West Coast Weather Alert (WCWA) .. Wet stormy weather on the way

Yahoo! Weather ^ | 12/12/02 | NWS

[NormsRevenge]

Special weather statement 
National Weather Service San Francisco ca 
530 AM PST Thu Dec 12 2002 

...Wet stormy weather on the way...

A Major rain event is expected to hit the district over the next several days. There will be a series of Pacific storms rolling into the California coast...With the first rains expected to Reach mainly the North Bay region this evening. Rains will continue in the North on Friday...And will be spreading South over the entire san Francisco and Monterey bay region.

The strongest in the storm series is likely to occur Saturday and Saturday night...With very heavy rains...Strong gusty winds...High Surf conditions...Possible flooding and coastal flooding...And even a few thunderstorms. Copious amounts of rainfall are possible... especially in the North Bay where rainfall totals through Sunday May exceed a Foot in some areas. Urban and small stream flooding will be a definite threat. In addition...Strong winds of 40-50 mph are expected across the region...Especially on Saturday.

Rain will decrease Sunday but there will not be much of a break... as the next Strong storm in the series is forecast to arrive Sunday night and Monday. This will Increase the potential for additional flooding. Rains should taper off into Tuesday...With a possible break in the weather centered around Wednesday. One more storm is on the horizon to move into the Central coast from late Thursday into Saturday of next week.

Watches...Warnings and advisories for Strong winds...Gales...High Surf...Flooding and coastal flooding will likely be needed over the next few days...With the first of these issuances probably coming later today.

Persons planning travel or outdoor activities should Monitor weather conditions and forecasts...And plan for wet blustery weather in the San Francisco and Monterey bay areas this weekend and on into next week. Please stay tuned to noaa weather radio and other local Media for further details or updates.

[Calpublican]

Grampa Dave, Which county do you live in? I'm in Humboldt.

[Calpublican]

Hi, Fellow Freeper. You're in Eureka? I'm in Fortuna. Small world, ain't it?

[Grampa Dave]

Napa County! We got hammered today and particuliarly in the afternoon and evening. It finally is slacking off.

Tomorrow evening and night could even be worse as another frog drowner rides the jet stream into us and then slides south.

It looked like the jet stream went right over us and then made a kink turn over the county. That appeared to just trap the storms as they passed through here.

[Grampa Dave]

Here is the radar and you see how this storm just stayed over us.

[ladyinred]

Stay safe and dry everyone! The central valley is just getting light rain so far, hope it stays that way.

[bigj00]

Sounds like good weather for the Packers 49er game sunday.
GO PACKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Grampa Dave]

You might want to make sure that all of your drains and gutters are clear. I think you will get the storm as it slips south of here and then goes on east.

Napa is now in an official flash flood warning condition with two creeks presenting problems.

[steelie]

I,ve dumped 7 inches since 10pm yesterday in Healdsburg. Usually we flood after 6 inches in a 24 hour period.Already close to monitor stage.And don,t forget the Russian River rises for 7 hours after the last raindrops in Healdsburg. 24-32hrs in Guernville.

[ladyinred]

Wow. I saw this alert last night and was surprised. Guess we better batton down the hatches here too.

[Grampa Dave]

This afternoon, I believe that the Russian hit an all time high for this date or December at the Cloverdale station.

We have the same problem over here. Downtown Napa has flooded hours after the storm has left the upper Napa river area and headed east.

It looks like a lot of 6 to 8 inch areas in the North Bay areas.

[BooBoo1000]

Leave it to L. L to have the right stuff, sounds as if that little bugger would help when you are trying to bend on a # 18 midge late at night.

[Grampa Dave]

Below is the chart for the Russian at Cloverdale. They can't even chart the jump in the flow on a single chart. They had to use electronic cut and paste to show the flow.

I cancelled a steelhead trip last Tuesday because the water was so low on the Russian River:

An increase of flow from 120 cubic feet per second to over 6,000 in less than 24 hours is incredible.

[Grampa Dave]

I pretie tippets to all of my small flies 16 up to 22. I set up my magnifying glass with the light, either my Renzenti or a bigger vise. I tie on 18 inches of tippet to each fly, usually a Duncan's loop. I will tie the tippets to at least a dozen flies up to 3 dozen during one session.

