Ah.  Spring is around the corner.  Daylight savings time jumps forward on the 14th of March.  The blooms are turning to leaves, grape buds are swelling.  It’s getting  soooo close.  So what’s with all this rain if blooms are on the trees?  We’re almost 97 percent of average rainfall in Santa Rosa this year, the reservoirs are full and our fields are photographically green as they can be.

Lighten up with the  rain already!  The grass in my backyard has morphed in to a forest tundra. I’ve thought about calling 1-800 rent-a-cow to mow our back forty.  I lost my 162 pound dog the other day in the weeds.   

Can I put this in perspective though?  April showers bring May flowers, so expect a few more weeks of clouds and rain interspersed with days of bright blue skies.  I used to think that after Valentines Day most of the big storms were over.  I’ve lost count of the floods I have covered in the months of February and early March.  Three years of drought trailing on the heels of an El Nino year have cancelled all bets.  

Recall those May rains last year?  Because of those storms we were only five inches below normal for precip instead of 10.  I also sent two cameras in for water damage after that.

I remember shooting a storm on Memorial Day many years ago (in the middle of a drought year) when Mark West Creek flooded a few barns near Starr Road in Windsor)  So yes, our weather is always a little out of whack.  But hey, wait 15 minutes and all will change. It will make a good pictures, too.

Will we have some of this…..

Bill Hewitt of Bodega Bay captures an Pacific Ocean scenic, Friday Feb. 26, 2010 north of Bodega Bay. The mid-day storm rolled through leaving partly cloudy skies in it's wake. Kent Porter / Press Democrat 2010

Or more of this….

Flowers may be blooming around Sonoma County, but winter storms are prompting unfurling of umbrellas, Tuesday February 23, 2010 at Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa. Kent Porter / Press Democrat 2010