Spring always comes early to California, but it seems a bit earlier than usual this year. Up at 2,500 feet, the camellias don’t bloom as early as down in Sacramento, but ours are already on the waning end of bloom season. Here are a few sweet shots of them, plus the lovely forsythias. Both of these flowering shrubs are the wonderful early harbingers of spring every year.

 

It’s been a really unusual winter out here in the western states. We’ve all been warmer and much drier than normal. While we can appreciate the warm sunshine on our faces, we all know we need water. It’s the fifth year, I believe, of California’s severe drought, and there is hardly any snowpack up in the Sierras. There was a good system of rainstorms a couple weeks ago, but it rained all the way up into the Sierras. Take a look at this shot from the airplane last Monday. This is above Donner Summit, looking north. This is not what the peaks of the Sierras should look like in February. Another storm system is here this weekend, and it’s colder, so let’s hope it dumps some good snow up there!

 

Take a look at this three-month forecast from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. Out here in Utah, the forecast is for above-average precipitation, but California is just in the average zone, and close to the below-average zone. It does not look like relief is in sight for the drought.