We Had a Gully Washer – but the future of our water supply is uncertain

Southern California is well into the second month of a new weather season after three straight years of drought, meaning that the average rainfall was under 10 to 15 inches per year.

Yesterday the day started with a spectacular sunrise featuring red clouds in the southeast. I thought of the old saying, "Red sky at morning, sailors take warning". But surely that bit of folklore, probably coined by early New England fisherman, wouldn't apply to these arid mountains on the Mexican border 4100 feet above sea level near the Sonora Desert. Oh yes it would and it does!

Not long after lunch yesterday, when I was engrossed in writing, my concentration was interrupted by a scritchy-scratchy noise. I looked around to see if one of my cats was clawing my chair again. As my eyes passed over a window, I was amazed to see that it was hailing, and within seconds a downpour of rain almost blocked the view of the oak trees beyond the horse corrals. Then thunder and lightning roared in, and my cats and dogs drew near me for protection.

I stopped writing and unplugged all my electronic equipment. Although thunder storms never seem nearly as ferocious as the ones I have experienced growing up in Southern Connecticut and later near Tampa Florida, my daughter's surge protectors have been wiped out twice here from close lightening strikes. In this wide open big sky country, there are fewer targets to attract lightning; so power poles and solitary trees are especially dangerous places to be during thunderstorms.

Yesterday the power did not go out, which meant the air conditioning continued to keep my trailer cool. I was thankful for that. Lying on my bed with its insulating rubber mattress, I took time out to enjoy the show from the window above my bed . For over an hour the wind blew and the rain poured down in sheets, giving all the parched plants, bushes, and trees a long overdue drink, and showering away the dust from their leaves. Soon, fast-flowing little streams of water were rushing down toward the usually dry arroyo, making me wonder if flash floods were endangering the traffic on I-8. A storm about 25 years ago washed out all the west-bound lanes of I-8, the railroad tracks to San Diego, and some of the houses in the little town of Ocotillo at the foot of the mountains.

I still don't know if any damage was done by yesterday's sudden storm. The four TV stations in San Diego don't seem to be aware that there are people living east of El Cajon and Alpine. Apparently residents this far out in East County San Diego, and drivers coming over the mountains from the east, are not considered important enough to provide with timely weather reports, no matter if there are rainstorms, snowstorms, high winds, or icy roads. The only weather reports we get are from Lindbergh field next to the Pacific Ocean where the mild weather is nothing like the weather in the mountains to the east.

Just 18 miles away, Campo, CA, and the small villages around it, get a variety of unique  conditions affected by the weather coming down the California coast, from other storms that circle around and attack from the northeast, and especially storms resulting from the annual monsoon conditions of Arizona and Baja California in Mexico. That is the cause of yesterday's welcome rain.

Rainfall records have been broken in Campo. Back in the 1880s two thunder storms collided over Campo's big meadow, and the rain came down so hard, it was hard to breathe.The rain gauge on a building beside Campo Creek registered 11 ½ inches in less than an hour, before the man in charge emptied the gauge for the third time just before it was washed away. Campo also boasts the ‘longest thermometer in the west', because it can be near 100 degrees during the day and drop below freezing that night. In 1914 one man reported finding ice on a bucket of water before sunrise on a day in July.

A current long-range forecast by a department for climate change in Canada has predicted a three degree increase in average tempuratures and 150% rise in rainfall for Southern California by year 2080. But, the Union for Concerned Scientists, a California based organization for climate study, has given a gloomier prediction for increasing drought in the immediate future.

In metropolitan areas of Southern California, almost the entire water supply is piped in from the diminished Colorado River, and more importantly, from the Delta near Sacramento.  The disappearance of an endangered species of fish in the Delta has caused a drastic cut in the amount of water to be shipped south.  Some water conserving suggestions have already been acted upon, in San Diego, but stringent law enforcement will go into effect in January 2009.

This does not much affect the people living out here, since folks in the San Diego  backcountry get all of their water from individual wells. But, when I researched an article about windmills last year, I learned that the aquifer underlying the local area and part of Eastern Baja California in Mexico, is fast drying up from over-use.

So, what do we do? Weathermen are notoriously bad at forecasts based on data beyond the span of a week. When all is said and done, we may not have to be concerned. The French prophet, Nostradamus, the man who is credited with correctly forecasting the future for centuries ahead of the 16^th century of his lifetime, saw no future beyond about year 2012. And beside Nostradamus, I know of at least two ancient cultures, one the Mayans of Mexico, and another in Japan, that left predictions that the world will end in 2012.

So eat, drink, make Merry, and those of you who live in Southern California enjoy the rare rainstorm now, because all of our problems may be over in four years.