teacher and the two suspects.

Newtown is located in southwestern Connecticut, about sixty miles from New York City, with a population of nearly 28,000 people.

Follow Lake County News on Twitter, @LakeCoNews.

A new animation of plant stress shows how drought evolved across the United States from January 2010 through September 2012. Credit: NASA/Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio/USDA-ARS.

In July 2012, farmers in the U.S. Midwest and Plains regions watched crops wilt and die after a stretch of unusually low precipitation and high temperatures.

Before a lack of rain and record-breaking heat signaled a problem, however, scientists observed another indication of drought in data from NASA and NOAA satellites: plant stress.

Healthy vegetation requires a certain amount of water from the soil every day to stay alive, and when soil moisture falls below adequate levels, plants become stressed. Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) have developed a way to use satellite data to map that plant stress.

The maps could soon aid in drought forecasts, and prove useful for applications such as crop yield estimates or decisions about crop loss compensation.

“Crop drought monitoring is of high practical value, and any advance notice of drought conditions helps the farmer make practical decisions sooner,” said Steve Running, an ecologist at University of Montana in Missoula.

A new animation of plant stress, which can be seen above, shows how drought evolved across the United States from January 2010 through September 2012.

In spring 2010, satellites measured cool leaf temperatures, indicating healthy plants and wetter-than-average conditions (green), over many areas across the country.

By summer 2011, satellites saw the warming of stressed vegetation, indicating significantly lower-than-usual water availability (red) in many areas, most notably in Texas. Crops were either dead or would soon be dead.

Drought in 2012 was the most severe and extensive in at least 25 years, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service.

By August 60 percent of farms were in areas experiencing drought, and by mid-September USDA had designated more than 2,000 counties as disaster areas.

According to Martha Anderson with USDA-ARS in Beltsville, Md. – who is working with a team to develop the plant stress indicator for drought and presented the research Dec. 5, at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco – “2012 was record-breaking, this was just a huge event.”

The 2012 event is what experts call a flash drought, meaning that it evolved quickly and unexpectedly. Low soil moisture was further depleted by the heat wave that started in May, and drought abruptly followed.

By about May 5 the core regions of drought began to appear on the plant stress map – earlier than the signs of drought appeared in other indicators, such as rainfall measurements.

“We think there’s some early-warning potential with these plant stress maps, alerting us as the crops start to run out of water,” Anderson said.

Signals of plant stress may often appear first in satellite-derived maps of vegetation temperature before the crops have actually started to wilt and die.

“The earlier we can learn things are turning south, presumably the more time we have to prepare for whatever actions might be taken,” Anderson said.

For example, farmers may decide they need to buy supplemental feed from outside the drought-affected area to support their livestock, or they may need to adjust contract or insurance decisions.

The U.S. Drought Monitor already uses a combination of indices, such as rainfall, to describe drought conditions each week. The monitor currently does not include plant stress, but the potential is being explored.

“Plant stress is one representation of drought impacts, and the drought monitoring community agrees that you can’t do this with just one tool – you need a lot of different tools,” Anderson said.

Plant stress information has the potential to improve the skill of existing forecasts that predict drought out to weeks or months.

Also, because the plant stress information is derived from satellites, it can describe drought conditions in areas where rain gauge and radar networks are sparse – and it can do so at the scale of individual fields.

To produce the maps of plant stress, scientists start with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. Images are processed to distinguish between land surfaces covered by soil and surfaces covered with vegetation.

Narrowing their focus to vegetated areas, scientists set out to measure moisture availability. Plants cool themselves by sweating water extracted from the soil by their roots.

When access to water is limited, plants lessen their consumption and reduce evapotranspiration from leaf surfaces. As a result, leaves heat up and produce an elevated leaf or canopy temperature, which can be detected by thermal sensors on NOAA’s geostationary weather satellites. Hotter plants imply limited water in the soil.

“This is not a drought forecast. It’s a map of what’s going on right now,” Anderson said. “Is there more or less water than usual?”

