Well That Was a Lot of Nothing

For nearly a week the forecasters have been warning of a huge storm that was to hit the Southland today bringing heavy rain all day to the drought-stricken county and showers through Sunday. Every station had reporters up in the burn areas to show us where mudslides were likely to occur, and the Sheriff's Department were issuing mandatory evacuations to people in the local canyons. It was gonna be a gullywasher.

I fully expected to awake during the night to the sound of pounding rain and having to get up bleary-eyed to check the drainage on our upstairs deck which can flood if leaves block the drain. It's a hassle I go through with every heavy rainstorm (including last Friday's unexpectedly heavy event). Instead, when I woke up at 5:30 this morning I could hear nothing more than a gentle rain. I flipped on the TV and the radar showed that most of the storm was already past, and in fact since the 10 pm newscast last night the dreaded low pressure system that was supposed to bring us all this havoc had stayed north and was going through Central California instead of coming our way.

It quit raining by 7am and we haven't even had a shower since then. We probably didn't even get 1/4 inch.

Note to meteorologists: If you can't even get the forecast right for the next 12 hours, why should I believe you when you tell me what temperatures will be like in 50 years?