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With 2013 quickly coming to a close, it's shaping up to be one of the driest calendar years on record for many places in California, according to forecasters.
Almost all of the Golden State is under either a severe or extreme drought with no end in sight heading into 2014.
This prolonged drought has contributed to the heightened risk of wildfires over the past several months and is raising major concerns in the agriculture industry.
Looking at the forecast through the remainder of 2013 and into the beginning of 2014, it appears as though very little rain – if any at all – will fall across the state.
“With the huge agricultural community already burdened by high prices of water and big restrictions on the amount of water allocated, this bleak outlook could be quite significant,” said Ken Clark, AccuWeather.com Western U.S. expert.
“This much lack of rain over such a long period of time could prove to be catastrophic for farmers,” Clark added.
Looking at the six most populated cities in California, San Diego is the only city that has received more than 50 percent of its normal yearly rainfall. That being said, San Diego is still well below their normal yearly rainfall total.
Although there are still a few days for these numbers to change, it is unlikely that they will do so with no rain in the forecast for any of these cities through the rest of 2013.
California is currently in the middle of its “rainy season,” which is considered to last from October to March.
This time frame is known as the rainy season due to the fact that during these months, there is typically a greater chance for rain than the other months of the year.
With only three months left in the current rainy season, many Californians are hoping that things will pick up to help battle the extreme drought.
Brian Lada is a meteorologist for www.AccuWeather.com .
Having one’s affairs in order is like having good health. All related parts have to work together as a whole.
That is, each separate estate planning instrument – be it the living trust, the power of attorney, or the designation of death beneficiary form – needs to function, where relevant, harmoniously with one another.
Let us consider some common scenarios where estate planning documents may interrelate.
The living trust and the power of attorney both pertain to incapacity planning. Typically the agent under the power of attorney will use the day to day checking account funds to pay necessary expenses while the principal is incapacitated.
Meanwhile the trustee will manage the investment and savings accounts and will also typically be required to pay upkeep and personal expenses.
The agent, if he or she is not also the trustee, should be authorized in the trust to obtain further money from the trustee if the checking account outside the trust (which is available to the agent) is ever insufficient to meet the principal’s living and health care expenses.
Typically the trust requires the trustee to provide the agent with extra funds as needed. Usually this is a moot point as the same person(s) often act as agent and as trustee.
Moreover, sometimes it can be very helpful for the agent under a power of attorney to amend an incapacitated person’s living trust.
Consider someone who tells her agent under a power of attorney that she wants to amend her trust to disinherit her estranged step-son. Then she becomes incapacitated before dying. The power of attorney authorizes the agent to make changes to the trust.
The trust, however, restricts the right to amend the trust to the settlor or his conservator. Accordingly, the trust’s own restrictions on who can amend the trust prevent the settlor’s agent exercising the full scope of authority granted within the power of attorney. The documents are not in harmony.
Next, the will, power of attorney, and designation of death beneficiary forms also can interrelate. That is, an agent under the power of attorney may be authorized to change designation of death beneficiary forms – which control who inherits death proceeds from life insurance, annuities, and retirement accounts.
And the will can authorize a decedent’s surviving spouse to make changes to death beneficiary forms that affect the decedent’s community property interests.
Without such authorization the surviving spouse cannot exercise full control over who later inherits any life insurance, annuities and retirement accounts – even though owned by the surviving spouse – which previously were community property assets while the deceased spouse was still alive.
A person’s advance health care directive, power of attorney for personal care, power of attorney for property and financial assets, and living trust can also overlap.
The agents under the health care directive and power of attorney for personal care have the authority to make health care and living arrangements (such as placement in a residential nursing home). Such arrangements will create expenses that need to be paid.
Paying for these health care and living arrangements requires the cooperation of the agent under the power of attorney and the trustee, each of whom may have access to assets.
Accordingly, the power of attorney and trust instruments should either require that the agent pay such expenses or else the same person(s) should act in all roles.
A person’s ownership (title) documents need to be consistent with the person’s estate plan. That is, if the person with a living trust intends for real property assets to pass under a trust, those real properties should all be titled in the name of the trustee. Having them titled outside the trust may trigger an unintended probate.
The foregoing are just some illustrations of how estate planning instruments must be considered in connection with other related estate planning instruments so everything works harmoniously.
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 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, California. Fordham can be reached by e-mail at
A 12-year study of massive stars has reaffirmed that our galaxy has four spiral arms, following years of debate sparked by images taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope that only showed two arms.
