The earliest writings from ancient civilizations have told stories of huge waves damaging or sinking ships. Not even modern technology is immune from Neptune’s wrath.

East of the Rocky Mountains, 2011 was an awful weather year. Severe weather events started New Year’s Eve as tornadoes ripped through Arkansas and Missouri and continued through a fall marked by a series of wild weather episodes.

You may have heard the sound of rustling bells and hoofbeats on your roof last night as Kris Kringle made his rounds from his home in the far north in a land of perpetual ice and snow.

The spread of personal wireless weather stations that are connected to the Internet has revolutionized weather observations. These home weather stations are affordable, reliable, accurate and can be placed almost anywhere.

The clear and still nights over the past week produced near perfect stargazing conditions. After the bright glare of last week’s moon descended below the horizon, the Milky Way resembled a backbone stretching across the night sky.

I knew it was bad when I saw the photographs of overturned semitrailers near Cajon Pass in San Bernardino County. I was stunned to see concrete light poles cracked in half by the wind’s force in Los Angeles County.

Just like last year, the above-average rains this fall seem to point to a wet winter despite the La Niña conditions in the equatorial and eastern Pacific.

It’s no wonder people along the Central Coast are interested in rainfall totals these days.

Last Saturday I had the honor to attend the Marine Birthday Ball, celebrating the 236-year anniversary of the Marine Corps, at the Atascadero Lake Pavilion.

The butterfly effect refers to the unpredictable consequences of small changes — the idea of a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world, causing a large storm to occur some time later in another area of the globe. In much the same way, the ever-increasing amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas that is put into the atmosphere could have consequences we cannot predict. Possibly one tragic example is the Western monarch butterfly that winters along the beaches of the Central Coast. In 1990, nearly a quarter of a million of these orange-and-black-winged creatures could be found at Pismo State Beach in December. This year only about 25,000 monarchs are expected, according to Tim Storton, a local monarch butterfly expert.