Tag: rain

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Luminaria Rainout

Our night-before-Xmas luminaria extravaganza has been going on since 1992. In the 16 Christmas Eves during that run, we had one almost-rainout, in 2003. Another year, the wind was blowing so hard that we doubted at first that we could get the candles lit. But both times we managed to set the lights out.

The forecast for the past week has been pointing to rain today and tonight. The only variation in the predictions has been just how much rain and wind and when the storm would peak. And sure enough, it spit down drizzle all day, just enough so that we decided to postpone our luminaria till next week, New Year’s Eve.

The drizzle almost quit completely just after dark, and many blocks around us put out their luminaria despite the sogginess. But the rain has been just heavy enough to turn all those bags into sodden little heaps and to put out most of the candles. And in the last hour, the hour we’d usually be placing all the bags and candles on our street and lighting them up, the showers increased.

It’s official — a rainout.

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Post-Storm

Poststorm101607

We had the lightest brush yesterday with a big storm that really belted Northern California and Oregon: just some light showers late in the morning and early in the afternoon. Still, rain in the Bay Area in mid-October, especially after a dry winter last season, is welcome; and the first half of October has been pretty wet, by our standards — we’ve had two and a half or three inches of rain already.

Anyway, the picture: We took the dog out before the sun was down, and the after-storm clouds were dramatic as always: piles of low cumulus or stratocumulus beating to the northeast with a higher level of cirrus drifting south.

Today’s main project: I’m off to Chicago. My dad’s getting out of his rehab hospital after breaking his hip about a month ago, and I’m going to stay with him for a week to see if I can help out. More from there.

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Enough Already

Umbrellabike

I admit it: At some point, you just want to say, “Basta!” Today makes it 28 or 29 days out of the last 35 that we’ve had measurable rain. Everything’s sodden, and the curbs along every street have turned into permanent streams. But people adapt, like the guy on the bike. Spotted him while walking to work this morning and barely managed to get a shot.

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Rain, Rain

Heard on the street on my walk to work as clouds rolled in from the west and swallowed up our brief morning sunshine: “Rain, rain, g–d–n m—–f—–‘ rain.” Except my fellow stroller didn’t use the dashes.

Although I’m coming perilously close to a weather whine, our March rain has mounted into wetness of historic magnitude: We’ve had 23 days of measurable rain this month. If it rains today or tomorrow — and that’s almost certain — that will set a new record for most rainy days here in March. As my friend Pete pointed out the other day, forecasters say some large-scale global weather patterns have kept it wet here for weeks (and will for at least the next week, it looks like).

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December

Codorniceswest

Remembering Christmas, a poet said: “December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers.” The snow was like a living thing: “It came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss. …”

That was Wales. And this is California. December on the weather side of the East Bay hills may produce the odd sunny day. I’m not complaining that we don’t have more. But mostly, it’s gray, as gray as the sopping thick felted clouds stretching overhead from the hills a mile to the east all the way past Hawaii to the tropics. No sunset, no moonrise, no stars. Just the same blanket of heavy, sodden gray pressing down day after day.

At least it’s warm.

(Pictured above: Codornices Creek, where it exits the city storm drains for the Bay, during a heavy rain on Thursday; most of the year, the channel is just a trickle. Beyond the reclaimed soccer field on the right is a big new Target store, and beyond that is the interchange for Interstates 80 and 580.)

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The News: It’s Wet

Rain in Berkeley today. Light rain, for sure, but still: it’s drizzling down; gurgling in the drainpipes; creating adventurey driving conditions for weather-challenged Bay Area commuters. The reason it’s worth mentioning in a forum as august as this here scribblefest: It’s a rather rare occurrence — one of the local weatherpersons said on the radio that it’s only rained on June 8 14 times since the start of official meteorological record-keeping hereabouts 150 years or so ago.

Film at 11.