The new research, which is published online in the Dec. 17 issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is part of the RMS Survey, which was launched by academics at the University of Leeds.
Astronomers cannot see what our galaxy, which is called the Milky Way, looks like because we are on the inside looking out. But they can deduce its shape by careful observation of its stars and their distances from us.
“The Milky Way is our galactic home and studying its structure gives us a unique opportunity to understand how a very typical spiral galaxy works in terms of where stars are born and why,” said Professor Melvin Hoare, a member of the RMS Survey Team in the School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Leeds and a co-author of the research paper.
In the 1950s astronomers used radio telescopes to map our galaxy. Their observations focused on clouds of gas in the Milky Way in which new stars are born, revealing four major arms.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, on the other hand, scoured the galaxy for infrared light emitted by stars.
It was announced in 2008 that Spitzer had found about 110 million stars, but only evidence of two spiral arms.
The astronomers behind the new study used several radio telescopes in Australia, USA and China to individually observe about 1,650 massive stars that had been identified by the RMS Survey.
From their observations, the distances and luminosities of the massive stars were calculated, revealing a distribution across four spiral arms.
“It isn't a case of our results being right and those from Spitzer's data being wrong – both surveys were looking for different things,” said Professor Hoare. “Spitzer only sees much cooler, lower mass stars – stars like our Sun – which are much more numerous than the massive stars that we were targeting.”
Massive stars are much less common than their lower mass counterparts because they only live for a short time – about 10 million years.
The shorter lifetimes of massive stars means that they are only found in the arms in which they formed, which could explain the discrepancy in the number of galactic arms that different research teams have claimed.
“Lower mass stars live much longer than massive stars and rotate around our Galaxy many times, spreading out in the disc. The gravitational pull in the two stellar arms that Spitzer revealed is enough to pile up the majority of stars in those arms, but not in the other two,” explained Professor Hoare. “However, the gas is compressed enough in all four arms to lead to massive star formation.”
Dr. James Urquhart from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, and lead author of the paper, said: “It's exciting that we are able to use the distribution of young massive stars to probe the structure of the Milky Way and match the most intense region of star formation with a model with four spiral arms.”
Professor Hoare concluded, “Star formation researchers, like me, grew up with the idea that our Galaxy has four spiral arms. It's great that we have been able to reaffirm that picture.”
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – While sheriff's investigators continue to try to determine what led to a fatal Christmas morning shooting at an Upper Lake home, the homeowners in the case have been placed under arrest for drugs and weapons charges.
James Michael Jean, 50, and his wife, Nora Katherine Jean, 49, were booked on Thursday night for several charges related to marijuana sales and weapons possession, according to Lt. Steve Brooks.
The man identified as the shooting victim in the case is Maurice Oliver Watts III, 30, Brooks said.
The investigation into the events surrounding Watts' shooting is ongoing, with Brooks reporting that no arrests or charges have been made related to his death.
Brooks said that at 9:50 a.m. Wednesday the Lake County Sheriff’s Dispatch Center received a 911 call from a male subject reporting an intruder attempted to break in at his residence located at 1475 Hunter Point Road in Upper Lake.
The caller further reported the intruder had some type of firearm. The intruder had been shot and was lying outside, Brooks said.
When deputies arrived, they were directed to a male subject lying outside on the ground on the property in what appeared to have been a previous marijuana grow site, according to Brooks.
Deputies found the male to be deceased from an apparent gunshot wound. Brooks said deputies also found a replica handgun near the deceased male.
The Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit responded and took over the investigation and a search warrant was secured and served at the Hunter Point Road property, Brooks said.
During the service of that search warrant, hundreds of pounds of semiprocessed marijuana were located in a hidden room in a garage on the property. Brooks said the Sheriff’s Narcotics Unit responded to conduct a marijuana sales investigation.
The Sheriff’s Narcotics Unit secured and served two additional search warrants related to their investigation on Thursday. Brooks said those warrants were served at the Jeans' business, Lake County Car Audio and Security at 325 W. Highway 20 in Upper Lake, and at a residence in the 6800 block of Broadway Avenue in Nice.
During the service of those warrants, the Sheriff's Narcotics Unit seized 433.6 pounds of marijuana from the 1475 Hunter Point Road residence, 173.3 pounds of marijuana from Lake County Car Audio and 374 pounds of marijuana from the Broadway Avenue residence, Brooks said.
