WEATHERMAN

Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure. – Bob Bitchin

"No epic adventure started with "On a bright sunny day." It's one of my favorite tweets attributed to adventurer Sean Conway and my usual answer when someone asked: "Are you going to kayak in the rain?"

I kept thinking that as a hard pounding rain bounced off my bow and cascaded into Lake Natoma as if a dam had burst in the sky. A misty haze hung over the lake as each drop created millions of momentary craters exploding in the water creating a giant whooshing sound over its surface. In the middle of the lake, stranded and getting soaked  I paddled as quickly as I could under to the safety of nearby bridge to wait out the deluge.

Adverse weather makes my trips more memorable. Paddling through a mist of rain adds a certain magic to my outing on the lake. It's a man vs nature type endeavor. Do I like bright sunny days? Of course, I do. Nothing is better than kayaking along while being kissed by the sun. In California, a state known for its sunshine, I have experienced lots of sun dazzling days on the water. But heartily coexisting in snow, rain, sleet and fog make for trips that are far from ordinary.

I'm grateful for the rain. The 2017-18 winter is off to a very slow start in Northern California. What a difference a year makes after last winter's record drought-busting snow totals in the Sierra Nevada. The recent snow survey results showed the basin at 30 percent of normal, compared to 67 percent on the same date last year.
“We are behind where we were last year at this time,” Jeff Anderson, a hydrologist from the Nevada Natural Resources Conservation Service, a federal agency that tracks snow in the west, told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Last week's series of storms did bring much-needed rain to Northern California but did little to help the snowpack. The southern storms were swollen with tropical moisture, too warm to make it a snowmaker as the snow levels hovered only around 9,000 feet, or higher than the ski summit of Squaw Valley-Alpine Meadows. Ski resorts hoping for snow only got rain. The snow-forecasting website Open Snow says another stormy period is expected next week, with the possibility of several colder storms by midweek, so cross your fingers, skiers and snowboarders.

The ancient weather rhymes say, "A ring around the sun or moon, rain or snow coming soon” or “Red sky at night, sailors’ delight; red sky in the morning, sailors take warning." But don’t cancel your trip just because it’s raining or cloudy and cold. Be sensible. Pack your raincoat and go anyway. Because if you wait for that perfect day. You will never go. "Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating," said English writer John Ruskin, "There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."

I just hope I can remember that the next time when raindrops are hammering down on my bow.