The Stagnant Ridge

Cool nights and mild days through the week. Highs mainly in the seventies, maybe some lower eighties late week.
Dry pattern for the rest of the month with drought conditions worsening.

Sprawling surface high pressure crushes the valley in silence!
A suffocating ceiling locks the sky into an endless tomb!

Clear nights rot into mild sun, light winds whisper of the end
Along the riverbanks the phantom fog rises like ghost ash from dead soil
The atmosphere refuses to bleed, hoarding every vapor, trapping us below
Gradually a massive dome hardens, an inescapable prison of oppressive light

The earth turns to powder under thirty days of clear skies
No rain will come to save us, the fire danger spreads across the dead grass
We choke beneath the crushing atmosphere, trapped beneath the stagnant ridge
We choke beneath the crushing atmosphere, trapped beneath the stagnant ridge

High temperatures creep up into the seventies and late week touches eighty degrees
The drought conditions worsen while the sun watches without mercy
Every lake evaporates into morning mist that dies before the midday glare
There is no shelter in this forecast, only the slow burning of the woods

The rest of the month is dead!
No water! No relief!
Trapped beneath the stagnant ridge!