All is Calm…Finally!
Woman in the Middle | May 1, 2014As I sit here typing away at my computer, all is quiet. I hear nothing but my chair squeaking and the occasional crow calling outside. Such sweet silence! For the last two days we have had our infamous Santa Ana winds. The wind is a funny creature around here. My town is a very windy place. Sometimes we have a gale force wind blowing in my area and I drive five miles and find that there isn’t even a breeze. Other times the Santa Ana winds roar in and blow the heck out of a much wider area. That was the kind of wind we had the last two days.
Only this time it was in April, which is highly unusual. But, as usual, it brought the humidity down to almost zero, upping the fire danger to an immense degree and turning my skin into something only a lizard could love. Of course, a fire did start. When the wind is as high as it was they can’t fly any aircraft and drop water on it, so basically they just try to protect structures and hope the wind dies down.
I think, because my town has such a windy nature we tend to build things like fences to withstand the wind. We usually get at least one tree down in the neighborhood with each bad wind so the weak branches are weeded out regularly. Other places that get this kind of wind just once in a while not so much. The newspaper was filled with photos of multiple trees down and fences gone, all in the same neighborhood.
The biggest problem Hubby and I suffered, other than lizard skin and the noisy assault on my sanity, was the wind destroyed the car cover we use to hide a very old and rusty vehicle that occupies our driveway. The covers don’t tend to last long with the sun and the wind hitting them all the time and this one is definitely a goner, ripped to shreds. The fire that is still burning in Rancho Cucamonga is nowhere near my house, thank goodness, although I feel for the people who it is affecting.
What can I say, you can’t have sunshine, beautiful weather, beaches, and Disneyland without there being a down side. And that craziness we call Santa Ana is ours.
Update – Silly me. What I was experiancing was the calm before the storm, I guess. The wind has started up again. Sigh….
Strong winds can be scary if one is out driving in them or even walking in them thankfully we don’t get them very often here and when we do it is usually in August
Strong winds are scary! It is the time of year here in the south that when there is a chance of storms there is also a chance for tornadoes. Too many have lost their live to those. Too much damage has been made. Praying for those dealing with the fires and the tornadoes.
It is unusual to get the Santa Ana winds in the Spring. As a matter of fact, I don’t recall having any Santa Ana winds in the Fall in my area, which is when we usually get them.