Category Archives: Weather

Not too long before these pictures got taken we had a couple of peals of thunder. Not usual around here most any time, but certainly not in the winter.

It had been raining most of the morning, but not hard. Off in that direction there was some much heavier rain, coming up from the south and streaming into Ventura and Santa Barbara, causing some local flooding.

I had come out during a lull in the rain to move the trash cans while I could, but seeing this coming I figured the lull wouldn’t last long. And it didn’t.

Several hours of a pretty good downpour started just a few minutes later. Those bands of low, white, ragged clouds in front of that darker wall of clouds behind? Yep, that’s mildly threatening, to say the least.

The first storm of December has rolled in, a solid cloud deck yesterday that gave us mist and petrichor, but not a lot of measurable precipitation.

What we did get visually was a grand view of “cloud butts” from horizon to horizon.

Whatever was going on up top, the bottoms of the cloud deck was turbulent and bubbly, the signs of a cold, active system.

With luck we’ll get some lightning and thunder tomorrow and Thursday, but the chances of that have gone down significantly since yesterday. Pity.

Yet another day with a bit more chaos than I had anticipated. And yet, good things have been accomplished.

I took a quick break and discovered that we had a passing shower overhead, but with the sun behind us, there was a dim but beautiful rainbow off to the northeast. Can you see it?

What I failed to see wandering around looking for a good view of the rainbow was the honkin’ freakin’ HUGE orb weaver spider that was about six inches from my head. (To be fair, while it was a large spider and scary looking, it was also harmless to me. Just get my monkey brain stem to figure that out.) I will refrain from sharing the pictures.

There’s today’s lesson. Beauty and fear, side by side. both with the ability to catch us by surprise.

What was supposed to be an “atmospheric river” bringing us 1″ to 2″ of rain over three days has turned into far less than an inch of rain yesterday, a nice day today, and maybe another half inch of rain or so tomorrow night into Saturday.

Meh

There were scattered showers popping up here and there. Most of them were “there.” We got nothing.

Out to the west over Ventura County there was some action and convective activity. Very pretty!

The first storm of the winter has arrived.

Just before the rain started, and it wasn’t a hard rain, just steady, the undersides of the clouds were dramatic.

The mail carrier was driving up one side of the street and back down the other as I was wandering around in the street to get the best pictures with minimal interference from wires overhead. He was nice enough to not run over me.

The smell of petrichor was heavy just before this first rain. The rough underside of the cloud deck indicates that it’s a cold storm with a lot of turbulence.

It will be cold and wet here for several days.

Gee, can you figure out which way the 40-50 mph winds are blowing?

I wish I could get frequent flier miles for the BBQ, lawn chairs, and empty trash cans out in the back yard.