We will have more rain coming in again, but then, we're entering into our rainy season anyway...not unusual. I hope you guys down there get rain, though not more than you can handle....

I live at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada’s at just under 3000 foot level we have had rain and mostly snow since last Thursday it been a real beautiful mess. Haven’t seen this kind of weather for years. We have lost 2 trees and several big branches off our oaks. Our driveway is long and steep so we have been kinda stuck until this afternoon when enough snow finally melted to get down it. The lake here has more than doubled in the last 3 weeks and is now over 200,000 acre feet. The local ski resort is closed today due to to much snow. There are only 5 ways out of this valley and now only 2 are passable, with chains required, the main road down the canyon will probably be closed for days due to rock slides. I feel sorry for the Cal Trans guys trying to clean it up. People are complaining that they can’t get out but I always remind everyone that not one person who moved up here didn’t know that the road in and out were dangerous and probably never going to be improved. The local market will run out of beer and bread for a few days. The river through town is raging the creek outside my bedroom window sound like Niagara Falls. I love it!

"The reason we dont use gutters is that when it does rain it overwhelms them anyway." From a drainage perspective, this makes no sense. You are basically saying that because say 10% of the water overflows the gutters, it's ok to have 100% overflow the gutters. The solution to overwhelmed gutters is larger gutters, more downspouts, or possibly just a small baffle on a part of the gutter system depending on how it overflows. You are permitted to connect your backwash drain for your pool filter to the sewage line but connecting the pool overflow to the sewage line is illegal in CA btw.

Actually the farmers in the middle/west side of the Central Valley were told they would only get 30% of their water this year. They stated that might change but for now, only 30%. I know that the flood district is releasing water from the dams into the canals and ponding basins right now in anticipation of the wet weather to come and the snow melt down the road. I just hope that we are able to get more water back into the aquifer. That is where it is needed as we are literally sinking from over pumping from the ag industry here. We are due for our 200 year flood soon. The last one happened in 1862. Sacramento was under water for six months. There are pictures of the event that shows people getting around downtown Sacramento in row boats! I believe there were several straight days of warm rain that came after heavy snows. That melted the snow and caused the flooding. It was quite the event. They had to move the capital of California from Sacramento to San Fran during this event due to the flooding. We had a disaster drill on it at work last year as a way of prepping for it. The pictures they showed us from it were amazing. We have a lot more ponding basins, canals, they have been building up the levy's, etc., since that time. We just had the person from the water district at our training last week (master gardener training). The pictures of all of the canals, underground systems, ponding basins, etc., was very interesting to show how they move the water around in the city. He spoke to us about that they are already releasing water from the dams and into the canals in preparation for this week's storms. We are not supposed to get hit as hard as Sacto/SF area, so I am sure they are doing the same up there in anticipation. Hope everyone stays safe and drives very carefully over the next week or so.