What is “usual” or normal, however, can depend on the season or even the year. Scientists currently define normal by calculating and mapping plant stress averaged over periods of 1-3 months, from the start of MODIS data collection in 2000 to present.

The mean of these historic maps is considered normal. Compare a current map with the longer-term “normal” map, and scientists get a picture of the magnitude by which current conditions deviate from normal.

“What was normal back in 1920 is not what’s normal now, so the more years we have under the belt the better we can define normal,” Anderson said. “But this year is so far out of line with respect to previous years, it is unusual regardless of the period of record used as the baseline.”

UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The Tallman Hotel and Blue Wing Saloon Restaurant will close from Jan. 2 through Jan. 25 to completely redo their kitchen facilities and upgrade other aspects of the property.  

“We apologize to our loyal customers for the downtime, but the quality of our food and service should be that much better as a result of these upgrades,” said owner Bernie Butcher.

Butcher said a grand reopening of the Blue Wing is planned on Saturday, Jan. 26, culminating with a Concert with Conversation in the Meeting House featuring the reed instrument virtuoso Paul McCandless and the Spanish guitarist Antonio Calogaro.

In addition to new plumbing, flooring and kitchen equipment, the hotel will use the downtime to service its state of the art geo-exchange heating and cooling system and to do a deep cleaning of the entire property.  

“The hotel will be fully staffed at all time during the closure to handle questions, future bookings and group reservations,” said hotel manager Susan Mesick.

Mitchell Construction of Lakeport has been chosen as general contractor for the project.

Blue Wing Chef Brian Rebitzke has worked closely with the contractor to come up with the ideal kitchen design and equipment configuration.

“Although most of this won’t be visible to our customers, I think the proof of the pudding will be in better eating,” Rebitzke said.

The Blue Wing Saloon Restaurant in Upper Lake opened for business in 2005 and the adjacent Tallman Hotel a year later.  

Through their unique facilities as well as musical and other events, they have become popular locally and helped to attract tourists to Lake County.

Follow Lake County News on Twitter, @LakeCoNews.

NORTH COAST, Calif. – Mendocino College officials reported that a new superintendent and president has been selected to lead the community college district.

At the end of a Wednesday evening closed session, the Mendocino College Board of Trustees appointed Arturo Reyes as the next superintendent/president, according to district Human Resources Director Karen Chaty.

“I am thankful to the trustees for placing their faith in me to serve Mendocino College and the surrounding communities,” Reyes said in a written statement. “I am honored to contribute to Mendocino’s long standing reputation of academic excellence, exceptional support services and outstanding extracurricular activities. As superintendent/president, I am looking forward to working collaboratively with all college constituency groups to enhance the educational opportunities for the residents of Mendocino and Lake counties.”

Reyes will begin his new job on Jan. 7, with the board to ratify his contract at its Jan. 9 meeting, Chaty reported.

Chaty said the board of trustees on Wednesday also received the resignation of Roe Darnell, who had acted as interim superintendent and president following the departure of Kathy Lehner, who took the president's job at College of the Redwoods in May.

Reyes is coming from Solano Community College, where he has served as executive vice president of academic and student affairs for the last two and a half years, according to Chaty.

He also has been interim president and vice president of academic affairs for San Jose City College, and served for seven years as dean of humanities and social sciences for Cosumnes River College, Mendocino College reported.

Reyes taught Spanish full-time for Cosumnes River College and Will C. Wood High School in Vacaville, and currently is completing an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership at the University of California, Davis.

Chaty said his selection was assisted by a search committee that included Wilda Shock and John Tompkins of Lake County, as well as Larry Perryman, Virginia Guleff, Steve Hixenbaugh, Reid Edelman, Karen Christopherson, Eileen Cichocki, Larry Lang, Nancy Heth, Morgan Shippey, Gwen Chapman and Gary Smith.

The announcement of Reyes' appointment came the same day as college officials announced that the new Mendocino College Lake Center on Parallel Drive in Lakeport will open to students on Jan. 14.

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