Sunday, October 16, 2016

Three Days of Storms, winds and now Driving Rains are starting to bring the trees down

I just came through a major artery (road) to where I live and saw 50 vehicles have to take a detour because a huge tree had fallen across the road. Already people were trying to get it away with chain saws because so many people need this road to get to their homes etc.

I called my wife who was out shopping with a friend in the terrible weather to tell her she couldn't get in the main way to where we live. I then checked an alternate route and it was still open with no big trees down just yet but that could also change. Also, the water, wind and pine needles make the roads very unsafe especially if you are traveling downhill right now or going around corners up or down hill. So, if you are anywhere in northern California, Oregon or Washington or Canada be careful this weekend with all the weather changes.

I had gotten sort of bored from three days of storms and being indoors and decided to go out and see the ocean 1 mile from where I live in a big pine and oak and Redwood forest with ferns. So, I drove there in my 4 wheel drive. I noticed that rogue waves every so often were coming 150 yards up further than normal and was hoping tourists wouldn't be swept off rocks who aren't familiar with the ocean like I am and what can happen in an instant if you don't know what to look for in a storm.

I luckily was the only one brave enough to go to this beach today and so I took a rubber jacket with a hood that is best for this kind of storm and driving wind and waves and rain. Even I was a little nervous going out onto this beach because everything was so unpredictable today. What I didn't expect was that tons of seaweed has washed onto the beaches from the storms so far and that the water on top of this seaweed makes them very slippery to walk over. So, I had to be really careful walking over these to not fall down crossing a stream with my Crocs in this heavy weather. I just made it across the beach to a stairway going up a cliff when a rogue wave covered everywhere I had just been so I realized I better not go back across the beach if rogue waves were this big or even I might be swept away on a day like this.

We have had 2 or 3 storms one after the other hitting but it didn't rain that long constantly as much as this last storm has since yesterday sometime. The rain is a driving rain where it is blowing so hard I have to hold my rubber hood on my jacket so it doesn't blow off my head.

However, I just got back to my cozy home and my wife and friend are okay and for now all is well, even as the storm seems to be hitting harder and harder here on the northern California coast.

We don't get that many storms with this kind of driving rain that comes under the eves on one side of the house and wets every window and door and screen 6 to 8 feet high on all the buildings. There is likely to be flooding from anywhere here on up north to Canada all along the coast from storms like these all at once.

Also, there are Gale Warnings along the coast from Fortuna in California up past Coos Bay in Oregon and there are wind warnings all across northern California and Nevada as well as most coastal western states.

http://www.ksbw.com/alerts

Take a look at the alerts both rain, wind and Freezing Rain across Alaska, Canada and the Western States all the way from the Aleutians to Colorado, California and all the rest!

I don't remember seeing this many alerts on a single day so many many places in the west at once.

Now the alerts stretch from the Aleutian Islands all the way to Hallifax Nova Scotia in Canada.


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