Time to use the 'D word'

That would be drought. I’m looking at the 10 day and not seeing sh!t. I see a bunch of dry creeks all around the county. I hope in a couple of months I’m bitching about how wet everything is, but right now I’m not happy pileon

SHhhhhh! The Sonoma County Water Agency will raise our rates AGAIN like they did when we conserved during the last drought and they claimed low revenues due to conservation. Didn’t they just raise rates again this month? Enough with the “D” word already!

No rain here either and that’s really unusual.

I can never remember going the whole month of November and half of December with virtually no rain before.

Roy, that sounds like short memory to me. [basic-smile.gif]

I hear that this has been the driest Decenber in Napa county in 120 years.
We are at .04" for the month of December, with no real rain in site.
Tegan

So far this winter is eerily similar to the winter of 1976-77, at very bad drought year.

You left-coasters can have some of our rain/precipitation. We just set a new all-time annual record in Connecticut and we aren’t done yet. The good news is that you probably don’t have to invest in rain sensors on your field weather stations but the bad news is you probably have a bevy of soil moisture sensors to dial in irrigation. Do you guys have any wells? If so do you have to pay a use tax for pumping water from your own well? Looks like this might happen in Texas where their drought is expected to continue into next year. Kind of reminds me of mineral rights vs land ownership. Good luck with the rain dance…Gary

Does this mean that rains will be pushed back and last until June again?

My boss and his family are going to Tahoe next week…and there is no snow there. Not good for the ski resorts either.

Not much snow anywhere: http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/snow_model/images/full/National/nsm_depth/201112/nsm_depth_2011121705_National.jpg

No white Xmas for us. Haven’t seen snow in my area since the pounding we got last winter. Usually we have seen some snow by now in my area. No complaints just observations. Thank goodness I didn’t get the grandkids a sleigh!

Interesting looking back on this, and what ended up being a high yielding 2012 afterall. Hopefully 2014 follows a similar pattern.

Question for the farmers: if these 2014 storms end up bringing enough water to eliminate that concern, what can we expect after two back-to-back bumper crops? Lower yields, or potentially still big yields and lower YANs, or complexity, or…?

Most everyone I have spoken to said that their irrigation ponds should be full after this weekends rains. Now that doesn’t count frost protection but if we can keep the storm door open for a while the temps will remain balmy and frost won’t be an issue. Or at least be minimal nit to mention wells getting recharged. We had below freezing nights for like 2 months straight before these rains hit. We need this bad and the extended forecast is looking great for wet weather.

I went slogging through the vineyard today hoping to find the beginning of runoff that I channel into my pond. So far, it’s all still soaking in. The water hasn’t yet saturated the soil down to my subsurface drainage at about 3.5 feet. So, I’ve got a ways to go before the rootzone is full and before I get any yield for irrigation storage.

Yesterday on the radio they said that for us to be where we should be, rain-wise, it would have to rain (at the rate it is now), every other day all the way through May. Ain’t gonna happen.