2020 West Coast Weather and Farming Thread

[Casey Hartlip]

Just checked the radar and it's certainly headed this way. 5:27 and just heard thunder. How many fires with this spawn?

[mattcitrang]

This AM from Jamie

[Casey Hartlip]

Looks like Santa Rosa getting clobbered with rain right now

[Al Osterheld]

Had a very loud thunderstorm in Alameda County starting maybe 4:30 am, came in from the south and kept heading north. Some of the lightning strikes were pretty nearby. Most of the rain was to the west of me, though.

-Al

[Ed Steinway]

We are still getting lightning and thunder here in Contra Costa County. It has been raining for the last several hours but it has let up. And it is very warm out.

Ed

[Bdklein]

This AM from Jamie

Thanks . I know not you , but the word is lightning not lightening . Oops wrong thread

[Al Osterheld]

We are still getting lightning and thunder here in Contra Costa County. It has been raining for the last several hours but it has let up. And it is very warm out.

Ed

The temperature here actually went up 10F when the storm came through. I went out for a run about 10 minutes before sunrise to beat the heat, after I thought the lightning and rain had ended. Oops. Flashes of cloud lightening in the twilight, eventually started to touch down again although thankfully not as close by as earlier. And the rain returned.

-Al

[Merrill Lindquist]

A bit of rain here and there, but the real story, as others have said, is the thunder and lightning. Man - an East Coast kind of storm!

[Stewart Johnson]

f*ck this.
Power out Fri night because our number came up first for the rolling blackout. Woke up in the middle of the night last night by wild windstorm and lightning strikes everywhere. I didn't realize my wife was out of bed, but she was in the backyard before I was. No power at home again this morning, thundershowers, and it feels like a godforsaken East Coast summer day by 9am. Bottling today on TI and the power goes out in the middle of the day. Spending the last of my pond water irrigating every night to get thru this heat. It feels apocalyptic even before the wildfire season starts in earnest. The End is nigh.

[Ben M a n d l e r]

Big downpour early this morning in Santa Rosa. Power out for around 4 hours in the early morning, a lot of places lost power periodically throughout the day. Humidity was brutal all day - I didn't leave Virginia for this.

No end in sight. Looking like a >10-day stretch with highs over 90 in Sebastopol, 95 in Santa Rosa, 100 for the warmer Russian River Valley vineyards. Humidity looking to stay high for a while. Temps not dropping below 60 until next weekend. My heart goes out to everyone working outside in this, masked up, understaffed, at breakneck pace. I'm working evenings in the lab so my mornings are probably going to be ice cream deliveries.

[Merrill Lindquist]

Boy, did we luck out here in Calistoga. It became hot and exceptionally humid, but never lost power and very little rain - I think most of it evaporated before it hit the ground. I had to run the irrigation for the yard, it was so dry.

[Casey Hartlip]

It's on!

[Al Osterheld]

For sparkling wine?

-Al

[Sean Devaney]

Good luck Casey. Hoping for a safe and un-eventful harvest.

[Casey Hartlip]

For sparkling wine?

-Al

Yes sir. Most folks don't know GoldenEye has a sparkling program. Also sell them 70 tons of Pinot for still wine. Ramping up big tomorrow. Crazy weather stayed east of us..... barely. Boonville got hammered twice by big thunderstorms, we got zilch. Luck has lots to do with farming.

[Merrill Lindquist]

Our luck ran out today. We got hammered by driving rain, wind, thunder, lightning. It's hot and humid out now, but clear. I had no electricity for most of the day.

[Casey Hartlip]

I'm expecting many fires by tomorrow. I can't tell you how many downstrikes I saw today in my travels. Lots of heavy yet isolated showers in the area today. Philo fared very lucky. We are back at it at 4:30 tomorrow morning.

[Paul Gordon]

I'm expecting many fires by tomorrow. I can't tell you how many downstrikes I saw today in my travels. Lots of heavy yet isolated showers in the area today. Philo fared very lucky. We are back at it at 4:30 tomorrow morning.

Casey

I think we dodged a bullet. The system went right over Halcon. We got 1.5in of rain and at least a dozen lightning strikes within a few miles. I think there was enough rain to douse the bulk of the fires. Anderson Valley Fire is reporting three fires started, all extinguished. Fingers crossed that there is not some smoldering fire out there.

