Our local news is hyping this hysterically. I wish they wouldn't - they might jinx it!

Jackie

So true! They love to jump on the bandwagon of anything that might have some drama, and we're seeing the same thing here. On the other hand, I eat up very word they print about it, hoping as the time draws closer they are accumulating more and more reliable data to make their predictions more accurate. Last year after the initial hoopla they backed down pretty quickly, but this time it's going the other way, and NOAA is usually pretty cautious about what they put out there. Still, I'll believe it when the soil from the vegetation-less hills on our land covers the driveway and we'll need sandbags to keep the soil from the rock formation near the house from burying us. Interestingly, for the first time ever we've received a letter from our insurance company offering flood insurance for those living in low-lying areas, so I do believe something is expected. We just don't know exactly when or where. I don't believe all parts of California are expected to be affected to the same degree.

I plan on doing my part to help it rain......not sure I can get the shop roof fixed in time. But I will wait til rain is forecast to buy tarps

What I hope is that you will get rain, but not too much at once. I'm also hoping the PNW isn't so warm and dry that you lose the melted snow-pack...

Weather doesn't always cooperate with gardeners' wishes, but I'd say y'all are overdue for a lucky break.

Virginia

We're going to start accumulating sandbags.

Lol, Jeri, you're a hoot! I am glad to hear about El Nino as well. Means a milder winter for me too! And I don't know if I could take a third polar vortex in a row! I hope they're not jinxing it either but they're getting a little desperate for something to hype since they don't seem to have any tropical storms to hype at the moment. They have to have something dramatic to talk about and I guess the El Nino fit the bill.

A few months before the big El Nino of '97/'98, there was a wildfire that burned over the hillside up in front of us. When the rains started ... late, maybe March, we were inundated, not only by water, but by a nasty slurry of liquified sandstone. Where it hardened in the garden, it was almost like rock. Water didn't penetrate. We lost roses to that.

It ran down the hillside, through neighboring properties. Filled one neighbor's sunken patio with water and mud three times. The fire Dept. was getting pretty tired of pumping it out.

We saw "fountains" of water erupting from gopher holes as the water rolled downhill. My husband saw one big gopher swimming like mad, down the middle of the Lane.

The sand-laden water ran down the easement next to us. Part of it jumped over onto our part of the hillside, and cascaded off at the bottom, where the hillside had been cut away, to allow a house addition.

It collapsed a rotted out [illegal] 4-Ft. Railroad-Tie retaining wall, which made those people pretty mad. It left half a dozen roses hanging in mid-air, with their roots waving in the breeze. (The homeowners said they would replace their retaining wall "when they have the money.")

We sandbagged to keep as much water as possible going down the easement, and also going down the Lane. We were all out there, in knee boots and slickers, dealing with it day after day. Week after week. (Yes, we were younger, then.) It filled the street with that sandy/muddy goop, about 12-ins. deep. All that had to be dug/carted out. It completely closed the street that our street runs into. We could only get out by going UP the hill, and over a few blocks.

It inundated one small remnant of avocado orchard, and killed all of the trees.

So -- When I say that we are going to be stocking up on sandbags -- I was not being funny.

Jeri, I sure hope you will not have to deal with anything like that ever again; it sounds like the sort of nightmare my unconscious isn't imaginative enough to dream up.

Hopefully, if you have sandbags that will be enough of a 'jinx' that you won't need them.

Virginia

We always have a need for "play sand." So, if we stock up on that, and it isn't used, no harm done.

But, back then, they ran out of sand and sandbags at Home Depot. So, "PLAN AHEAD" sounds like a good motto.

But I am not at all looking at it solely with negativity. A wet winter should let some roses become at least partially established before we re-descend into Hell. And who knows? Maybe we'll even get a "normal" summer!

I remember that 97-98 El Niño. We were neophyte SB Co landowners having just mortgaged the future for our dream retirement parcel and quite naive as to the wiles of nature. That year we lost 20 x 50 feet of dirt road to the overflows. Lots of tractor work to repair that! Our house is now built with the dirt road replaced by a half mile of a darn costly compacted shale driveway which looks like it will need protecting this year. The roses are mostly on gentle slopes now with 5 inches of mulch. I will hope for lots of well placed rainfall vice those horrendous 6 inch rain days that clay soil just cannot handle. All-in-all, I whole heartedly agree with Jeri on stockpiling sand and bags!

Thank heavens I will have no need for sand bags, nor any slope potentially eroding from under me. That all belongs to someone else now. Good riddance!

I am glad we are at the top of the hill! If it gets bad water will run through the "garages" but that is the norm.....

Kim, your neighborly compassion is a hoot, lol. But I am glad you have a couple less gardening headaches to deal with.

John

vmr.... We only had 7-14% of normal snowpack here in coastal W. WA, so not much to lose,it was all gone beginning of July, 2 months early. Our drought designation has changed from Severe to Extreme &some of our juvenile salmon are dying in the rivers due to a rise in water temp. Another contributing factor was our May, June rains were virtually non-existent. I hope the El Nino spares us some much needed rain although I would prefer snow in the mountains from whence cometh my drinking water. We are on every other day rationing & cannot water between 9 -6. I cannot tell you how bizarre this all seems to us, wasn't it only a couple of months ago that William Shatner wanted our water?

