About the Author: Suzanne Wagner
Blog – Northern California Weather
A great atmospheric river came through with wind and rain. And not surprisingly the electricity went out from PG & E. But at my house we have solar and a generator so this morning my husband woke up early to fire up the generator and replenish our batteries as it is quite cloudy outside. Cloudy skies will still generate reflected light to our solar systems, but he likes to get all systems running to check them out and give them a test run.
I am grateful my husband is one of those men who can fix anything.
Out in the boondocks it is almost a necessary skillset. Because we have a steep pitch to our land, we have good and speedy runoff from our hills as we have channeled that water in ways that will allow large amounts of water to move but not take out our roads.
With this storm we have been out there checking to make sure culverts do not get clogged with debris. So far so good. We did a lot of clearing of the ditches last year before the rainy season came in. We had the warning from the meteorologist that we were in an El Nino year which always gives us more rain. So, at least we were able to prepare and not get surprised with this current series of storms.
I have learned that living off the land, one learns to think ahead and be more prepared.
In all honesty, I love hearing the wind whip through the great redwood and madrone trees. I love watching the power of the storms barreling through as we sit at the top of a ridge that divides the redwood forest landscape from the drier areas of oak and bay trees.
I will be off this morning to take my 16-year-old cat in to check her blood thyroid levels. She is hyperthyroid which seems more common in older cats these days. Wish me luck that there are no trees down on the roads as I go out. Otherwise, I might be back early and cancelling the appointment because I can’t get out of our area. Usually, someone in our areas is carrying a chainsaw to clear off trees that have fallen into the road. We will see how it goes this morning.
~Suzanne Wagner~
YouTube: