Fires, Flooding, Mudslides and Stormy Weather

As a small child, I could never understand how weather conditions could be so different across our country. Around Christmas, we'd call the scattered Aunts and Uncles - we'd be in Florida, usually wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and relatives would say it was snowing, or there was a thunderstorm taking place.  I'd look outside the windows and just couldn't grasp that they were so far away that their weather would be different...
   This past weekend is a case in point - a huge fire in Alaska, a large fire in Arizona, flooding from rain in Texas and Louisiana, a mudslide here in Colorado, and stormy weather across the mid-west and into the east.  Having driven my car from Washington, DC out to Boulder, Colorado, I can (now) appreciate the number of miles and the different terrains, that help cause such widely divergent types of weather.
  The Alaska wildfire has burned 250 square miles so far - the fire is now 30% contained and firefighters hope that rain forecast for this week will help to calm the burn.  This is a wind-driven fire  that is burning in the 1.9 million acre Kenai Wildlife Refuge.  The Arizona fire, near Sedona, is now 10% contained - and has burned over 13,500 acres.  Due to winds carrying smoke and fire-related particulates, Sedona has declared that the air conditions are dangerous to anyone with a compromised breathing system - asthma, COPD, etc.
   Most of Texas is under flash flood watches, as well as western Louisiana.  Here in Colorado, the Cache la Poudre River is above flood stage - streets and roads are under water, with fish swimming above the asphalt.  A 14-year-old boy went out on a family outing to fish and picnic along the Cache la Poudre yesterday - the boy slipped off the bank and into the river and was immediately buffeted downstream; his Uncle dived into the river to save the boy.  The boy's body was recovered downstream; while Rescue teams went after the Uncle - who passed away in the hospital last night.
  In western Colorado, in Mesa County, about 26 miles from Grand Junction, a farmer noticed that his irrigation ditch wasn't flowing.  He, his son, and a friend went up into the hills to see if they could discover the cause of the water flow interruption.  All of the men were Volunteer Firefighters and trained in Rescue operations.  They and their two vehicles are missing.  There was a big mudslide, which first blocked the irrigation ditches.  Apparently, while the men were investigating, the gigantic mudslide happened.  Why do I call it gigantic?  The mudslide started out about a mile wide, widened to two miles (at one point) and then narrowed down to a good half-mile wide at the end.  The mudslide is four miles long.  The mudslide is more than 250 feet deep in some places.  The upper area of the slide is still moving, parts of the mountain ridge are still breaking away.  The men disappeared early Sunday afternoon.  A news conference just declared the search-and-rescue operation is now a search-and-recovery operation.
   In the east, chilly showers put a damper on things, and a lot of folks ended up heading home Monday morning, instead of waiting until the last minute to drive home at dark.  We had thunderstorms Friday, Saturday ans Sunday afternoon, but no rain yesterday.  53,000 people participated in the Bolder Boulder and I saw a lot of sunburned faces and arms when I came home yesterday.