A very light rain just started down here. It'll hit at rush hour...it almost always does.
I read SF and Sacramento have power outages, trees down etc.
{{gwi:504731}}

I just took a stroll (heh heh) to go get coffee. There are branches and tree debris everywhere! Power outages on the coast, but none here (yet). My girlfriend's going to our storage space to get out the camp stove in case we do lose power.

Not sure of the exact species, but we have many of the very large eucalyptus in our area. The are quite prone to dropping large branches and even falling over at the drop of a hat. Driving to work this morning was like driving over a mulch road.

I was looking outside and saw a 30foot tree go down. It's amazing. I am right in the path of a redwood swaying like mad. It's a crazy mess out there. The news said that 1.2 million customers without electricity, yet I am fine, it blinks all the time and my broadband keeps going out.
We have to replace a fence. :( not a happy day for us, guess it's worse for the people stuck on I5

My storm story of the day:

I usually park in my client's driveway in the Richmond district. He suggested I move the car across the street because his tree leans dangerously over the driveway and he was afraid it would break and crush the car.

So I moved it across the street into a 2-hour zone, because I'd already seen a dozen huge broken branches blocking various lanes on my way in. When I went back a few hours later...a branch had broken off and fallen on it! Thankfully, it wasn't a huge one and there's no damage.

Matt

High winds went through already. Lots of dust. Winds occurred while still no rain.

Winds have subsided here in BKF, but are still blowing at bit.

Rain is light. Power is out in many parts of BKF, but not here.

I here that two highways to the coast, 46 and 166, are closed due to high winds.

We had power out a few hours this morning (San Jose area) strong winds and lots of rain and I'm watching our fences and trees, but everything is ok so far. I heard there is more to come though.

A bit of wind here (Camarillo (just about halfway between L.A. and Santa Barbara along the 101 freeway), but not too bad. Lots of rain though Of course, I have no idea precisely how much because the local rain gauge isn't registering any data right now (I just can't seem to remember to order one).

Ryan

That wind is out of the South and is making for a nice warm-up here abouts.

Very nice for the beginning of Winter. 67F and overnight in the 40s.

I'm thinking about putting my overwintering plants back outside ... :)

Lots of wind and lots of rain, but so far, nothing really major in the way of damage, spills, or accidents. Tarp blew off my firewood which will be inconvenient as far as lighting fires and one unsecured trellis which wasn't really holding anything up blew over. Rain was heavy, but no flooding where I live. Nasy, miserable day, but we need the rain and a few out of the year ain't bad, so let it rain.

wanda

Not even a quarter of an inch of rain so far here in northern Orange County. Didn't even start raining until dusk. Looking at doppler radar on the internet seems like a hole in the rain pattern, with my location right in the hole with no rain. Has already stopped raining, at least for the moment, and according to the weather report we were supposed to be experiencing the heaviest rain right about now.

I lost chunks of fence, and my best friend had a tree come down on her roof. That had to be the worst storm I've seen here in Davis in the thirty five years I've lived here. Is this one of the opening salvos of global warming, I wonder?

Lots of wind and rain right now in Walnut, near Pomona. It has rained a lot so far. Most of my back yard is dirt after my pool was removed and I'm pumping and bailing water from a couple of areas that could end up in the house if it reaches the top edge of the patio. Since the deck drains are gone, our slope now drains into the back yard instead of down the drain, adding to the puddle. It's pretty cold too. No damage so far, and will be a good drainage lesson. Linda

It started yesterday (friday) about 11am and stopped I think around 1-2am eary this morning. 1.8 inches says my gauge. One inch of that came between 4pm and 9pm yesterday when the winds were rattling and rumbling.
Appears all is well by looking out windows.
Didn't get any of round one, so now ready for round 3.
I expect there probably is some local flooding in areas.

Phew! What a mess here on the Central Coast (Arroyo Grande).
The good: we really, really needed the rain. My neighbor's avocado tree dropped its fruit, so she gave us some. And, until last night we had one of those tall, heavy outdoor restaurant heaters on the patio. When it fell, it hit a window, luckily was deflected by the screen, and the window didn't break. Lucky. And none of the huge old eucalyptus trees fell.
The not-so-good: We'll be cleaning debris for a long time.
Right now- 7:45am - no rain or wind. Should start again soon.

