Paid over 6 dollars a Gallon for Regular Gasoline today here in California

 I was heading south from the SF Bay Area and stopped in King City on 101 for Gasoline in my truck and for the first time paid (for regular gas) over 6 dollars a gallon for it. When I arrived to visit my older daughter and son in law they said that many people they know from the University can't really go anywhere because it is too expensive to travel and people commuting to school or work now are really screwed trying to pay for their commute to school or work.

However, the good part of traveling south was that it was still 73 degrees on my truck Thermometer when I reached Santa Barbara as I was unloading my truck.

From about Atascadero north to the bay area the wild oats are mostly green from little bits of rain but the growth is only less than a foot high because of basically no rain to speak of since December when we got 150% of normal rainfall then. But, in January and February it has been the least rainfall ever since about 1871 so far. And March doesn't seem to be much different so far. We are getting about once a week a storm that might bring 1/10 of an inch to 1/100th of an inch but it's likely now that the bad fires will start by May or June at the latest in California. Also, the Salinas River is completely dry (which almost never happens year around (and right now it should be flowing pretty strong now in March but it's dry instead.

Lakehead has no water but a trickle from the Sacramento River and you would be lucky to even ride down it in an inner tube without harming your tailbone even then it is so shallow. Shasta Dam is down lower than I have ever seen it since I first saw it as a child in 1953 traveling north for a summer vacation then with my father and a member of our church from San Diego then.

So, regarding drought now we are in completely uncharted territory than I have ever seen before in my life time.

They are doing better after you get below Santa Maria and Buellton. The wild oats and weeds on the hills are at least 2 feet high because storms have been coming north from Baja California with this new and unusual weather pattern. But, from about ATascadera north to San Francisco we are in terrible drought now worse than anything I have ever seen before.

So, if we don't get major rainfall between now and May the fire season is likely to be very very horrific at least from Atascadero north to San Francisco and other parts of the state of California.