STORM!!!

This could very well be the last communication you ever see from me. You see, California is at it again. In the past few weeks I’ve survived earthquakes, watched as large Pacific waves threaten to reclaim Pacific coastline as its own, and now the holy trinity of El Nino storms is upon us. As one of my coworkers casually suggested to me this morning, what’s next…locusts?

It seems like Mother Nature is trying to one-up herself with these storms. Three inches of rain in 24 hours, thunder and lightning, gale force winds, and hail. And this is only January. Our rainiest months are yet to come here in Northern CA.

Oddly, what I'm finding most impressive is not the spectacle of the actual weather patterns but the local media storm coverage. Each night, the lead story has been STORM!!! Man is that Doppler Radar milking its 15 minutes of fame. I tune into the evening news half interested, half amused as the coverage raises fear levels to places Homeland Security could only dream of. Floods! Downed power lines! Falling trees! Rising creeks! Car accidents! Mudslides! There is no end to possibilities of how this storm is going to get us. Apparently the worst of this storm trifecta is set to arrive tomorrow morning just in time for the morning commute. One station is even calling it "the big one." (Add ominous music for a more dramatic effect...)



While I don't doubt we'll get a serious lashing tomorrow, the unintentional comedy the media brings to an annual event (rain) is hard not to laugh at. After all, compared to other parts of the world, we just have it easy here, occasional nasty storms and all.

Try to stay dry and look out for "the big one."