Croton Mammy

Extended dry periods result in so much heartbreaking loss for gardeners. I've had experience with that many times over the years as our dry seasons can be particularly harsh sometimes.

It really is heartbreaking seeing so many dying trees in Balboa Park. I can’t imagine having so many beautiful, tall old trees and just letting them die of drought. Palm Canyon is in the center of the park, which should have the biggest budget and attention. Anyway, that would be logical to me.

This year is going to be particularly bad, as we still haven’t had any rain and none is in the forecast for the next 10 days. I hope it’s not another year like back in winter of 2002-2003! We only received 3.5 inches (88 mm) of rain for the whole season. That’s typically what the desert around the Salton Sea receives in a year in California.

Not a great forecast! Hopefully things won't be as bad as the winter of 2002 to 2003. 88mm is not much at all.

It’s not looking good at all. Maybe no rain in January. We’ve had a lot of Santa Ana winds, luckily not as horrible, tragic as the Los Angeles area that’s caused all the extremely catastrophic fires over the last four days. We dodged a bullet here, the 65 to 75 mph (104 to 120 kph) winds forecasted never materialized. Thank God!
The Los Angeles area experienced winds to 100 mph (161 kph), causing insane, major firestorms. 😞

Yes we've been seeing news reports on the wild fires at Los Angeles. Just terrible. Thank goodness your area is not at risk right now.

Yes, it’s just so catastrophic!

We are actually at major risk right now. The very strong Santa Ana winds are returning tomorrow through Wednesday. From Los Angeles to San Diego winds will be gusting to 75 mph (120 kph).

Oh no! Well I'll be keeping everything crossed that you don't see the wildfires up close.

We dodged another bullet, luckily.

It’s still extremely dry here and expecting more Santa Ana’s next week Monday. Ugh 😩! I don’t think we’ll have any rain in January. Very crazy! After February we don’t usually receive much rain.