By Kurtis Alexander, San Francisco Chronicle

The “Godzilla” El Niño is gone. But its sibling climate pattern, La Niña, which typically emerges in the aftermath with a cooling effect on the globe and potentially drier weather in California, has yet to show.

Federal forecasters said Thursday that La Niña is still likely to develop, though its probability and potential strength are both down. Those calculations may ease some fears about another dry winter for California, but they mostly leave climate experts with little agreement on whether the state’s drought picture will improve.

The downgrade comes not only because of slower-than-expected ocean cooling, but a failure of west-moving trade winds to pick up. The winds help bring more cold water to the surface of the tropics and are necessary for sustaining a potential La Niña

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By Mike Dunne, Sacramento Bee

Memo to fans of El Dorado County wine, in particular those of Lava Cap Winery: Tom Jones hasn’t retired, he’s just moved south.

For nearly three decades, Jones was winemaker at Lava Cap, founded by his parents on Apple Hill outside Placerville in the early 1980s.

But in 2013 he and his wife, Beth Goodlin-Jones, sold their interest in the winery and began to scout for a place where he could resume winemaking.

They found it the next year, Amador Foothill Winery in Amador County’s Shenandoah Valley, where owners Ben Zeitman and Katie Quinn were looking to retire.

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Slow Food Lake Tahoe is putting on a tour of local, High Sierra edible gardens on Aug. 13 from 9am-2pm.

Sites range from beginner container garden to a high production permaculture greenhouse.

The tour will begin and end at the Truckee Demonstration Garden located at the Truckee Regional Park.  A variety of Truckee home gardens in Sierra Meadows, Olympic Heights and Prosser will be visited with light refreshments at each stop.

Tickets may be purchased online; $10 for adults and no charge for children. Check in will begin at 8:30am at the Truckee Demonstration Garden.

South Lake Tahoe Friends of the Library have four varied programs on the calendar in August.

All events are free and are at the library, 1000 Rufus Allen Blvd.

On Aug. 10 at 6pm, Sierra College historian and Sierra Nevada native son Gary Noy will presents an illustrated lecture on unusual and lesser-known stories of Sierra Nevada history, with a special focus on California Gold Rush drinking, dining and gambling habits and an historical surprise or two about Lake Tahoe.

The presentation is based upon material from Noy’s book “Sierra Stories: Tales of Dreamers, Schemers, Bigots and Rogues”. The book will be for sale after the talk, which will be available for sale, and he’ll be signing them.

On Aug. 16 at 6pm, wildflower photographer Roger Rosenberger will talk about the current season with photographs and impart advise on how to take breathtaking images. Joining Rosenberger will be Julie Carville, who is launching her newest book “Tahoe’s Spectacular Wildflower Trails”.

On Aug. 20 at 3pm, photographer Tony Rowell will talk about his new book “Sierra Starlight”. Rowell is the son of wilderness photographer Galen Rowell, and has assembled an ambitious collection of nightscape photographs interspersed with facts and reflections on the landscape, as well as anecdotes about how some of his most awe-inspiring shots were captured.

On Aug. 30 at 6pm, Jan Loverin will present A Brief History of Underwear. She is the curator of Clothing and Textiles at Nevada State Museum’s Marjorie Russell Clothing and Textile Research Center. The talk will look at the history of various forms and styles of undergarments worn by our ancestors.

By Ally Gravina, Moonshine Ink

As the economy improves, weddings are quickly becoming more significant in Tahoe’s economy than in the past.

Placer, Nevada, and Washoe counties were host to 11,935 weddings in 2015, according to the Wedding Report, which has been making a splash in the business community since the report was published in 2016. Together they generated over $380 million in sales for the year, with Washoe County alone making up almost $289 million, the report says. This is almost 20 percent higher than sales in 2009, and mirrors trends nationwide.

In 2015 there were 2.17 million weddings in the United States generating $58 billion in sales, according to the report, an increase from $46 billion in 2009.

The booming industry stimulates revenue in two ways: it employs vendors who provide many things a couple may need, including photographers, planners, venue owners, caterers, baked goods, and officiators; and it attracts traveling wedding guests, who spend money on hotels, restaurants, shops, and recreational activities.

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Thinning of trees for fuels reduction and forest health started last week on approximately 355 acres of National Forest System lands above Incline Village.

Mechanical cut-to-length tree removal will take place on U.S. Forest Service urban lots and in areas adjacent to communities over the next several months. Some areas will be closed for public safety.

The thinning involves using a harvester to cut the tree down, remove the limbs and cut the tree into sections in the cutting area.

The area on the east side of Mt. Rose Highway south of Tahoe Meadows will be closed to pedestrians from 7am-6pm daily for the next several months. Hazards may be present even when operations have ceased for the day and the closure is not in effect.

