Australia has massive flooding in the East and drought-driven wildfires in the West with tropical storms clipping the North.

Europe has been thrown into a deep freeze for a week, with two to four inches of snow falling on London.

If that wasn’t bad enough – there is Invest 90 down around Cuba that looks like a candidate to become a tropical depression … in the first week of bloody February.

Global climate change is here, and people better start making their plans for what they will do when where they live changes, or, possibly, disappears. This is not the time to look for more hydrocarbons to burn.

The mid-distance teams are making good time, but they are probably wearing down at this point. That climb up Rosebud wears out teams and mushers, because you don’t get to ride, or even run behind the sled – you have to push.

Update 11PM CST:

At Central
1. Josh Cadzow (52)
2. Ava Lindner (55)
Beyond Mile 101
3. Rob Cooke (54)
At Mile 101
4. Luan Marques (51)
Beyond Chena Hot Springs
5. Jimmy Lebling (53)
6. Cindy Abbot (56)
7. Ed Abrahamson (58)
8. Blake Matray (57)

Josh has a lot of races behind him, but Luan Marques is looking good for a total rookie from Brazil. Rob Cooke has obviously been working seriously on his mushing.

Ava Linder is down to 8 dogs, and that isn’t good. The race runs out to Circle and then back to Central for the finish.

The leading teams are over Rosebud and have to decide to take the 4-hour mandatory stop at Mile 101, or wait until they get to Central. I assume that most will stay at 101 and rest after the climb.

The descent down Eagle is a test for the musher, as s/he must keep the sled from interfering with the dogs.

Update at 7:30PM CST:

Beyond Central
1 Brent Sass (10)
2 Allen Moore (1)
3 Abbie West (21)
At Central
4 Hugh Neff (6)
5 Sonny Lindner (3)
6 Kristy Berington (2)^I
7 Lance Mackey (16)
8 David Dalton (4)
9 Mike Ellis (18)
10 Jake Berkowitz (13)^R
Beyond Mile 101
11 Joar Leifseth Ulsom (17)^R
12 Kyla Durham (7)
13 Gus Guenther (20)^R
14 Yuka Honda (19)^R
15 Trent Herbst (22)^I
At Mile 101
16 Paige Drobny (12)^R
17 Marcelle Fressineau (15)^R
18 Jason Weitzel (9)^R
19 Misha Pedersen (5)^R
20 Brian Wilmshurst (11)^R
21 Nikolay Ettyne (14)^R
22 Michael Telpin (24)^R

OK, Now we have the current status of Maren Bradley (23)^R – she either scratched at Chena Hot Springs or is sitting at Mile 101 in the race ahead of Nikolay and Michael. Both versions are up on the Standings board. The GPS says she is at Mile 101. This is a volunteer effort, so they are going to have problems like this.

I’m concerned about the rising temperatures. Temperatures above freezing cause problems for the dogs and the trail, and temperatures in the 20s yield wet snow which is a pain to deal with.

Note: According to GPS live tracking Michael Telpin has been at Chena Hot Springs for more than 8 hours, the last GPS report. It is probable that everyone is out of the checkpoint.

These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.

The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Yukon Quest, the numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers, the small “I” indicates a Quest rookie who has competed in the Iditarod, and the small “R” indicates a total rookie.

Note: This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.

All posts on the Yukon Quest can be seen by selecting “Yukon Quest” from the Category box on the right sidebar.