weather

I did it.... this morning I walked to my internship without my coat. This past weekend I even experienced the unpleasant sensation of sweating, but that's because I was in Southern California. I woke up Friday and Saturday morning in a desert and saw young people running around in shorts...very weird for February. I drove a moving van through Los Angles and was uncomfortably warm, which of course is not necessarily very hot, its just that I like cool weather. By the time I got over the Tehachapi Mountains and got into Bakersfield I was chilly and everyone else was in jackets. Then yesterday I opened all of my windows because it was so pleasant outside here in Northern California.

California always gets warmer quickly in February, hopefully not too quickly though. In 1983 we had a pretty good snow pack in the mountains and February brought with it the Pineapple Express which not only dumped more rain on us, but brought warm temperatures that melted the heavy snow pack and nearly topped the Folsom Dam with water. My dad had us packing to leave in case the creek flooded, but we lived on a hill, so we ended up fine.

The key is that the Folsom Lake Reservoir isn't allowed to fill past a certain point until April so if the snow pack is melted before April it can't all be saved. Of course this year the lake may be so low, it has plenty of space before it is considered too full for this time of year. What we need is more snow.

This could be the time for some genius to invent a way to move snow pack from where it is too much to where it is needed. It would appear that much of the U.S. is getting more than their fair share of snow lately. My sister lives in Georgia and sent me beautiful pictures of her yard, which I have shared above and will remove if she so requests. I found a fabulous feature on the NOAA website that will give you a seasonal animation of snow pack conditions in the U.S. and all I have to say is; "Why not Sacramento?" If the rest of the nation can have some.....

But then we live in a Mediterranean climate, remember, and that means we get wet winters and dry summers, and very, very little snow in a rare year.

So, those of you who are buried in snow, or shivering cold under dreary skies. Take heart, here in Sacramento we reached a high of 67 today, the plum trees are in full bloom, the bees are buzzing and coats are being left at home. Of course it might rain all weekend, so we aren't done yet, thank goodness.