The forest thinning is part of the Incline Hazardous Fuels Reduction and Healthy Forest Restoration Project, which will treat nearly 4,000 acres on North Shore to reduce the risk of severe wildfire, improve forest health, and provide defensible space to neighboring communities.

By Associated Press

A Chinese rocket re-entered the atmosphere near California late Wednesday night around the same time many people shared video on social media of a mysterious bright object streaking across the night sky.

U.S. Strategic Command spokeswoman Julie Ziegenhorn wouldn’t say if the rocket ever posed danger to people on the ground. She says the command often sees re-entries.

Ziegenhorn tells the Associated Press the Chinese CZ-7 rocket re-entered the atmosphere around 11:36pm Central time. That’s about the same time social media lit up with reports from Nevada, Utah and California of a small fireball streaking across the sky.

Ziegenhorn referred all other questions about the rocket to Chinese authorities

Officials from Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada had earlier told KTNV-TV the light was a meteor breaking up.

By Kathryn Reed

Start stripping; it’s just going to get hotter.

South Lake Tahoe hit a record high on Wednesday, and the forecast from the National Weather Service in Reno is more records will be broken today and Friday.

Ninety-one is the magic number for all three days. Apparently it was hot in 1990, too, because that is when the previous records for July 27-28-29 were set. That year on July 27 it was 90, July 28 – 90, and July 29 – 89.

Carson City and Reno will have triple digits, and are also likely to break records.

Truckee, which has records dating much farther back than South Lake, had a ways to go on Wednesday to beat the record of 99 that was set in 1975. The high yesterday was 93.

Truckee has a better chance of breaking a record the next two days, with the forecast being for 93 degrees and the record 94 for July 28-29.

Tahoe City only reached the mid-80s on July 27.

“There’s a really strong high pressure system,” Shane Snyder, meteorologist with the NWS in Reno, said of why it’s so hot. “It will drop off significantly by Saturday.”

For the weekend the South Shore will be in the 80s.

The good thing is that there is relief from the heat in the evenings, with most nights dipping into the 40s.

Normally the basin sees afternoon thunderstorms this time of year. Moisture has been absent, but that could change soon.

Snyder told Lake Tahoe News storms might build on the eastern side of the lake and in the Carson Range on Friday and Saturday. The danger is the accompanying lightning could start fires, especially since there is so much dry terrain.

“Due to the very hot and dry conditions, thunderstorms are more likely to produce strong outflow winds and dry lightning leading to an increased risk of new fire starts,” the Weather Service said. “Unfortunately, any rainfall that occurs with these storms will be limited to very small areas and will offer little help to the region, which has not seen much precipitation since May.”

By Larry Weitzman

“Gunsmoke” is the longest running live-action television show ever produced (1955-75). It debuted on Sept. 10, 1955; four days after Hugh O’Brien made his debut as Wyatt Earp, in “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp”. Both shows spawned a plethora of adult TV westerns for decades, but none had staying power of “Gunsmoke” as even the Wyatt Earp show terminated production after the 1961 season.

“Gunsmoke’s” total production was a whopping 635 episodes as it started when a year of production consisted of 39 shows a season compared to today’s season lengths of as little as 10 shows.

Larry Weitzman

While “Gunsmoke” started on TV in 1955, it was originally a radio show, first broadcast in March 1952, starring William Conrad (later TV star of “Cannon and Jake” and “Fatman”) but when looking for the TV lead of Marshal Matt Dillon, Cannon was too fat to be considered. Legend has it John Wayne was recommended for the TV lead, who in turn recommended 6-foot-7-inch James Arness for the job. Arness at the time was an up and coming actor who had a recent roll of playing “The Thing” in the 1954 sci-fi thriller of the same name. Cannon ended up directing two or more episodes of “Gunsmoke” for TV.

“Gunsmoke” writer John Meston (he also wrote and with producer Norman MacDonnell created “Gunsmoke”, the radio show which lasted until 1961) theme was good over evil and it was clearly defined and in most cases there was no excuse for the evil and Dillon (the good) always won. Meston also appeared to have a political cause, the plight of the American Indian. In one show even Gen. George Custer was discussed by Matt Dillon in a less than flattering light. Indians were mostly portrayed as righteous, honest and honorable. One continuing regular on the show was Tobeal, a guide and “investigator” for Dillion, played by Frank deKova.

Even Ken Curtis, who played Festus Haggen, a part time deputy for Dillon, played the role of an Indian scout in an early episode before he created Festus. Curtis, who was a big band singer (Tommy Dorsey Orchestra) and a son-in-law of director John Ford, played in about half a dozen early “Gunsmokes” in various rolls prior to becoming Festus. Contrary to the appearance of Festus, Curtis was a handsome man in real life.

