You know you're living in southern California when...

This morning I turned on the radio and the first thing I heard was "...the following schools will be closed..." Now on the east coast, this means it snow or ice has caused dangerous driving condtions (or if you're in North Carolina there might be the threat of snow). But in southern California, they close schools because of fire. Wildfire season is upon us again.

The Santa Anna winds have kicked up. This weekend, boats in the cove were rocking and eucalyptus bark (thankfully no limbs) was flying. Sweetie was supposed to take a boat to LA this morning, but because of the wind, the channel was too rough, and her boat was delayed until it was too late for her to make her appointment, so she will try again tomorrow. WMSC has the only dock that is protected from the swell when the winds are from the east, so this morning we had ferries that were supposed to land at Howland's landing, Emerald Bay and Cherry Cove all disembark here. They also all arrived at about the same time, so we had about two hours of various groups meandering up the hill, gathering at the amphitheater and then departing on buses or on foot. Quite a production.

I think the winds are supposed to calm down a bit for the rest of the week. If you'd like to play along at home, you can check out wind vectors for our area, or the sea and swell map.