Last Friday June 20th, or maybe it was Saturday, was apparently the longest day of the year. I decided to celebrate the summer solstice in the way that I celebrate many days, by stopping into Piaci's for a beer. As I was on my way home I noticed that the sky looked kind of funny. Not funny haha. The sun was not turning into a giant yellow two dimensional smiley face. There were not cloud clowns forming on the horizon. It was more funny strange. There were large cumulonimbus clouds floating just over the ocean. There was that eerily familiar loud rumbling noise. Then, just like if it were winter, the large drops of water fell out of the sky.
In Northern California, as with a lot of the rest of California, it doesn't rain during the summer. No. Really. I am from the East Coast, where rain can happen anytime of year, where we do not leave the windows open despite the heat, where we cannot assume that taking the motorcycle to work in the morning will result in an equally pleasant and dry ride home in the afternoon. Where when we go backpacking, we always pack raingear. Okay, at least the emergency poncho. But here in Norcal, as the locals somewhat annoyingly call it (but damn if it isn't more convenient to type), the normal way of things is for the rain to go away during the summer. It usually leaves with a final storm in April then a few pitter patters in May. Sometimes it rains in June, and that's the topic of conversation around town for the next few days. Rain in June makes headlines. Rain in July or August makes the front page. And in the normal pattern of things, the rain comes back intermittently on my birthday in October, and then for real serious big dumping rains, floods, mudslides, opposite of the summer exactly on Thanksgiving. I'm reading a book right now that takes place in Bombay. I am amazed, but the characters seem to know precisely within a day when the monsoons will begin. When I say it always rains on Thanksgiving here, I am kidding. It's not that precise. But apparently in monsoon regions, it is? I dunno.
I'm getting off course here. The point, really, is not rain at all. As a matter of fact, the point is the lack of rain. The lack of rain that we have had since January. Not too many major storms came through after January. Things dried out really early, and they are still dry. That lack of rain has made for an interesting spring here. Lots of really beautiful days outside, starting really early in the spring. Nice weather in March, and then just continuing up to this point, and probably beyond. N. Cali (look at that abbreviation, how's that for efficiency?!) seems to have two seasons, by the way. Winter and summer. I didn't make that up. I borrowed it from hundreds of other people. Winter is cold and wet, but not too cold (and this year, not nearly wet enough), and summer is hot and dry (but it's a nice hot, without that sticky humidity that yall East Coasters get). Hot means really hot at times though. 100+. Of course, I think it was 120 in Phoenix, AZ the other day. Who lives in Phoenix? That's just too hot. Actually, where I am, we average 60-70 during the summer. If it's too hot, go to the coast and get socked in by fog, cooler temps and wind. If it's too cold, head inland a little ways and you will get the heat.
So right now we've got a hot dry summer. I'm on my way home last Friday during a cool evening, after a cool beer (45 degrees F was the serving temp, if you were curious), and I am looking at the funny strange sky, and I tell Abbey (who happens to be in the car with me), that we are definitely going to the beach, with the camera. If she knew what I was saying, she would've wagged her tail for sure, and gotten real excited, because she loves going to the beach. But she didn't know what I was saying. I don't think. She did wag her tail. It may have been just a standard wag.
We went home, and I looked at the clock. I really was excited to capture some epic sunset photos on the beach. The clock said 6:30 pm. I thought for a second that we better hurry, then I remembered it was the longest day of the year. So Abbey and I sat down to our respective dinners, and I think I even took a shower. Finally, as it neared 8 pm, we headed out to the beach.
When we got there, it looked sort of crazy. Not just strange anymore. Do you remember that movie Poltergeist (I think it was Poltergeist) when the sky gets really stormy and I think the heavens open up for a bit? Well, whatever, if you don't. It really looked creepy. Big thunderhead clouds, layered on top of each other. A line of fog-like clouds hovering over the horizon, with fingers of storm formations reaching up into the sky. Directly above the ocean there were multiple rain clouds moving north. A few passed by. A couple drops fell here or there.
So it looked kind of like that, above. The crazy part, really, was the wispy strings of cloud that were hanging out below the big puffy cumulos. I hate to say it but the picture doesn't really do it justice, and this is the photographer talking.
Summer storms in Mendocino are uncommon. Rare. Actually, we don't really get them. A bunch of people were at the beach watching the clouds, waiting for the epic sunset. Nobody brought their raincoats, I don't think. I, being an East Coaster still at heart, had mine in the car. I didn't really need it. It showered a couple of times for about 30 seconds. In the end, we didn't get any rain. And actually, almost tragically, the really badass clouds blew north to Fort Bragg before the sunset really hit. For some reason I didn't choose to chase them down. So I didn't get the photos that I was hoping for. But here's one of the clouds leaving
While on the beach I got to see a few serious lightening strikes. Bolts, crashing down into the ocean. Of course, followed up by rolling thunder. It was great. I get very sentimental for thunderstorms, especially during the summer. Because even in the winter time it is rare for us to get such extreme action in a weather event. We get more of the deluge, the 45 days of rainy weather, but with no thunder, no lightning.
Well, the thunder and apparently the lightening went on all night and into the next morning. Which was interesting to me. And very interesting to Abbey, who has never heard thunder before. So she barked at it, and tried to chase it out of the yard I think. She succeeded, by the way. The thunder did stay out of my yard. The reason that the thunder and lightening was interesting to me, beyond the strange nature of this occurrence, beyond my sentimental East Coast nature, was that Saturday my friends were getting married. I wasn't thinking that it was likely that the outdoor wedding was going to get rained out, but more so I was fascinated by the show that the sky was putting on for two people who were very connected to nature, natural mysticism, the earth and the magic that moves in and around her. As a matter of fact, the groom is someone I consider to be learned in the language of natural things. Mostly plants, really, but heck I wouldn't have been surprised if a he was in good with a random spirit or god that decided to throw a show for he and his bride-to-be.
As it turns out, this wasn't really a great, joyous show. Thunderstorms with lightening and no rain in California spell fire. Mendocino county made the national news today. Apparently there are 840 fires burning from the lightening strikes in different parts of Northern California. Mendocino has 131 of those. That's a lot. A few of them are near my friends homes. Some folks at the wedding had to dash off to get their dog, because they heard that a fire was heading towards their house. One friend who has now had to evacuate his place for threat of fire told me he hoped that the fire department dragged a house around his garden, and not through it. Mendocino county residents care very much about their gardens.
One of the fires is at Orr Springs, a Hot Springs resort that is really a nice place to hang out. Another one is burning a few miles down the road from the housing I was supposed to live in this summer, and in the Garcia River watershed where I was supposed to work. According to the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, about 9,000 acres are burning in the separate 131 fires, and fire crews have only been able to reach about 30-40 percent of the fires. Amazing.
We are used to hearing about wildfires in California during the summer. As a matter of fact, as the naturalist, I have to put in that fire is a more than normal part of California's ecology. That many plants (including some of the trees in that Garcia River watershed), need fire to regenerate. Some pines need the heat of a fire to open their cones, releasing the seeds. Fire, from an ecological point of view, in many forests, is a way of starting over, of having a clean slate. In an old growth redwood forest, fire serves to wipe away a lot of the tangled debris and the scrubby undergrowth, freeing up space for new trees to grow, and leaving the old trees fire-scarred but relatively unharmed. Native Americans in this area used to set fires to clear away brush, to start new growth in areas that hosted trees that provided food sources for them. So fires are certainly a normal part of the ecology here.
But as used to it as we are, and as normal a part of the ecology, it has been a long time since Mendocino has seen such a dramatic fire event. Especially here on the coast, there are some fires that surprised me as well as other residents. It is just not has hot and dry here as the nearby inland areas.
So we have a beautiful thunderstorm for summer solstice, and now the county is on fire. Well, my thoughts go out to all of my friends who are fighting fires anywhere, who are evacuated currently from their homes. Anyone in Mendocino needs a hand, please give me a call. I'll do what I can. Thanks to Ashleigh for being a fire fighter, in general.
The wedding went off well. The folks who had to dash away were able to come back. Hopefully things are working out well for them still, hopefully there homes remain safe. Next time we get lightning and no rain, I will know a little better that it is not just a beautiful natural event we are getting, but maybe a surprise fire or two, or 131.
Oh, here's one of the sunset that day. It was really nice, despite the fact that the storm clouds moved north.
Be safe.
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