Jane

Jane, I didn't realize it was so bad over in the PNW. Hope you get some wet stuff soon- preferably, some snow, too, so you'll have drinking water...

Virginia

Thanks, Virginia, I guess we're all at the mercy of Mother Nature, we've been very fortunate in the past, we all took the water for granted, now I'm using a lot of the tips the So Cas' have been sharing,

Jane

Here's my list

Balloon flower

blue sage

iris

verbena

yarrow

cosmos

columbine

zinnia

daylily

Blue stem

snapdragon

Coleus

Jeri, your description reminded me of the bad storm we had 3 Mays ago that caused all the construction in my neighborhood. I slept through the whole thing, but there was a bad storm and we received 10 inches of rain in 3 hours. It became worse when the water burst through a fence in a yard across the street from me and the home owner had piled yard waste in front of it. All that water and debris rushed downward towards a drain and clogged it. Then the water built up, unfortunately flooding the basement of the two homes near the drain (which had been similarly flooded 10 years ago). At some point I had 2 feet of standing water in my yard, I could tell by the debris line. But luckily my house is higher in the front and slopes downward away from my basement so I did not get any water in there. Now with the new drainage, we get a river running through our yard, but it dissipates after a bit. Of course if we had an El Nino like event, who knows what would happen. After that first rain (after the construction) all that was left in my yard was sand silt. It was like I had beach front property. I also remember a bad rainstorm when my neighbors drain hole cover popped open from the force of the storm water and the statue on top went flying. Almost funny, but not really.

In a town near us during the famous New Year's Day night storm of 2005, the little creek which ran through the middle of town (Ross & San Anselmo) overflowed its banks onto its traditional flood plain, which unfortunately was the main street of the town, and surrounding homes. I have seen pictures of the street under 4-5 feet of water, running strongly like a large river! This happened at midnight, and it took a while for the police to go door to door waking people up, and also turn on the air raid sirens (they didn't have reverse 911 then). Many many homes were right near the creek and were destroyed, as were many of the stores lining the little main street.

So, the next year they passed a special flood property tax. Between 2005 and now they have done studies, hired zillions of consultants, had law suits (over the tax), had more studies, and right now are in the middle of a huge controversy about a public park that the powers that be want to use as a "holding basin" to hold water a while during the next flood. What has not happened? Any actual physical construction or changes. The holding basin issue has precipitated TWO conflicting measures on the Nov ballot. Perhaps by then there will be another flood, and they will get moving!

Jackie

Yeah, it took 2 years for us to get action on our drainage issue. 10 really from the initial problem which we were then told was a 'once in a century' event....

There's no more "once in a century" or "once in a lifetime."

In the early 1860's California experienced severe flooding, which killed most of the cattle. (That was the agriculture of the time -- the "Rancho Period.")

Two years later, California descended into a multi-year drought, which killed most of the remaining cattle.

That lead to our "food-crop" economy, which is now threatened by an even worse drought. :-(

Sorry, Jeri, I didn't realize you'd had such problems before. I thought you were being skeptical about getting rain. I rarely believe the weathermen much any more. More often than not they're wrong.

You're right comtesse, and at this point I no longer believe in regular winter rains, or regular anything. It seems clear that drought will be a way of life in the future in many parts of the world. The El Nino that we're hoping for may well be followed by ten years of drought or even worse. Everything that the scientists had begun to warn us about as early as 1984 has come to pass with a vengeance, with some events happening even more quickly than expected. The Florida coastline and its cities WILL be flooded, which is ironic since so many of the die-hard global warming deniers live there. Ignorance becomes more dangerous every day.

In eastern Washington, we're having problems with smoke from the many fires in north and central Washington. Last year had very little snow pack, but this year will probably be a lot of snow!

In the past, it seems like a light snow was followed by a heavy one....and the trees and shrubs are loaded with berries! That's usually a good indication we'll have a long, snowy winter. The birds have to eat :)

Fires! Right now we live not many miles (maybe 40) from the largest fire currently burning in the U.S., upwards of 300,000 square acres. It's called the Soda fire and is finally almost contained. Meanwhile, all over the state, more fires burn, and people have been evacuated from their homes in North Idaho. Last I checked there were 26 fires burning in the Payette National Forest. Anyway, we currently have very smoky skies with orange alert out for contaminants in the air. This seems to happen every summer, but it's getting more severe, as are all our weather events. Hotter temps, high winds at 100 degrees, and of course drought , which we have, while other parts of the U.S. seem to drown in rain or snow.. It's easy to see that global warming is bringing more severe weather patterns. So, for a temporary respite from all this, it would nice to have some rain gifts and moderation from El Nino. Just hoping. Diane

I remember 98. That is the year we recorded a 100 inches of rain here. Then the 2005 storms our driveway looked like a Rocky Mountain stream on New Years Day. I was out ditching the road and ditching to keep water from flowing over our pond. It used to be normal here to have at least 60 inches of rain. This would fill our pond and replenish our springs. This is what I know here rather than worrying about every gallon of water. If the drought continues things will have to change in my garden. I'd rather go out and ditch.