Weather, Or Not

It began drizzling sometime early this morning, and for a few hours all we got was drizzle and sprinkles, but about an hour ago the serious rain began, along with some blustery winds. This could be one of those storms that is quiet much of the time with a few periods of furious downpour that drops an inch or two in an hour. Right now I've got some god sized pools of water in my poorly drained back yard, and there's a fairly wide stream along the verge of the road. I'm going to make an attempt to get to the stores (cheap pie today only!) and hope that I don't get caught in one of those downpours.

Whether or not I will buy any frozen stuff I haven't decided yet. The wind is pretty strong, and could get stronger, and so there's a pretty high chance of a power outage. That's why I wanted to get an entry posted. I might be cut off from the Internet for some time at least once over the next few days. Any minute now, in fact, so this is done.

Going shopping this afternoon did get me a bit damp, but it was worth it. The sheets of rain, the wisps of low clouds drifting about, the swaying pine trees, the wet streets reflecting the lights of the herds of cars coming up from the valley, were all a delight to see. Because of the rain the stores were not as crowded as they usually are on Friday either, so that was a bonus. Safeway was still out of a couple of things I was after, though, so a lot of people must have done their shopping early in the day, before the rain grew fierce.

Right now there is a lull in the rain, but there have been some strong gusts of wind, so I won't keep the computer on for long. The ground is surely soggy now, and all it takes is one tree being blown onto a power line for a whole section of town to go dark. Thankfully there's been no thunder and lightning so far. The rain will undoubtedly be coming back later tonight, and is apt to continue off and on through Monday, with more intense rain on Sunday.

One of the astonishing sights today was the amount of brown water flowing through the roadside ditches, and the stream in the nearest arroyo, a mere trickle for the last month, was almost up to its banks. The rivers in the valley are getting close to flood stage, and if any of the next few days get as wet as today was there might be some flooding. Too bad most of it will end up running off into the ocean. The snow level remains much too high to provide useful snowpack, and there's no sign of it getting much lower. In the midst of the flood, the drought is still on.