still no rain

Weather map

I find weather and climate to be amazingly fascinating things. The media must not believe that the rest of the public thinks the same way, judging by how they always seem to need to sex up the topic.

“Flooding! Mudslides!” was how Weatherbug packaged the recent early winter storm heading for California.

Water buckets

Thinking that dry little San Diego stood a chance of getting some real rain out of the storm, I put out a couple trays of potted carnivorous plants in hopes of giving them a taste of real water from the sky. And along the eaves of the house I placed some buckets to catch rainwater that I could use later.

Empty bucket

Unfortunately I was duped by all the buildup. Imagine my disappointment when I came home last night and found the buckets as empty as a bin of free hundred-dollar bills and as dry as the Baptist potlucks of my early teen years. We are talking dry.

Often by the end of September we have the first of the autumn rains. But not this year.

Still, the days are cooling. The skies are home to more and more clouds that look like they could deliver some precipitation. The rains didn’t come this week, but they’ll come.

4 thoughts on “still no rain”

  1. It’s true, San Diego is lucky if it gets leftovers at all from many storms. It’s like there’s an invisible barrier between us and L.A. A friend who’s an emergency services manager in Santa Barbara, a mere 200 miles away, told me that San Marcos Pass (in the mountain overlooking SB) received 10 inches. I would have been happy to see 1/20th of that here. Alas, in Del Cerro we only got a 3 minute sprinkle Monday night which quickly evaporated.

  2. Susan, yeah, it’s just a matter of time before we get some of what you got. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a good El Niño year.

    George, “leftovers” is definitely how I feel about our weather. We’re usually too far south for most of the Arctic fronts and way too far north for the summer monsoons from Mexico. I suppose that’s why the rain-haters pay the big bucks to live here.

  3. Do not feel diappointed… Many places like Southern California are facing a water shortage. http://j.mp/19jEtW will show you how far the water reserve levels have declined in Southern California. You will find a gauge on the site with three-color zones: Blue – good, Yellow – not good and Red – bad. The needle on this gauge is dropping out of the blue zone and heading into the yellow zone. Hence we need to use water wisely.

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