Paul

[Stewart Johnson]

Vacation at the winery today, The mind numbing boredom of bottling seemed like bliss because Treasure Island (outside) topped out at 67F today. Tomorrow, I'm booted from the winery because my tenant winery is bringing in fruit from Lodi. Seems insanely early, but what's not weird about 2020?

[Al Osterheld]

Wow, 67F. Our low has been higher than that for the past five days. Maybe Thursday morning.

-Al

[Merrill Lindquist]

My vineyard looks good. Fruit is dry - measuring informally at 20B - the rain knocked it back a bit, which is just fine. When I look at Calistoga's weather (Cabernet Country) I see no break in these hot temperatures.

[Stewart Johnson]

Got 18.5 brix today in a section of pinot going for sparkling. That's about 10 days ahead of where I'd like to hit that point. I'm trying to irrigate my way thru this heat and opened up lines today that I hadn't used since the 2017 heat spike. Meanwhile, I'm trying to patch up about 3/4 of a mile of pipe running from another uphill pond down to my irrigation pond to try and limp to the finish line.

[Merrill Lindquist]

Early morning informal reading at 22.5B.

[Emilio Castelli]

Ash from the fires everywhere on Green Valley; not good. No actual smoke or smell yet but this is not looking good.
E

[Merrill Lindquist]

Ash from the fires everywhere on Green Valley; not good. No actual smoke or smell yet but this is not looking good.
E

Nothing here...at least for now!

[Al Osterheld]

Lots of smoke in the Livermore Valley, mostly from a very nearby fire.

-Al

[Merrill Lindquist]

My kid at UC Santa Cruz has ash everywhere - I guess some fires in Santa Cruz Mountains?

[Wes Barton]

My kid at UC Santa Cruz has ash everywhere - I guess some fires in Santa Cruz Mountains?

Yes. Close to some vineyards. One was approaching Big Basin Winery. Bradley posted he hoped if it hit his property the vineyard would serve as a fire break and save the structure. Let's hope it doesn't hit at all.

With all the heat, plus the fires threatening, a lot of Santa Cruz Mountains fruit will be coming in over the next two weeks. I'll be helping with some Saratoga Chardonnay tomorrow.

[Merrill Lindquist]

starting to see a bit of ash in the air.

[Casey Hartlip]

Kind of hard to report 'normal' harvest reports with all of this chaos and destruction going on but:

We had our third day of harvest 2020. This is basically 10 days ahead of our historical average. Anderson Valley is known for our summer fog and we just haven't had much all summer. Sparkling guys are going nuts now, which we are partners with as well. We've already picked some stuff for bubbles and will do close to 200 tons in 10 days.

We are short on people. Not news to anyone in this industry. After a day of picking (that starts at 4:30 am) we are still irrigating as much as possible. Our fields still look really good, not so for those low on water.

Chard crop down quite a bit, first big Pinot pick tomorrow. Will try to keep up. Oh, our Ukiah house is in contract. Looking forward to the move to Philo.

[Bill Gibbs]

Lots of smoke and haze in Paso Robles today, from fires 100 miles north in Salinas and Carmel. Hazardous air quality in most of SLO county. The only plus is that it blocked enough sun to drop our forecast high temp 10 degrees to 95F. We've had 5 days over 100F.

[Al Osterheld]

Lots of smoke in the Livermore valley, most of it from two very nearby fires (one to the north, one to the south). I was hoping the haze would help with the temperature, but didn't help much, maybe the haze is too low to the ground? We've had 7 days over 100F, but today should be about 10F cooler. Also had three running days of power out in the afternoon and evening, so hasn't been my favorite week. Not a lot of home burned locally, although there have been some. Head of my department came home early from taking his son to college in order to gather some papers, etc., while it was still possible. Haven't heard whether his place made it through.

-Al

[Paul Gordon]

The weather really broke at our vineyard last night - windy, foggy and a low of 49F! Very welcome.
Mendocino has been really lucky to avoid the fires, just like in 2017. Thoughts with everyone affected in Napa, Sonoma, Santa Cruz Mtns and Monterey.

Paul

[Casey Hartlip]

The weather really broke at our vineyard last night - windy, foggy and a low of 49F! Very welcome.
Mendocino has been really lucky to avoid the fires, just like in 2017. Thoughts with everyone affected in Napa, Sonoma, Santa Cruz Mtns and Monterey.

