Springing

Last local weather report on this station was in early February, with the first rain after a scarily dry December and January (two of our normally prime rainy season months.)  February blessedly turned out to be rainy all the way.  We had rain here almost every day into the first week of March.  The result for us was replenished rivers and lakes (and water reservoir) and refreshed landscape.

So now that spring has snuck in between a locally invisible St. Patrick's day and Bach's birthday, flowers are blooming, there is less brown in the trees and other greenery, and a lot of tension is relieved.  The past two weeks of sunshine suggested the rainy season was over early, but it looks like a new series of storms are coming that keep rain in the forecast for the next 10 days, starting tonight.

Though some snowpack was renewed, not all of California got enough rain to put anything but a temporary dent in the drought.  An early and very bad fire season is predicted, and preparations are underway to meet it.  So serious is the drought that the suggestion by some long-range forecasters that there's a better than even chance that a new El Nino is forming which would return rains to the whole West Coast made headlines in the San Francisco Chronicle.

It's intriguing that even our many southern CA transplants at Humboldt State greeted the rains.  The smell and sound of rain are so integral to the environment here, especially at this time of year.  All this sunshine (even in summer) is weird, menacing even as it is glorious.