After weeks of unseasonably warm, dry weather, we had a sudden shift this week with our first real rainstorm of our all-too-short rainy season. I heard the forecasts for days before the event but chose not to put a lot of stock in the possibility as such chances of rain frequently fail to materialize. But this storm system gained strength and, just after midnight on Monday, we heard the first deep rumble of thunder, followed shortly thereafter by pounding rain. Rain continued at intervals, off and on, until Monday night. In my location, we collected an inch of rain in total.
Every time the rain stopped and splashes of blue sky appeared, I feared that was it. Late Monday morning, as the skies appeared to clear, I took my camera outside to catch the raindrops sparkling in the sunlight.
Regrettably, my photos don't capture the shimmering light my eyes saw in the Callistemon or the Leucadendrons in my back garden
Even if you can't see the sunlit raindrops, I expect you can tell just how clean the foliage was
The south-end succulent garden also looked clean and fresh
and a few plants, like the Agave 'Blue Glow' and Hymenolepsis parviflora shown here, did glisten
However, the oddest visual effect was the steam rising from the cold, wet surface of this patio chair as the warm sunlight caused the water to evaporate
Within perhaps half an hour of my jaunt through the garden with my camera, the clouds were back, followed by pounding hail, an unusual event here.
I took this photo through kitchen window when I realized that it was hail, not rain, pummeling the roof and the patio furniture outside
The hailstorm lasted maybe three minutes but the ice left behind hung on for considerably longer, even when the sun came out again
The hail wasn't limited to the patio. I found it all over the garden.
Only one of my three rain tanks, the 50-gallon one, is completely full but the 160-gallon tank is almost 75% full. In addition to what flowed into the tank from the roof surface on the north side of the house, I collected rain from a chain hung on the east side of the roof in plastic trugs, which I then transferred to that tank. The largest, 265-gallon tank, is harder to calibrate and is fed off the smallest roof space, our garage, but I'd estimate it's 25% full. All three tanks were empty when this storm moved in.
If you buy yourself a rain tank, I recommend getting one less translucent than this one. It had accumulated some algae at the bottom so I added a little bleach to it. I plan to let the rainwater sit a week or so before using it in the garden.
Yesterday was cold (in terms of how we evaluate "cold" in coastal southern California) and I only did a bit of garden cleanup. But, to celebrate the clean air, I took a couple of photos, starting with the sunrise.
The clouds on the horizon made this sunrise look almost like a volcanic eruption
I ended the day, with this shot of the mountains to the east, covered in snow, and the last full moon of 2020 rising as the sun set.
The title of this post was inspired by a song that sprang to mind as the result of our weather roller-coaster ride this week, Changes in the Weather by Barefoot Truth.
Believe it or not, late Monday afternoon we got a touch of hail here on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Our temperatures plummeted on Monday (by our standards) and everywhere I went all day people complained about the cold and the strong wind, which made it feel colder still. A chance of rain had been predicted but we really didn't expect any. We certainly didn't expect hail.
That's not just rain beading up on the backyard patio table
It was tiny pellets of ice, already melting as it landed
Our weather station showed a temperature reading in the 40sF at our elevation, some 800 or so feet above sea level, and the tiny ice pellets didn't last long
It was fun while it lasted! I've lived in Southern California all my life and I don't think I've seen even half a dozen hailstorms.
The hail flurry lasted less than 15 minutes and the precipitation wasn't enough for our weather station to register. We remain woefully dry, although there's a 40% chance of rain currently showing in the forecast for Thursday. The amount of rain expected from that system is trivial but maybe we'll get another weather surprise.
