We haven’t had measurable rain since 11 Dec, and Dec-March are supposed to be our rainiest months.
Overnight Friday into Saturday morning SLOweather received 2.27″. That was enough to get the ground wet, but caused no real runoff.
Then about 1 AM Monday it started raining again. As of 8:30 AM PST, SLOweather has received another 2.24″ of rain. We saw rain rates as high as 2.1″/hour.
Coupled with the first storm, that’s enough to cause runoff. Our seasonal creek is finally running, and I can hear Prefumo creek raging down in the canyon, 500′ away.
Tonight is the end of Daylight Saving Time, so turn your clocks back 1 hour before you turn in for what is forecast to be a rainy night.
Along that line, if you have a manual or electronic rain gauge, now is the time to clean it before the rest of the rainy season. Manual gauges can accumulate bird droppings, leaves, spiders, and pine needles over the summer. The funnel on electronic gauges can become plugged with debris, stopping rain from registering at all. Another problem with electronic gauge that use “tipping buckets” is that spiderwebs can keep the tipper from tipping even if the funnel is open.
And, traditionally, this is the time of year we are all reminded to use that “extra” hour to change the batteries in our smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors.
Historically, that reminder coincided with “Fall Back” in October, which is Fire Prevention month. But Congress messed with DST and now it happens in November.
On Sunday, John Lindsey wrote about See Canyon microclimates and how they affect the apple farms there. He interviewed our friend Edward Evenson at Creekside farms to get information for the article.
Edward Evenson of Creekside Farms told me that apples need a lot of chill hours during winter to set the trees and kill the unwanted bugs, but enough warmth in the spring to prevent frost.
See Canyon provides a near perfect climate for apples. On calm winter nights dense cold air flows downward along the slopes of the Irish Hills and accumulates at the bottom of the canyon.
Edward said temperatures can be nearly 30 degrees colder at the bottom of the canyon than on top of the ridge.
Katie and the dogs and I made it up to Hi Mountain on Saturday for the Condor Lookout Open House. We had a great time, and I’m sure the approximately 60 other attendees did as well. The weather was perfect, warm but with a nice breeze, and the predicted thunderstorms from the remnants of Hurricane Hillary didn’t materialize.?
The Harvest Moon became full this morning at 2:27AM PDT. It was pretty spectacular over the Irish Hills this mornings as it set locally at 7:02 AM. It will rise again tonight at 7:10 PM, right before sunset at 7:16 PM. If the skies stay clear, it might be a nice evening for a hike to watch it set.
About 9:15 this morning, the weather station at Mission College Prep went live on WeatherElement.com.
The URL is www.weatherelement.com/missioncollegeprep, or you can use the link on SLOweather.com. This is the first Davis Vantage Vue model station on WeatherElement.
