Rain Rain Go Away...

I'll admit we Californians are lightweights where the weather is concerned. Being a weatherman in CA must be the most boring job EVER ... 'Today is sunny with a light breeze coming from the East. The next two weeks ahead look like they will be sunny and gusty at times to 20 mph ...'

Out here, we consider weather our friend, nothing to flip out about, although watching commuters during the first real rain of the season wouldn't give you that impression.  That being said, we take most of this weather business for granted. Nothing big ever happens here, compared to the bitter cold and tons of snow and hurricanes and tornadoes elsewhere.

But this time we MEAN it:  we have SERIOUS weather going on!  Let's just put on hold for now Crescent City and the Tsunami ripples that caused all sorts of problems for them because they got a raw deal.

We've got record snowfall and rainfall from storm after storm pounding our state. Yesterday Capitola overflowed from a swollen creek that flooded downtown.  In little Woodlandia we've now got an Infinity style hot tub and pool for no extra charge.

The reservoirs are nearly at capacity and had to release some water for the expected series of storms this week. Yesterday the Sacramento River was right up to the houses at the banks of the county line. The rice fields are deep under water beneath the causeway and on Thursday there were whitecaps from 60 mph wind gusts. That got my attention as I puttered across in my Toyota, wishing I had bricks in my trunk.

The road parallel to the causeway is below the water line and the train trestle is just a few feet above. Hail is on and off every day; raindrops are the size of quarters. There is a LOT of water. There is a lot of mud. 

Elk Grove had so much hail you could scoop it up like snow. The Garden Hwy is a Levee road just north of downtown Sac. On the right side the river water is two thirds up the embankment; on the left are sleepy little low-lying houses. It doesn't take too much imagination that there is levee monitoring going on 24-7, especially after the multiple levee breaches of the late 1990s in nearby San Joaquin County.

Already in Sutter County there was a crack found in one of their levees and earth-moving equipment can't navigate the saturated ground. So they patched it with an old-fashioned fire line of men with sandbags and plastic. Round-the-clock monitoring continues there, too.

Hwy 50 and 80 (to Tahoe and Reno, respectively) is closed completely on and off. Tim's in that mess this morning for a long-planned getaway with friends. Truckers sit idle by the roadside and overrun truck stops as they wait for visibility to improve.  Dave and Mike are racing their beater racecar today and tomorrow, so we're turning out for that with ponchos and a thermos of coffee. And a 24 hour outdoor Relay For Life at UOP in Stockton.

We are over capacity for snowfall which very soon will be melting and running off to ... I'll get back to you on where that will go. On the news last night they cautioned that in some areas not to jump too high because of proximity to electrical lines. By that they meant the 30' high electrical poles are now less than 10' off the ground due to the 20' snow drifts.

Did someone forget to forward the calendar to Mother Nature? This is supposed to be spring!!