About a week earlier than past years I can remember, our first rain of the season fell this morning as a light rain. Real rain, not "heavy mist" or even "drizzle" but actual drops that splashed and caused water to run down Channel Drive. I join everyone in the burn areas around SoCal in hoping it doesn't come down too hard and fast, but actual rain in the third year of an officially declared drought is great!
For some reason, maybe all the wind, I didn't believe it would really rain more than a few scattered showers. I was definitely wrong since we now have a cutoff low hanging over us and we've had .74" rain so far today, with more predicted for the next five days.
That's what they actually called it and getting to be home to watch the weather coverage last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday was really exciting . . . eleven feet of snow fell over the four days of storm at Kirkwood and there was so much snow and wind on Highway 80 between Sacto and Reno they had to close it for a while! While it didn't break any records, this storm made it into the record book as one of the biggest storms in more than one aspect.
Meanwhile down in our part of the state, the giant storm brought honest-to-goodness real rain - 2.35" in our rain gauge over the three days.
Yesterday and today brought big clouds, some wind, postcard views, and RAIN! The rain was scattered. Our rain gauge caught .2 inch in two days, but according to the L.A. Times and the Weather Underground, parts of Ventura got .1 inch of rain yesterday and .2 inch today. It got all the way up to 77 degrees and down to 54 last night - a pretty wide spread around here! The Times reported an interview with a JPL meteorologist who said the low-pressure system from the Aleutian Islands was moved down to SoCal by an "uncharacteristically southern-tending jet stream". It was then "orphaned" as the jet stream moved back north. It then became the cutoff low we're used to, as it swirled around off the coast and inland, until it finally came onshore. The rain we got was the first since the .04" that fell in April, but it also caused a rain delay to the Angel baseball game - the first in nine years!
I walked on Mandalay Beach and actually got warm AND came home with a tan line on my arm! Besides beautiful cloud formations and views of the islands, there were more snowy plovers than I've ever seen in one place!