Winds up to 75 mph, although not there yet; lots of rain and flash floods warnings, some flooding and roads closed here.

Power out for twelve hours yesterday; but back on now.

4.65 inches in our rain gauge last night...

It didn't start here in Oceanside until close to midnight and i think the worst of it came between 3 and 5 A.M.Lots of wind last night and i have some toppled b'houses on the patio,but that's all i see.

Gonna have to get with my neighbors,as they put up a block wall and now i have a good size puddle of water sitting outside my bedroom window.Will also have to get another neighbor involved as he put in my new sod lawn and i had told him to make sure he graded it properly,and it looks like it's a little too high which hepled cause the puddling problem.

Both are very nice neighbors,so i'm sure they'll help me out,as i'm the senior citizen on the block.
Kathi

Rather disappointing here. We got just a little over an inch. We missed out on the storms that dropped all that rain on Los Angeles previously as well. We supposedly have approximately the same average precipitation as L.A. (somewhere between 12-15 inches a year) but in my experience, our individual storm totals are always lower.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the local topography. I'll see if I can figure anything out with some GIS modeling this quarter.

Ryan

I'm sure topography and positioning do figure into it, Ryan.
My address is San Jose, but I'm in very south San Jose in an area called Evergreen. As of last night, San Jose had 1.84" of rain and Evergreen recieved 2.04". Our rainfall totals and temps. are usually always a few degrees higher or lower than the San Jose readings.

wanda

Wanda,

We're on a coastal plain at the western edge of the Santa Monica Mountains. A closer examination of Google Earth revealed the likely cause. I thought that we had a clear southern exposure when in fact the hills extend a little bit west of our position south near Pt. Mugu NAWS. This would tend to interfere somewhat with southerly flow, particularly weak flow.

I'll have to see if I can get someone to model the effects for me.

Ryan

The last 15 years of undergrounding electric and re routing water pipes around our six acre paradise saved us any damage. Just this last year we installed a 2500 gallon water tank we use for our ozone treatment system and located it high on the property in hopes of having a gravity water source the next time we lose PG&E. The last two days with no electric power was made bearable by having plenty of water. You have no idea how cross my wife becomes when she cannot flush the toilet! Al

I was thinking of that yesterday, Al. I was in line at the grocery store and some people were complaining of no water as well as no power, like my neighbourhood had to endure. I felt really bad for them; at least I could make a nice hot cup of tea in a dark and cold house; I have gas heating and running water. I don't at all blame your wife for her bad mood when the water problem arises!

People forget they have water...in their hot water tank.
You can always drain that in buckets for flushing.
If you have an older one you should drain a few gallons occaisonally to get the sediment out.

We're in the Oakland hills, SF Bay Area. Just a lot of rain, some winds but not that bad. Nothing fell over or got damaged, fortunately.

We just got our power back after 31/2 days of being withour. Wee are on a well, so no running water. We have a propane stove so we were able to use it if we started the flame with a match. We kept at least two burners on all day and evening to keep it warm. We used oil lamps for light. We had a kerosene heater(leftover from Y2K) and lots of kerosene to heat in the evening and early in the mornings. We didn't want to use it too much as we were afraid of fumes and it stunk. We do have a CO detector so we were safe. Luckily, I had been saving milk jugs and soda bottles to do winter wowing, so when we heard the weather reports saying that many people would be without power, we filled those up with water so we had enough for cooking and toilet flushing, on a limited bases. The power came on in town and I was able to refill my water jugs there. The only damage we had was a garden arch knocked down. Many of our friends had roofs damaged or trees blown over. We had 31/2" in our water gage. I am sure glad it is over. I sure wish we had a generator. That is first on our want list.

Donna in Orland

PG&E was here at 1am this morning, after 68 hours without power...but who's counting? :D The fun of "camping" wore off at about hour 45 or so. LOL

A large limb from one of the dangerous trees we have around here brought down the service line between our house and the street, so we were the only ones out. After being here 12 years or so, I'm still not sure what kind of trees these are, but they're VERY tall and long-limbed, and the landlord hasn't bothered to cut them back at all...even after one of our vehicles was totaled by a limb from the same tree a few years back.

