Winter!
Yesterday I was on my way to Safeway when I noticed the change: the hills are definitely beginning to turn green.
The bay area is probably not unique in this regard, but I’ve never lived in an area that greened during the rainy winter season with fewer hours of daylight but turned dry and brown during the longer days of summer.
The trees stay green year ’round. I suppose they get enough moisture from the wildly active and dense bay area fog. But the tall, dry, brown grasses of summer pose a significant fire hazard during the dry summer months.
Night before last the weather turned dramatically cooler—another seasonal first. The electric blanket went to 4! The temperature in the house dropped from its normal 66 – 68º during the day (without any climate control at all) to 62º! I had to put on a sweatshirt. (What? Turn on the heat? No way! I love this temperature! Besides, my office, with its large desktop computer, affectionately called the command module, keeps the space a few degrees warmer than the house as a whole.) Yesterday we also had several heavy downpours, and this morning, with heavy clouds still darkening the sky, the front deck is soaked.
Now, I do confess to missing the snowcapped mountains that surround Los Angeles; but, well, the air quality was always so bad, you could seldom see them!
I know this isn’t news to most: “So you have weather.” But, after living in the Los Angeles bay area for several years, this is huge!