October is a Crazy Month for Weather

October is a crazy month for weather in southern California. Scorching heat, hot dry winds one day; torrential rain, hail, flash flooding the next. Unless the whole month turns out to be a scorcher, which does happen, although just about as often as its opposite: temperatures in the 40s and 50s straight through to Thanksgiving.

This year is a flip-floppy sort of year.

Friday was clear, hot, very dry (down near less than 10% humidity). Saturday morning was hot, but by noon a cold south wind (!) pushed the temperature down below 70. By Saturday evening and Sunday, spectacular thunder and lighting, buckets upon buckets of rain.

Monday, even more intense rain; clouds so dark it looked like night. The streetlights actually turned on, it was so dark. Then sunny. Then crashing thundering buckets of rain.

In the 48 hours since the rain began we've gotten 2.3 inches in my backyard, which does not include the 45 minutes or so of marble sized hail splattered all over.

Now for people with regular weather, this may not seem like a big deal. But this is Pasadena we're talking about, Southern California, where it never rains on New Year's day for the big Parade to celebrate the great year-round growing climate. Hail, indeed!