Rain!

Here atop our coastal terrace where our home ranch is located, there is very little between us and the coast to slow storm systems down as they come off the Pacific Ocean. For most of the day last Sunday it felt as if our house was in an enormous car wash—being buffeted by near-40mph gusts and driving rain. As of Monday morning we had received around an inch and a half—a lot for a mid-October storm, but far less than the six inches my cousin Josh measured at their farm in nearby Corralitos where the moisture is compressed against the Santa Cruz mountains. Such gradients are not uncommon—on average we receive nearly half the rainfall as they do. And the further up the mountains you go, the more extreme the difference is. In Ben Lomond, for instance, over 9 inches of rain fell between last Friday and Sunday! That is nearly half of the rainfall we receive here in an entire season.

Since farming is such a weather dependent occupation, people often ask me where I turn for information; the answer is that I mostly use the National Weather Service’s website. They have the usual weekly forecast summary, using icons to show which days will see sunshine and which will be cloudy, just like most other sites do. But I go straight for the discussion section—where the good stuff is. This is where the forecasters have to explain how exactly they came up with the general forecast they did and it is full of much more nuanced and specific information. Forecasters these days blend information from several different computer models, some of which perform reliably better that others. Over the years I’ve learned that the “Euro” (European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting) has the best track record of all.

Another great feature on the website for weather nerds like myself is the hourly rainfall page where you can see the hourly totals for all of the automated rain gauges in the State. It gives you a fascinating snapshot of just how large some winter storms are and it dramatically shows the differences between wet mountaintop spots and those in nearby rain-shadows.

By the way, the “Euro” is calling for rain again early next week, so batten down the hatches!