The neighbors were nice enough to let us hook up an extension cord to keep the fridge going, and the well is on a separate line, so we had cold water and flushing capability!

We weren't high priority, so we thought we'd have to wait until tonight to get power. I checked the rest of the yard, and EVERY plant had at least a medium-sized branch on it...but no serious damage to them! I'm so thankful we were all safe and that the birds don't have to huddle under the front porch any more. :)

I don't know what the wind speed was here (my folks in Redding said it hit something like 82mph up there!) or how much rain we received, but I'm glad it's over!

Brenda

I was in a big storm in Fort Bragg last year and without electricity for a couple of days, no gasoline either. I found the value of flushing water! But we have a pool so we'll always have flushing water if not drinking water.

My only tree damage occurred today, over two days after the winds and rain. I just happened to be looking out my back door when I saw the 60 year old Japanese plum tree come creaking down to the ground, and come to rest quite artfully to miss the deck, other smaller trees and my house. My first thought was, "Thank God I wasn't up in the damn thing pruning it when it came crashing down." I feel for all of you without water and power and real storm damages, but still, am not really looking forward to renting a chain saw to clean this mess up! This tree is the last remnant of the original landscaping before I bought the house, so I guess the garden is finally all my own creation...

I also thought I would touch base with various garden clients to see how their gardens fared with the high winds. In particular I am hoping my client with the 2 100 foot tall and 100 year old Monterey Cypress trees in the top of the Oakland Hills still has his house and garden intact. I have been trying to persuade him that it is time to take these trees out for the past 2 years, but the cost has scared him from tackling it. I need to get up there and see if there is any indication of heaving soil from rotten roots, and pronto...

I got a chance to see the storm over a large part of the state Sunday. Went storm riding from BKF up to SJO to check out new place in my quest to get out of BKF. It wasn't a bad trip, just a lot of cloudiness and drizzly to medium rain most of the time. Late Sunday night, the rain got heavier as I drove out of Gilroy to get back to the 5. They've got the 152 all torn up where it junctions with the 156 to Hollister and the dark rainy night conditions could lead to a good accident right there as it is very difficult to discern the split with glaring headlights in your face as you approach it. I myself, wound up on the 156 into Hollister and had to U-Turn to get back to the 152 and continue East. Arrived OK back in BKF about midnight, but definitely ... you need to be cautious when driving in these conditions, especially, in construction zones on mountain roads like the still single-laned sections of the Pacheco Pass Highway.

The rain is a good deal. It's gonna be a green spring when it arrives.

A neighbor's tree fell and took out a portion of the back fenceline. It's in an area that it is unlike they will go, so now I'm going to have to go down to the county records to find out WHO exactly owns this corner of their world and let them know before their horses /or steers end up over here eating my garden.

Westelle, go to zillow.com, you can see the property lines there very well. LA county has the assessors map online, perhaps yours does as well.
I have emailed the LA county for name before and they told me via email. Just tell them the situation and the parcel ID.

Thanks gobluedjm,

You just gave me a nice tool to check out properties where I am moving to without having to be there to look. The site provide value and photo. Too bad it doesn't tell me what the financial state of the owner is.

Bearstate, don't trust the property values 100%. You would want to consult a licensed realtor for that. The site does get their info from tax rolls and then do some calcuations of their own, but yes it is a great tool and mostly current pics from last couple years.

You could obtain a somewhat financial state of owner buy checking the county assessor website for tax deliquent payments if that county is available on the web.

Dont know how many need this info but...The winds and rain almost blew over a 12' Euphorbia abysinnica,yet had no effect on two similar sized E.ammak's. The former with a near severe lean is now tied to a railng .

Stanofh, I would get that tree down if you can.
Almost everyday on news here in the LA area there is a report of a tree down and damaging cars, homes etc.

The storm has really hit our local farmers hard. A friend of ours has 60 cows that his daughter uses the milk from to make prize-winning cheeses. He could not milk them or give them water without power. His generator failed to work.. He was able to take them to a friends place who had the set-up to milk and care for the cows. One Almond rancher had 70% of his almond trees uprooted. There is a long waiting list for new trees and it takes 4-5 years before they start producing. I wouldn't be surprised if some farmers just give up and sell their land. I am so grateful that, aside from the inconvenience of being without power, we had so little damage.