Seems Like Old Times

0500 Tuesday
I'm up and at 'em after my "afternoon nap" After a harrowing drive up the Truckee River Canyon that featured gusts to 60+ MPH, I napped from 4PM 'till 11PM! Cool, bedtime observed...even on a Springtime Day Off!

I'm not the only one burning the Midnight Oil! My very own SisterSweetly emailed twice after 2AM. She's up on the North Coast and lives in a travel trailer. She wrote of driving rain, hail, blustery winds, and forecast high swells. I replied, noting the howling winds outside the DaveCave, the driving rain to 8200ft, and the glee NorCal Surfers are enjoying as yet another big Winter Swell visits. I told of my wild ride home from a Reno re-provisioning trip...a gust was so strong that it blew the side mirror on my Chevy Pickup back against the window! (I did stay in my own lane!)

I've been looking outside every time I get up, and it's still rain at the DaveCave (el.5960) I've been looking at the NWS Remote Data page, and the wind speeds over the whole basin have been impressive...gusts to 90MPH are common on most mountain top sensors. My Mountain's webcam is at the base, 1000ft below the top of the mountain, and it showed only rain when I last looked around 0330. Chain controls finally went up at 0430, the barest minimum...Kingvale to DLI (Donner Lake Interchange)

The Sacramento Local News opened it's 0430 broadcast with a pitiful reporter doing the Live "Stand Up" from Blue Canyon...looking for all the World like the frigid version of the Hurricane Live Remotes of Summer and Fall. Impressive looking radar, and the weathermen promise the snow levels will fall to 3500ft today.

Sacramento's CBS affiliate is showing video from Boreal's Night Skiing, featuring hail with 100MPH gusts! Ouch! A far cry from the costumed snowboarders mugging for the camera back on Halloween!

I'm in for an interesting morning...baking cookies, making a loaf of Rye Bread, making cole slaw and prepping some chicken breasts...all the while enjoying the play-by-play of the new storm. I may even turn on my Police Scanner...when it finally turns to snow in Truckee!

0543 Update
The rain has stopped at Blue Canyon as well as in the Big Valley...that's our Midday Break, when I venture down to the Post Office...there's a book from Amazon waiting for me. I bought the tome written by the guy who's Homemade Corned Beef Recipe I used for this year's St Patrick's Day Reuben Sandwich. I hope to gain some further insight on timing the brine.

Looking at the latest radar, it's not going to be a very long break, but the forecast says the next break isn't until Thursday. I love all the ways to monitor the weather in real time today!

Two lanes of Westbound I-80 are now blocked by a tipped-over semi trailer up by DLI, and snow is accumulating on the front porch of the DaveCave! The latest update of Reno's AFD says things will stay very interesting through Thursday!

These are the Good Old days!