I'm hearing alarming reports, Jackie, from people further north of you.

Of course, down here, we are dry and chilly.

We have dribs and drabs of rain scheduled over the next ten days, assuming any of it really happens. Nothing like yours, Jackie, or what Jeri mentions about further up north. It seems that this winter California is a stellar one and we will have plenty of water for the hot and dry season to come. I'm enjoying the cold weather since I can't tolerate heat any more. Of course our 50 to 60 degrees must sound like a really nice warm day to someone from Wisconsin.

There is a large adult doe sheltering under a gigantic ancient mess of 15 ft high bushes in our garden, at the back of sort of a tunnel. She has been visiting every time there is a bad storm lately. My cats watch her when she comes out to eat birdseed, or just walk around. They seem to think she is a problem, but I don't. Another of the cats got out this morning as I was going down the (covered) backstairs, and ran down the stairs until coming to an abrupt halt at the bottom, confronted with a sheets of rain. The deer could see her then, and looked very worried about the cat (they do recognize them as predators). They were staring at each other until I scooped up the cat and put her back inside. So funny.

Jackie

Just to wrap this up, it finally stopped raining this morning sometime between 3AM and 4AM. So, for just this one storm we had over 40 hours of continuous rain - mostly steady and hard, sometimes just steady, but never stopping. We got over 8 inches in that period. Add that to the 6 inches we got last week, and it is amazing. Supposed to start raining again on Sat...

It did this a lot in my childhood here in the 1950s and 1960s, so this is not new/different type of winter weather, just what we used to think was "normal". It makes me nostalgic. I realize I am lucky not to have it cause any personal trouble whatever. I am enjoying it. Yesterday stayed in all day, with a nice fire in the fireplace, gathering our tax info. Later this morning I hope we will be able to get out for a bike ride on our favorite path, which goes along a creek and then an estuary which flows into SF Bay. That is assuming the path is not flooded, of course.

Jackie