A little rain, not much drought relief.

At the very end of March/begining of April, we got some good storms, but the drought ain't over by any means, even though a few things bloomed, and the grass on hills is green and not brown.

The best part of storms is usually the 'back side', that is to say that after the front passes by what follows in it's wake are the most interesting clouds, all puffy and ragged, various kinds of cumulus.

 

Sometimes there are some killer showers in there - on one day, one of them passed thru and there was thunder, lightening, and rain and... hail!

 

Then 20 minutes later, the sun was out.

Mother nature is a most fickle and unpredictable bitch. The few shots (above) taken just minutes apart, from the 5th floor breezeway at my apt building...
after this passed the sky opened up.
Here's a few more 'back side of the storms'.

 

Since then? It's just been 'cirrus' all the way:

For the time being droughtwise, this is the story:

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/California-drought-Jobs-money-dry-up-in-farm-5431129.php

http://news.yahoo.com/totally-parched-100-california-drought-172950132.html

http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Study-links-California-drought-to-global-warming-5427269.php

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-las-vegas-drought-20140421,0,5098010.story#axzz2zWlFOVBp

Severe drought? California has been here before.
A thousand-year tree-ring study shows that deep droughts come with the territory.
Now the issue is how to deal with them.

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-drought-weakness-20140223,0,6503044.story#ixzz2uAM10o7


On long term prospects for drought relief?...
none really........ but hey! some potentially good news on the horizon:

"The odds are increasing that an El Niño is in the works for 2014—and recent forecasts show it might be a big one."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/04/07/el_nino_2014_2015_forecasts_show_it_could_grow_into_a_monster.html

I remember the last El Nino in 1997 ( I was living in SF, on 12th Ave just north the Golden Gate park), it was a monster!, it rained so hard that it set off car alarms on a regular basis, several times nightly.

Of course this much rain would be a blessing... but also a curse:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/24/california_s_rainiest_week_in_more_than_two_years_will_bring_mudslides_floods.htm

Here's a few 'weather' links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lmk/?n=cloud_classification

http://www.theweatherprediction.com/clouds/

As an amateur weather forecaster, one thing I can tell you about weather in California, and perhaps much of the rest of the West is... it's all about elevation.

Here's a couple of shots, weather coming over mountains.

 

Hi/low pressure systems come in off the ocean, and hit hills and mountains - initially 2000+ feet high, then there's the central valley, a bit of relief, then many more much bigger mountains called the Sierras.
All those changes wring out the clouds in various ways. You can stand at the lowest point in Death Valley in the middle of the summer, it can be 110 degrees... and there is still snow on the (4000+ ft) mountains that surround DV.
The world is more wonderous and marvelous than we can imagine.

One small nugget of wisdom i came across recently?

"Enjoy life - this is not a rehearsal"

Put that one in your pipe, 'and smoke it', so to speak.

We got some relief, but not much.

I have been watching this winter's weather unfold w/ no small amount of amusement.
I grew up back east, in Maine & New Hampshire. I remember winters well, there were only three colors, the white of snow, the green of pine trees, and the cold blue sky. Out west, where I am, the California coast, it's a bit more varied - we hope for rain, and variously green hillsides, partly cloudy skies. Which this year has not been the case. My color pallette has been confused by brown hills.
But at the beginning of March that hi pressure system that had been parked over the eastern Pacific drifted south, and the jet stream drifted south too...
and the 'storm door' opened:

....bringing... RAIN!

It also brought some nice clouds. I can't classify all these, or name them, there are many layers, some made a bit soft by a lowest layer of 'off the ocean mist'(light fog).

 

 

After they passed, it's been a cirrus sky.

These are definitely cirrus uncinus, a subform of cirrus clouds.

 

 

For more scientific stuff? go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_clouds

It is interesting to note that cirrus clouds are also seen on other planets:
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune... if it is indeed a planet.

Above, probably Cirrus fibratus

Meanwhile, drought is the topic du jour. Just because we had some rain doesn't mean we are out of the woods, oh no, not by a long shot.

"Within the span of a single afternoon, it’s possible to witness the past, present, and future of water issues in the West. We accomplished this by driving past the Hoover Dam, through Las Vegas, and on into California via Death Valley."

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/03/las_vegas_water_conservation_it_s_a_mirage.html

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Harpers Magazine:
Only viewable in full if you are a subscriber, but i strongly urge you become one.
It'll be the best 35$ you ever spent, i read the paper mag. from cover to cover.

http://harpers.org/archive/2014/04/razing-arizona/

Here's an excerpt:

"It was a river of drought, low enough that we could walk alongside the rafts, our feet sinking into the silky bottom. We had put in near Moab, Utah, at the mouth of Meander Canyon, where the Colorado River turns sluggish after racing out of the Rocky Mountains. There would be no worry about rapids for the next forty miles, not until Cataract Canyon, a stretch of white water that has a penchant for flipping boats and killing boatmen. Occasionally our rafts caught on sandbars and spun like lily pads, and we had to rally around them in the water and push. Where the flow deepened to the waist, a big-toothed writer named Bill deBuys, of New Mexico, who was once a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his book River of Traps, got out and swam. All but one of our party — the trip leader, John Weisheit, a slope-shouldered, slow-talking Moab river runner who had given up alcohol — popped open cold beers and jumped into the water, escaping the August heat as our boats drifted....."

-----------------------
For Imperial Valley farmers, abundant water amid drought.

While some areas of California face supply cutbacks because of the drought, the Imperial Valley has all the water it can use, thanks to senior rights on the Colorado River established decades ago.


http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-imperial-valley-water-20140317,0,7579263.story#ixzz2wGTQt7mb

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-imperial-valley-water-20140317,0,7579263.story#axzz2wGTI6IQx

On the other hand.......
Most Central Valley growers to get no water from Central Valley Project
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-drought-cvp-20140221,0,3521779.story

If L.A.'s the gauge, there doesn't seem to be a drought
By Tom Stienstra
Updated 9:52 pm, Sunday, March 2, 2014

http://www.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/If-L-A-s-the-gauge-there-doesn-t-seem-to-be-a-5282987.php

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Drying up the delta: 19th century policies underlie today's crises

Because they got there first, irrigation districts most Californians have never heard of have dibs on vast amounts of water upstream from the delta— even in times of drought.
Thanks to seniority, powerful Central Valley irrigation districts that most Californians have never heard of are at the head of the line for vast amounts of water, even at the expense of the environment and the rest of the state

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-delta-flows-20140323,0,4858708.story#axzz2wndwayXb

It's good to see that this talk about drought has brought the topic of water use in the west into the headlines, and fostered some discussion and attention.

http://www.sfgate.com/drought/

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Central-Valley-farmland-on-5342892.php

"19th century policies underlie today's crises"
You reap what you sow.