Paul

That fog was a beautiful sight this morning. Just wrapping up our pick for today. Sparkling Pinot. Knocking off at noon is nice, starting in the field at 4:30 not so much

[Casey Hartlip]

We're over 60 tons in as of today, might be close to 100 by Sunday. Still need a couple more folks that are hopefully wrapping up other work. The weed industry is a big player everywhere now just not in our region.

[Emilio Castelli]

For rose' and whites hopefully we'll be fine.
For reds in RRV I think we're all screwed (unless you picked last week).
Chemical solutions might make the wine more drinkable but no matter what, you can never polish a turd.

I'll be making more rose' this year.
I'll be curious to see how the reds will turn out but I don't have high hopes; beside the ashes, it stinks out there and that's what our babies will be breathing until harvest. Not good.
Well, 2018 and 2019 were amazing quality and large crops so we'll manage.
E

[Karen Troisi]

Harvest starts for us on Saturday - sauvignon blanc from Rutherford.

[Stewart Johnson]

Bottled today (with Celebrity Bottler Ken Zinns) and then headed out to the vineyard. No smoke that I've been able to smell at ground level in the vineyard yet. I picked up about 0.5 brix in the prospective sparkling rows (the only ones I'm sampling already) in the past 2 days, but temps at 7pm were 9 degrees lower than the day before. And the water level in the pond is creeping back up from the near-sucking-air level I hit yesterday. All in all, things could be worse.

[Casey Hartlip]

Finally have a decent sized crew, really for the first time this week. Chard crop down even more than we thought. Pinot has been good so far and hitting estimates. Clients jockeying for picks on the schedule and I'm trying to match things up. I'm already tired. Need more sleep. I've said this before but we'll never go back to starting at first light. Today we had 6 tons in the yard at 6:15 am. That's what time we would be STARTING a few years ago.

[Karen Troisi]

Our 2020 Sauvignon Blanc (Dalla Gasperina Vineyard in Rutherford) is in. Some good looking and tasting fruit - average crop size.

Karen

[leslie renaud]

We had to leave the winery today due to mandatory evacuation. This ought to be an interesting harvesr.

[Merrill Lindquist]

Our 2020 Sauvignon Blanc (Dalla Gasperina Vineyard in Rutherford) is in. Some good looking and tasting fruit - average crop size.

Karen

Gorgeous, Karen.

[Merrill Lindquist]

.

[Merrill Lindquist]

Informals at 23B this morning. Fruit looks and tastes great (just ask the resident birds). Will do a real sample pull (200 berries) on Tuesday morning and a full lab panel.

[Casey Hartlip]

Our first smooth harvest day of 2020. Picked sparkling Pinot with over estimated crop, then finished a Chardonnay block we couldn't do yesterday due to short crew. Feeling that everything about this harvest is going to be a struggle. Came home to my home this afternoon and was greeted by Zip, my super dog. She doesn't know why I'm not home every night. Even though we have an offer on our house we have a viewing tomorrow, which is disruptive. Hope to finish all bubbles by Thursday and that will be 200 tons of that Shit. I think I don't want to do this anymore.

[Stewart Johnson]

Hit 19.4B tonight and had a sparkling pick called for Tues night. Never thought that civilized folk picked in August, but here I am.
I'm opening up irrigation lines that I haven't used since the 2017 heat spike.

[Merrill Lindquist]

The quiet before the storm? Many of us are under red flag alert due to impending lightning storms. I hope it stays away - that's how many of these fires started.

[Adam Frisch]

I'm scrambling. Just moved into my new space in July and was not at all prepared for it being this early. It's screwing everything up. I think the whole harvest will be a huge uphill battle. And it will have stylistic effects when sugar levels jump 2 points in a week etc. Hard to keep up.

[Casey Hartlip]

Just checked the radar and it's certainly headed this way. 5:27 and just heard thunder. How many fires with this spawn?

I hate it when I'm right. Wishing all people of California positive thoughts.

[Casey Hartlip]

So what else could possibly happen with harvest 2020? Unhealthy air quality you ask? Yep. We're not allowed to work if air quality hits a certain level....which it is as I type this. All of our crew would have to wear an N-95 mask at present air quality levels. The issue is wearing one is okay if your sitting on your bass on a tractor, but picking and walking/running? Don't think so. My guess is our blessed fog will return in the morning and give us 5-6 hours of clean air to get a day in. Hope so.