Hi All,

I see this area near Adak is still cooking:

5.0 2002/12/15 07:55:07 51.316 -179.928 140.0 235 km (146 mi) WSW of Adak, AK
5.1 2002/12/10 05:32:58 51.688 -176.917 33.0 29 km ( 18 mi) SW of Adak, AK
4.9 2002/12/10 05:32:52 51.100 -178.100 40.0 133 km ( 83 mi) SW of Adak, AK

But while the world of earthquakes is enjoying its usual bumpy ride, it has been a wicked weather situation here in the North Bay of San Francisco for two days and nights now. Yes indeed, we've had plenty of rain, lots of wind and a loss of many beautiful trees in the process.

Most area's have had anywhere from 5 to 17 inches of rain, which has provoked sudden rises in local rivers, flooded streets and trees down on top of homes or roads. I took a short drive today and found an area where they have culverts in the country to carry the water, but one house which stood far back from the street had no less than 50 feet of their yard totally inundated with water and it seemed to be just sitting there with no place to go.

Another odd site was a beautiful row of trees in Rohnert Park which had been decorated two weeks ago with Christmas lights, only to have the wind move the branches and what was once a perfect alignment of lights has become a mixed array. It looks weird to say the least.

This evening the peel of thunder graced the skies here in Rohnert Park along with heavy winds and huge downpours of rain. While I do love a good lightning storm, these seemed to be just out of viewing, but the sounds were enjoyable. One of my, all time most enjoyed lightning storms occurred when I lived in Seattle. We had over 1000 lightning strikes in an hour. It was fork lightning at a very low level in every color of the rainbow and you could smell the sulfur. At least every 30 seconds another strike would occur and it was amazing. The Seattle Times had a time lapse photo the next day showing the lightning strikes altogether, and it was spectacular.

However, I see Reno set a new record for wind today with a gust at 82 MPH, the highest since the prior record sometime in the 1960's. (The weather woman was standing in front of the previous year mentioned so I couldn't read it.) Anyway, it was substantial. Up off the Oregon Coast they had winds in the 90MPH range. Ah, better there than here.

There's nothing so refreshing as a good storm, with the proviso that you don't have to get out and drive in it. To see the trees do their wintertime dance is interesting. But at least they are clean for a change. While most who live in California never notice, except for the wintertime, our trees are always dirty with a fine layer of dust. I can recall observing weird looks for my past neighbors when washing my trees and the occasional question as to what I was doing. I don't think they ever thought about dirty trees.

And so it goes. We don't usually have anymore earthquakes when it rains versus when it doesn't rain. But frequently it does rain within 48 hours of a major earthquake. This I do find interesting. Also very hard on the victims who have had to leave their homes and take shelter.

Petra