Winter 2006; Floods, Christmas and Global Warming, 3/12/06

It has been an interesting winter. We started out with floods, then had Christmas and a month later got hit by global warning that was colder than a witches tit. There's a lot of info on this page, so you may wish to scroll downward to see stuff that doesn't appear in your browser.

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When seven inches of rain falls overnight in the Santa Cruz mountains, all that water decides to get downhill fast. A lot of it comes down through the San Lorenzo river, which runs right through Santa Cruz. The good news was that the levys in Santa Cruz (unlike New Orleans) held. The flood went through the San Lorenzo park area and washed out what's normally dry land. Things were OK, but barely -- a bit more rain would have gone over the levys and flooded the whole town.

Then came Christmas. We went over to Maggie's, and Calvin enjoyed himself.

Last night Global Warming hit Capitola!!! For the first time since 1976 there was snow here down to sea level. You folk back east (like Ohio) will laugh and chortle, but we had an honest to God 1/2 inch of global warming. It started out as a hail storm, changed to lightning, and then dumped a whole half inch of white stuff on us. By the time I got up to take pictures, it was melting fast, but let me tell you: This global warming is enough to freeze off my privates...