Wet Chaparral...

At right is a graph showing the rainfall in Lawson Valley over the past few days. The storm total of 5.85" (about 15 cm) is still hard for us to believe – it's been five or six years since we've seen anything like that here.

Yesterday as I drove to work, I was delighted to see that Lawson Creek was flowing, and flowing strongly, with muddy water because of all the new sediment eroded by the heavy rain. On the way home, the water was still flowing strongly (though abated slightly), but now almost clear. Our creeks are all intermittent, drying up every summer. But the past few years have been very dry, and even in our rainy season the creeks have hardly flowed at all. I hope this is a portent of a very wet year, as we surely could use it...

The rains lasted for about 50 hours, with an average rate of just over a tenth inch per hour. That's actually quite intense for this area, though it might not sound like it to someone from another part of the world. Debbie and I once experienced a rain storm that averaged two inches per hour for six hours (in Hilo, Hawai'i) – now that was an intense rain storm!