Now for the best secret that I have re fly fishing. I then put each tippet tied fly into a PIP's Box, stick the tip of the hook into the cork pad of the box, and then close and rotate the clear plastic box cover until all of the tippet is spooled up on the enclosed reel in the PIP's box. I can put 20 to 30 small flies and their tippets into a single Pip's box. They are water proof and wind proof. The cork keeps the Pip's box floating if dropped in the water. When you want a fly, you just use your pliers and grab the fly by the bare hook and pull it and the tippet out of the Pip's box. The other flies and their tippets just stay in the box until you take them out.

Then I cut off 24 inches of a leader's tippet end if I'm using dries or emergers and put a perfection hard loop in the new end. Then I just remove the pre tippeted flies and clinch knot them to the perfection loop.

A week ago, in 3 hours I tied on 30 flies and removed 29 of them in 3 hours trying to get the two feet trout on Putah Creek to strike. Finally had one strike a fly and break it off after a couple of minutes. He was about 6 to 8 pounds. Too much weight for the light two pound tippets.

Re the little LL flashlight, I have been carrying it around all day doing things with it instead of a big two or 3 cell metal flashlight. I forgot that it was in one of my fishing shirts and it got washed and dried and still works. The control button has 3 modes. One goes off when you release the button. One flashes a flash per second. The last mode leaves the light on until you push the button to turn it off.

[tubebender]

Just checked my 2 dollar rain gage and we have only had 1.7 inches here in south Eureka but places like Honeydew probably had 10 to 15 inches. They can have 200 inches a year there and most of it drains into the Matole thank goodness or the Eel river valley would be a lake for a quarter of the year. Where were you two when the Mother of all Floods hit the north third of the state in 1964 ?

I just saw a shot of SF on the weather channel and it looked like the lights were out. I have to put in my 5 hours a week at the family business today. It allows me to rest up from the chores of retirement.

[Carry_Okie]

We are now at 7.3 inches for this storm. It's windy now, but not raining. Just oiled the boots for the day.

We live about 300' (80' elevation) from the crest of the hill on hard sandstone that doesn't perc very well. It drops off steeply just below the house. There are about a 1,000 feet of steep-walled drainages on the property that I have been in the process of rehabilitating. So far, so good. I'll use yesterday's dump as a diagnostic and go about doing what I can to refine things for tonight's freight train. Shovel time!

[NormsRevenge]

Good luck over the hill in Santa Cruz and in the mountains.

I used to love to play in the mud puddles and the fields during and after heavy rains or during snow melts in the spring. Hydrology and fluid mechanics .. neat stuff. 'Course the kitchen floor always got a little dirty when I came in to eat.

I have a feeling you're looking at more like 1 to 2 feet of rain there in the next couple of weeks at this rate.

We have had maybe 3/4 of an inch here in North san Jose so far, winds have just kicked in last couple of hours.

Ladyinred, Glad to see you guys may be getting some there too.

[NormsRevenge]

[Carry_Okie]

Good luck over the hill in Santa Cruz and in the mountains.

Luck? It's a matter of following instructions, spending the money, and doing the work.

I just had the privilege of clearing a half-dozen let outs along the road, then transplaning about 25 ceanothus seedlings God gave me. Later it's the adenostoma, (are you ready?) poison oak, and (if I find any) some toyon. After that, it's groundcovers: honeysuckle, native blackberry, roses, yerba buena, various lillies, and irises. Just identified a flowering currant returning for the first time since this place was cleared, over ten years ago. If I get time I'll sow some zauchnerias into sixpacks. Give me ten more years of this and this place will be unrecognizeable from the weed patch it once was.

[tubebender]

We had a tornado warning this morning at 10:45 for Cape Mendocino area. Eureka was hit with a squall of high wind and very heavy rain at that time. Here at the house we have had 1.5 inches between 7 AM and 1 PM. Flood warnings for all rivers except the Klamath.

[Grampa Dave]

We have had several squalls rush through since a little after noon.

Here is the radar picture that looks like it did at this time yesterday. Hopefully it will not repeat last night's stall over our area: