But it wasn’t too long ago, September of 2022, in fact, that the Guardian, with help from the Associated Press, who would never write pieces that weren’t true unless they were paid to, filed a piece that said in part,

California has witnessed its three driest years on record and the drought shows no signs of abating, officials said on Monday. The dry spell set the stage for catastrophic wildfires and has strained water resources and caused conflicts over usage.

“We are actively planning for another dry year,” said Jeanine Jones, drought manager for the state’s department of water resources, who was discussing California’s status at the conclusion of its water year, which ended 30 September.

…

But snowfall is of most concern, as the powder that collects on mountaintops during the winter months serves as a savings account of sorts when the state runs dry. As snow slowly melts it trickles into streams, rivers and reservoirs, providing one-third of California’s annual water supply. The Colorado River, another major source of water for southern California, is also beset by drought, threatening its ability to supply farmers and cities around the US west.

Last year’s snow levels were far below average by the end of the winter, and officials are concerned that a third year of dry conditions will only strain resources further. State officials expect the trend to continue, saying they expect California’s water supply to decline by 10% over the next two decades.

That sounds bad to me. Drought as far as the eye can see. No rain, no snow, no water. Dust Bowl. Mad Max. Dystopia. Miraculously, a river appeared in the sky – a beautiful, dam-free stream of moisture feeding life-giving water by the trillions of gallons, filling our reservoirs and freezing into snow for us on top of our mountains for use at a later date. We should all be tremendously happy – joyous, in fact, that we’ve been able to escape the evil clutches of climate change for at least one more year. That is, until Debbie Downer showed up.

America’s conscience, Ellen DeGeneres, intrepid field reporter that she is, turned in this surefire Emmy-winning performance Monday from the banks of the swollen creek that tragically has not been given a name worthy enough of Ellen’s reportage.

Montecito is under mandatory evacuation. We are on higher ground so they asked us to shelter in place. Please stay safe everyone. pic.twitter.com/7dv5wfNSzG

— Ellen DeGeneres (@EllenDeGeneres) January 9, 2023

So much to mock, so little time. First, let’s start with the ensemble. For a climate that’s baking us into oblivion one-tenth of a degree Celsius at a time, Ellen seems to be a little on the chilly side in this video. She’s rocking not one, but two layers of hoodies. Say what you want about Ellen, but she should get full marks for braving the mid 50-degree elements without judgment from me on her fashion sense. She’s could develop hypothermia in a matter of days in that kind of continued climate.

Montecito is a gorgeous little community between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean northwest of Los Angeles. It’s gorgeous because it’s a sliver of land that has a fairly steep mountain range literally right next to the ocean. It gives homeowners the chance to have an ocean view aided by some elevation without having to be so far away from the coast that your vision is obscured by haze and smog. Now by definition, when rain hits mountains, that water doesn’t just sit there in one place on a slope. It almost always runs downhill, unless you’re at the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, collects into runoff streams or creeks, and eventually ends up back into the Big Blue Thing out west. Now I know you all know this, but this seems to be news to Ellen, and it frightens her. Mind you, she’s not in any personal danger. She isn’t dumb enough to have built her home at the bottom of the runoff channel. She built it on higher ground so that her view would naturally be better. But she’s alarmed that water flows downhill. Where does she turn in her moment of crisis? Mother Nature.

She references that it’s the five-year anniversary of a series of mudslides that took out a bunch of homes in Montecito and killed a couple dozen people. But after that, the rest of her 54-second video is a revelation into the heart, mind, and soul of Mother Nature. According to Ellen, we have now learned:

• Mother Nature’s preferred pronouns are she/her. I don’t know how we know this or how Ellen was informed, but this much, we now know.
• Mother Nature resides in Montecito. Okay, well maybe not now, but after the return of her chosen one to establish her kingdom, Mother Nature clearly will set up global Earth operations out of Montecito.
• Mother Nature has a memory. She keeps a journal. She’s making a list, returning to it every five years or something. Apparently, she brings the thunder on the anniversaries of…previous days she brought the thunder.
• She’s moody and holds a grudge. She’s been not happy for an unknown period of time, has been harboring that anger for an unknown period of time, and chose this day to vent her proverbial spleen.
  Rain and snow, which before now we were told we needed to survive, and that without it, we’re all dead, that’s now old and busted. Mother Nature’s new hotness is that rain and snow are punishment. If we want nice weather, we have to be nice to her. Mean people suck and get the thunder.
• She’s now predictable in her future moodiness…sorta. Another storm is going to hit California this weekend. At least that’s what the Mother Nature disciples dressed up as weather reporters have prophesied. So we haven’t apparently learned our lesson since Monday, and another round of pain, snow and rain, is coming.
• With Mother Nature and her version of the Holy Spirit known to us as Climate Change, everything that happens, whether it’s rain or no rain, snow or no snow, everything is unprecedented. Nothing Mother Nature brings us these days is like anything we’ve ever seen. It’s all new. Unprecedented. Except for all those times weather events have happened before and were way worse. I seem to recall reading in an old book about rain that went on non-stop for almost a month and a half, covered the entire Earth’s surface with water. I seem to recall reading another book that went on forever by a guy named Steinbeck about grapes of something. That Dust Bowl period seemed pretty bad then.
• Mother Nature is a Republican – Yes, I said it. Proof? All the states where weather is bad right now – California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New York, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Vermont, virtually all of them are blue states. The states that have good weather, weather that Ellen DeGeneres claims is a response to us treating her nicer, belongs to Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina, Missouri. It’s 82 and perfect in Naples, Florida. It’s about the same in Dallas. Heck, it’s even 82 and perfect in Lahaina. Have the Hawaiians quit burning trash this week in order to be nicer to Mother Nature? But mostly, since we’re using anecdotal daily weather conditions in the same way Ellen did for her video, today’s edition features mostly red states. Clearly, that’s about as clear of an extrapolation as anything Ellen offered about the emotional state of Mother Nature.
• Mother Nature is only concerned about the United States. Her wrath and reaction to our Mean Girls treatment of her doesn’t apply to any other city internationally. They’re on their own.

California’s snowpack is currently over 225% of where it needs to be for this time of year. If the Sierras get walloped again this weekend, we’ll be close to where we’d need to be for the entire year, precipitation-wise. But that actual data flies in the face of the narrative that was fed to us just three months ago, so the narrative must change again. In fact, the only thing changing more than the climate is that anything the weather does – whether it rains or shines, whether it snows or cooks, whether the climate changes or not, the input to the equation doesn’t matter at all. The only thing that matters is output that is summed up nicely by this faked meme online of Greta Thunberg.

The picture may be faked, but the prescription recommended by the climate cult is true. As for me, if ticking off Mother Nature results in us hitting our annual precipitation goals, I’m all for TP’ing Mother Nature’s house.