The clouds were starting to roll in by sunrise this morning, and it’s been mostly cloudy all day.

Just around sunset, enough clouds broke up to let some amazingly golden rays through.

The storm track has continued to shift a bit to the east, so while we’re still under an official Flood Watch and a Tropical Storm warning, we’re now expecting about 24 hours (roughly noon tomorrow to noon on Monday) of high (but not hurricane force!) winds and a decent amount (3″-ish, probably on the higher side) of rain over that time.

We won’t flood, we’re on top of the hill, but it’s possible there could be some local flash flooding. But we’re not going anywhere, so that shouldn’t be an issue. The biggest threat that I see might be a power outage, but spoiled freezer and refrigerator contents are the worst consequences of that.

Inland in the deserts? Flash flooding is a huge possibility. Places like Death Valley could get more rain in twelve hours tomorrow than they normally get in three years. Flash floods in the past have taken out bridges over dry riverbeds on the interstates heading toward Arizona and Nevada, so that’s a concern. Lots of folks are stuck living near burn areas from brush fires, and with these kinds of rain mudslides are a possibility and they could cause significant damage. Storm surge could cause serious coastal flooding and damage along the coast and out on Catalina Island.

In short, it’s a BIG area and I don’t expect too many issues HERE, but Hilary is a major, powerful, HUGE storm and elsewhere in SoCal it could get really nasty. Let’s hope that it doesn’t.

Yeah, I know that it’s August NOW. But yesterday it was still July, and in addition to that great full moon, around sunset we had a surge of monsoonal moisture pass through.

Of course, WE got zero-point-zero rain.

I guess we should have been grateful for the humidity. At least for a couple of hours the sun wasn’t frying the vegetation and sucking every last drop of moisture out of every leaf.

And the sunset was definitely beautiful, even if it was restricted to shades of yellow. No oranges, reds, or purples for us today.

That’s okay. It was a good end to a so-so month. I’m trying to learn to take what we’re given and make the best of it.

Check back with me later and see how that goes…

I was seeing the warnings from the local National Weather Service office on their Twitter account. Nothing near us (yet) but there were some big cells of convective activity (i.e., thunderstorms) popping up over the Antelope Valley and moving down toward Pasadena.

It was just a couple of minutes after sunset here, but those big thunderheads might be still above the horizon and lit up…

A quick walk down the “back side” of the hill showed that to be true!

I guess if you like seeing some active weather like I do, the Antelope Valley and upper desert were the places to be today! As Maxwell Smart used to say, “Missed it by that much!” (Where “that” is defined as 150-200 miles in this case.)