Another characteristic of “Gunsmoke” outside of Chester, Doc and Kitty, were the various actors who made up the supporting cast. People like Warren Oates, Academy Award winner George Kennedy, Claude Akins, Lee Van Cleef, Charles Bronson, Wayne Rodgers, Martin Landau, Buddy Ebsen, Ed Asner, Dennis Hopper (who was born in Dodge City), Jack Lord, James Whitmore, Ted Knight and Jack Klugman all were cast members in one or more shows. And these were in the early days of the show, in the black and white days. Oates, Akins, Kennedy and Rodgers all did several shows as different characters. This was one place actors cut their teeth and learned their craft. And I am leaving many stars off the list. In later years even Harrison Ford did two episodes and Richard Dreyfuss, before “Jaws”, did one show.

Of course the show launched the career of Burt Reynolds, who played Quint Asper, a half-Indian blacksmith and Dillon‘s part time deputy. Tom Skerritt played five characters in five shows from 1965-72.

And then there were the several regular characters, Chester Goode, Dr. Galen Adams, Kitty Russell. Dennis Weaver, who played Chester, left the show after nine years to pursue his own successful career (replaced by Ken Curtis, Burt Reynolds, Buck Taylor and Roger Ewing). Milburn Stone, who play crusty Doc Adams chose as his first name on the show, Galen, the name of an ancient Greek physician and medical researcher. Stone’s career started in the 1930s where he worked at Monogram Pictures doing an adventure serial called “Tailspin Tommy,” a serial I used to watch on TV as a kid. Stone appeared in 604 of the 635 episodes.

Stone was close to the other “Gunsmoke” star, Amanda Blake, Miss Kitty. Although born in Buffalo, N.Y., Blake died in 1989 in Sacramento at age 60. Besides playing the owner of the Long Branch Saloon (there is such a saloon in Dodge City), she was sort of Dillon’s girlfriend in the show, although the relationship was never fully explained. Blake was an animal lover and she sometimes brought her pet lion, Kemo, to the “Gunsmoke” set. She also started the first successful breeding program for cheetahs at her compound in Phoenix as well as the Arizona Animal Welfare League, the state’s first no-kill animal shelter.

South Lake Tahoe veterinarian Patty Handel in her pre- and early teens remembers spending time on the “Gunsmoke” set and some time with Amanda Blake at backyard barbecues.

“Even in those early years I loved animals and when Amanda found out she remarked, ‘Oh that’s wonderful.’ I met all of the “Gunsmoke” regulars, and they we all so nice and just regular people. Ken Curtis who played Festus was just like his character, Festus, and I remember standing next to James Arness and looking up and saying to myself ‘he is a giant.’ The set ran like clockwork and the attitude on the set seemed like one of their lighthearted episodes,” Handel said.

Most everyone knows that Arness’ younger brother was Peter Graves. Arness was seriously wounded in the leg when storming the beach as a rifleman at Anzio, Italy, during WWII. He was ordered off the landing craft first because of his height to test the depth of the water. He lived a private life mostly in Brentwood, although in the 1970s, as an airport bum, I heard that Arness had a De Havilland Beaver (the kind of plane from the movie “Six Days, Seven Nights”) that he flew to his ranch near Paso Robles. People who knew him at the airport said he had a bad leg, a result of being seriously wounded at Anzio.

In the early years of “Gunsmoke” (first 10) Dillon almost always rode (sometimes in pain) the same good-looking Buckskin horse. Chester mostly rode the same sorrel horse with a blaze that had a small appendix marking at the top of his facial blaze.

“Gunsmoke” is still on TV, in the Direct TV system at Starzwes on channel 538, every day but Sunday. Check it out and see why tens of millions tuned in every Saturday night at 10.

Larry Weitzman is a resident of Rescue.

By Natalie Schreyer, Mother Jones.

Scientific research isn’t a one-size-fits-all endeavor. And when it comes to how doctors treat the sick, the differences between patients can be a matter of life and death.

On the latest episode of the “Inquiring Minds” podcast, Indre Viskontas speaks with Marek Glezerman, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, about the differences between men and women when it comes to health and medicine. Those differences aren’t always well understood by doctors, but they are extremely important. They exist in the disease symptoms we experience, the way our bodies regulate temperature, and even how we process pain.

These differences can have profound consequences. As Glezerman explains, some serious medical conditions, such as heart attacks, have symptoms that present differently in men and women. A woman, for example, may not show symptoms of a heart attack as quickly as a man. Her pain may radiate to the neck or the face, while in men pain often spreads to the left side of the body. According to Glezerman, one in five women who arrive at the emergency room with these symptoms is likely to be misdiagnosed. And a misdiagnosis can be fatal.

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