A total of 980.9 pounds of marijuana, three handguns, 13 rifles – including several high-powered, assault-style weapons – and restricted armor piercing and tracer ammunition were seized, according to Brooks.
He said the marijuana located at the Broadway Avenue address was located in a hidden room similar to the one found at the Hunter Point Road address.
The Sheriff's Narcotics Unit arrested the property owners for marijuana- and firearm-related charges, Brooks said.
James Jean was booked into custody at the Hill Road Correctional Facility Thursday evening for possession of marijuana for sale, convicted felon in possession of a firearm, convicted felon in possession of ammunition and possession of bullets with explosive agent, Brooks said.
Nora Jean was booked several hours after her husband Thursday night, with charges including possession of marijuana for sale, committing a felony while armed and possession of bullets with explosive agent, according to Brooks.
Both remained in custody on Friday, Brooks said, with bail for each is set at $500,000
Brooks said their first court appearance is currently scheduled for Monday, Dec. 30.
An autopsy of Watts currently also is scheduled for Monday, Brooks said.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – With little rain this fall and early winter, Clear Lake earlier this month hit the lowest level in four years.
On Dec. 21, 25 and 26, Clear Lake’s level was recorded as 0.62 feet Rumsey, the lowest depth for the lake recorded since Dec. 12, 2009, based on records available online from Lake County Water Resources and the US Geological Survey.
Rumsey is the special measure used for recording the depth of Clear Lake. Zero Rumsey is equivalent to 1318.256 feet.
According to the Lake County Water Resources Web site, “The natural level of Clear Lake has been maintained by the Grigsby Riffle, which is a rock sill located at the confluence of Cache and Seigler Creeks near Lower Lake. The natural low water level of Clear Lake was established as 'Zero Rumsey' and all subsequent lake measurements are based on this elevation.”
November and December of 2009 saw slightly lower lake levels than this month, registering numbers not matched in available online records going back to 2001.
The lake's deepest measurement for this year was 6.23 feet Rumsey, recorded April 5-6.
The deepest measurement for the lake since 2001 was 9.37 feet Rumsey, recorded on March 28, 2011, when the county was hit by rains and flooding.
The lake level on Dec. 26 was the lowest recorded for that exact date over the last 12 years.
Usually by late December the lake already has started to fill up thanks to fall and winter rains. But that has not been the case this year.
On that same date last year the lake was measured at its highest level for that same date since 2001; on Dec. 26, 2012, the lake was at 5.84 feet Rumsey.
Clear Lake's levels on Dec. 26 going back to 2001 are as follows, according to Lake County Water Resources:
- 2013 – 0.62;
- 2012 – 5.84;
- 2011 – 2.89;
- 2010 – 4.22;
- 2009 – 0.70;
- 2008 – 1.15;
- 2007 – 1.20;
- 2006 – 3.17;
- 2005 – 4.84;
- 2004 – 1.89;
- 2003 – 4.26;
- 2002 – 4.63;
- 2001 – 3.78.
Based on Lake County Water Resources records, the extremes for Clear Lake since consistent monitoring began in 1913 include a high of 11.44 feet Rumsey on Feb. 24, 1998, a year that saw major flooding in the county.
On the other end of the spectrum, the lowest lake level since 1913 was -3.50 feet Rumsey, which was recorded Sept. 24-27, 1920.
As for the chances for a wet winter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's US Seasonal Drought Outlook, released Dec. 19, expects drought conditions to persist or intensify over most of California, including Lake County.
Correction: The story previously had said a reading of 0.01 feet Rumsey reported on Dec. 6 was the lowest since 2001. That US Geological Survey reading was an error, according to Lake County Water Resources, with the actual reading for that day being 0.69 feet Rumsey. While records show that at various times over this month the depth has dipped below 0.60 feet Rumsey, averages were slightly higher than the December 2009 levels.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The Konocti Lioness Club has donated $1,000 to support the work of Hospice Services of Lake County.
The donation was made at a recent meeting, when club members heard a presentation by Hospice Service Executive Director Anja Koot and Linda Laing, the organization's director of bereavement services.
The Hospice Services Youth Counseling Bereavement Program was the focus of the talk by Koot and Laing.
Konocti Lioness President Anna Jones presented them with a $1,000 check to support the program.
The Konocti Lioness Club holds fundraiser and events to support a variety of local causes.
The club welcomes new members.
For more information about the group contact the Konocti Lioness Club's publicity officer, Bunny De Lope, at 707-279-2414.