almost 2.5" in Yountville, most in the last 3-4 hours
Good. 4 more inches.
![[truce.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/d/d33e712b50d5efc2425bf219c404fbdb7ed0ba50.gif "truce"){kind=small}
Now a short break please?
Supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow. We had a whopping 0.01" yesterday.
Really. The LA Times this morning listed Paso as .71"
I just got back from a successful week showing Pinot to the trade and public in Colorado with the Colorado Pinot Posse. (California and Oregon producers.)
With the La Nina pattern Colorado was not looking favorable for skiing I wasn’t sure I would be able to ski. But as soon as we arrived in CO it started to snow, and then it snowed steadily all week as the jet stream shifted south. Many parts of Oregon and California got torrential rain over the week as well.
I can’t stop laughing at the thought that I was skiing champagne powder at Steamboat and at Vail at the end of last week, eating foie gras, toro, carpaccio, etc., sleeping in swanky hotels, but am now slogging through stinking mud and cow shit, feeding cattle here at home this morning, after returning late last night.
Another big storm coming in tonight. I’m about to go clean a pump filter and put a bit of water down on the vines. It’s a 200 micron mesh (.2mm) and removes any sand the pump pulls from the groundwater basin.
We got an inch and half of rain so far this year. I’m hoping for another inch tonight. I put down 24 gallons of water per vine about 10 or 12 days ago, on my spacing that’s thats almost the equivelent of 1 inch of rain.
Believe it or not, I heard that a few vineyards nearby that did not put down any water already had vines pushing in places. These soils were dry and had less mass as a result, these sites that had not put down water and had open, tilled soil with no cover crop. Open, exposed mineral soil allows the soil surface to warm more readily and conduct heat downward to the roots. A cover crop is a great tool to keep soils cool because it acts as an insulating barrier from the sun.
I also applied water after harvest to give the vines a better chance to store carbohydrates prior to dormancy. Carbohydrate reserves are one of the other factors critical for flower fertility (the number of flower clusters/inflorescences) in the spring, in addition to heat and sunlight on the genetic expression of cell primordia during previous growing season.
If you don’t have enough flowers, the result is larger berries and less concentration. The more berries you have (within vine and vintage balance) the smaller the berries tend to be. With controlled water deficits and control of vine vigor, the berry size decreases, and the result is more color, flavor and concentration.
The 10 day for our area says that’s it for January precip! It was fun while it lasted. I’m not likin’ the feel of this. ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
I’m happy with the 5" we’ve had this week.
Nice tutorial Peter, thanks for sharing.
Here in Southern Santa Clara, we’re now at 6" for the season vs 22" total last year, with 4 of that in last 5 days, after nothing since November.
Time Series Viewer shows the pattern with peaks of 4"/24 hr and temps in 30-55 range.
Saturday AM pruning was a bit of a slog after 3 " rain in 3 days, yesterday was sunny with scattered showers, forecast today is for light rains, turning to foggy, then sunny for the weekend’s pruning.
Cover crops finally moving up, looks like legume mix will be high enough to mow at least once before April, and will contribute a bit of nitrogen and biomass to the bigger vineyards, not sure if we’ll have time to till and reseed with a traction/suppression crop.
Sometimes the higher elevations here get quite a bit more rain than our location. We got almost nothing, but it is raining fairly steadily now (since about midnight). Yay.
Glad to hear that. I wish the Times would give some idea of where they measure temp and rain. I know, from living in the foothills, that the numbers I see for Thousand Oaks often seem out of whack.
A nice surprise rainfall going on right now in Calistoga. I heard late yesterday that it might drizzle in some locations in the Bay Area, but this is more than drizzle right now. A very welcome sight.
We’re back to sunny and 60’s… no more rain for 7 days at least.
Bad, bad, very bad. One storm does not a winter make. Our 10 day shows no serious rain headed our way. Next week also shows some temps around 70. This is the SH!TS.
Official amount reported here in Calistoga for the recent rains is 7.8 inches.
There doesn’t seem to be an optimistic way to spin the current projected weather (wrt rain)…bummer!
I was tryiing to keep an open mind, but now, I’m worried.
I heard on the radio a weather forecast for possible rain tonight and tomorrow in the North Bay. If it rains anywhere around here, it will rain in Calistoga.
Solid rain, here now. Supposed to clear up, but then rain again in about 2 weeks.
We had rain overnight - not a lot but enough to get everything wet - and then it cleared. But it looks ready to rain again.
Have not been to Napa yet today so not sure if it rained downvalley.
It did from 4-6am. Must have been 1/10th of an inch. Just made things wet.
I see at least one forecast has rain for Tuesday, and then again over the weekend. Sounds good to me.