Highway 417, Ottawa, Canada...January 25, 2010

I love rain :o)

Wow! Well, it's probably better than snow...I would guess.

It's probably due to the strong El Niño.

We have had some rain lately as well Lori...I am glad I do not have to get on a 3 or 4 lane in it anymore..goodness..your photo is far too familiar from when I lived in Southern Washington State by Mt. St. Helens and had to take the I-5 to and from work.......shudddder..Here on the North east tip of the Olympic Peninsula..living in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mt.s we are quite dry for the most part with only 17-21 inches of rain a year...our bits and smatters of rain are most welcome...

It sounds like you live in a wonderful place, Catfinch... how lucky you are. So do you have any rain stories, Delonix1? or have you had any rain this winter? What are the ocean temps like? it must be very warm, I'm thinking. Last time we had a January thaw like this was the first strong El Nino in early January`1991... I was living much farther north then...and it was balmy and mild and most of the snow went away...then it went down into the minus 30's for weeks ...gardens don't survive stuff like that...but my delphiniums were never better!!! lol... curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say...

Oooo - yikes, that looks bad Lori....

Lori:

We had no rain the first 17 days of January 2010...in fact, we had summer-type weather...then January 18th hit with a vengence...we had 5 straight days of intense El Niño storms. I've posted some of the pics a couple of weeks ago of some of the damage. It will be interesting what happens this winter...during this very strong El Niño year.

So a strong El Nino will bring lots of precip? We had so much rain in such a short space of time...it was staggering...flooded basements etc.
I'm sure the watertable can take it.. I thought that things were seriously dry in California ...I know the extra precip can bring mud slides etc. ... Good luck Delonix1.

Lori:

Even with the storms, we are still not out of our drought yet. We need a lot more rain...which we may receive before winter ends. We'll hope!