Stormy Weather: Fast moving warm storms

I'm sitting with my door open to my back yard on my redwood deck overlooking a stormy scene. Likely I will have to go inside because drops of rain are hitting my laptop now soon. This is the kind of weather where trees come down because there are gusts of wind between 20 miles per hour constant with gusts up to 30 to 50 miles per hour. However, paradoxically for northern California it is also about 68 degrees to 70 degrees right now which makes it feel more like southern california or Hawaii in some ways. Because it should be about 48 degrees right now this time of year instead of 68 to 70.

I had the opposite experience a few days ago on Mt. Hood in Oregon when I was skiing there with my oldest daughter and her boyfriend when I was thrown off the ski lift at the top. I had been wondering why the ski lift kept stopping. It was because every third or 4th ski chair was throwing the occupants into the air because of ice. But, they couldn't stop the lift permanently with out giving frostbite or worse to the hundreds of people on the mile long lift at 15 to 20 degrees with 20 to 30 mile per hour winds. 

So now, I have an almost dinner plate sized black and blue mark on my right hip with it still weeping on 1/2 of it from that spill onto the icy 45 degree angle disembark point for the chair lift.  But, that is par for the course if you are going to ski I guess in that cold of weather.

Luckily, no trees have come down near to where we live and we have had to bring down most of our large trees that could have destroyed our home during the last 15 years we have lived here as they were broken by the winds or died of old age (However, I have planted many pine trees within the last 10 years or so, so I have at least 10 new trees up to 10 to 20 feet tall already from doing that. But, now is the time from about now until March or April when we sometimes get 100 mph winds that really bring down the Pine trees especially in this area and sometimes destroy homes in their wake. This and power outages are common because the electric lines are not buried like in some places but on poles. I had to move inside because it is raining but left the door open while I sit in a outdoor lounge chair in my Foyer which joins the front door to my redwood deck and back yard in the back. So, it is quite warm to be able to do this for northern California like I said.

Within the last 5 years one home within about a block of us was crushed on the corner by a falling pine tree. Luckily, the man was a building contractor so it wasn't as expensive as it could have been for him to fix his house.

Also, I was told when we bought this house that a tree had fallen across this house too. However, because this house was built for a cement tile roof it didn't collapse because it was designed for the extra weight of a permanent roof you don't ever have to change unless a tile breaks or the tar paper underneath begins to leak. So, likely when the tree fell across our house before we bought it all they had to do was remove the tree and replace any broken cement tiles and to fix any tar paper that tore.

So, if you are building a home where there are a lot of trees, for the safety of your family you might want to Overbuild it for a cement tile roof so your family won't die if a big tree comes down on it. However, if you are surrounded by trees 3 foot or 4 foot through and one of those comes down it will still destroy your home. I think the tree that came down on our home was only 1 foot to 2 foot through in diameter so the weight the roof and house could withstand without breaking through.