Still another storm is hitting all of California

There has been one storm after another now for the last few weeks. This is good likely for California because it has come in dribs and drabs in such a way that we weren't completely flooded out most places and even one ski lift in Tahoe has 223% of normal snowfall for them. And this is a record for December of all time so far.

So, I looked outside last night and the rain had begun. This isn't as big a storm as the one last weekend but it still likely will increase the snow by 2 feet anyway. Though there is still more rain on the way here the first section of the storm is now south of us and in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles and some has gone into the Sierras to bring them about 2 feet more of snow.

My youngest daughter's room mate in Portland for several years flew back with her sister who is her new room mate in Portland to visit her family here in the greater SF bay area for Christmas. I offered to rent a car for her to get back to Portland in case her flight was canceled Sunday night but she said she wouldn't do that because she wasn't a good snow driver. Luckily her flight made it back to Portland on time so she could get to work this week. 

After hearing the bad experience my friends had from Mt. Shasta with 100 cars stuck in the snow some sideways on Highway 99 after Interstate 5 closed a few days ago I was glad she made a good decision.

I-5 closed for about a day I think it was Sunday night and about 100 cars of people trying desperately to get south got stuck in their front wheel drive cars sideways on 99. Hopefully they all survived this without getting frostbite or their cars running out of gas. People not used to driving in snow probably shouldn't have done this. But, people take all kinds of risks sometimes when they feel under pressure to get somewhere back to work.

Luckily, my friends have a really great all wheel drive so they made it through back to Shasta from Medford Oregon unlike all the people with front wheel drive cars who almost died on that road for a variety of reasons. The other problem is that if you slide off the road in the snow without chains or all wheel drive or 4 wheel drives the drop offs on I-5 or 99 are sometimes over several thousand feet basically almost straight down. This is why taking these kinds of risks in the snow is so dangerous besides potentially running out of gas so your heater doesn't work and you freeze to death.