The region has a semi-plantation economy with wealthy owners, a mostly immigrant Latino working class, and a dwindling legacy group of Anglos. Plus tourists - bus loads from Japan or China, day trippers of every hue from L.A., and us snowbirds escaping the northern cold. Even a few cruise ship passengers now that Princess treats SB as a tender port for its coastal CA itineraries. The mix sounds volatile but is congenial.
We learned today that our reservoir is not at a record low, the low happened in 1993 when the water level was down 92 feet below completely full. Today it's down about 67 feet and that looks bad enough. If it drops much more, the water will no longer flow to where it's used by gravity alone, as designed. They'll have to pump it up to the inlet, after which it will flow normally.
We are supposed to get rain later tonight and tomorrow, we might get an inch if we're lucky. It is already raining hard in the Sacramento area.
Sadly, the storm is almost certainly too little and very nearly too late. The press has been reporting that San Francisco got no measurable rainfall in the entire month of January. We had hoped for an el niño-driven wet year, apparently in vain. See what Bloomberg writes about the "missing in action" el niño.
Saturday: It has rained, is raining in fact, but it's so gentle I'm almost sure it won't amount to much inches-wise. Still, any is better than none, eh? This should be a nice day for a drive in the rain.
Monday: It turns out we locally got maybe 0.60 inches of rain this weekend. The local TV weather guy says the region is at 40% of normal so far this year. Considering now is what passes for a "rainy season" in these arid parts, we've had dang little rain.
