[Seedgeeks] fall rains

[Wolfgang Rougle]

Hold on everybody.  You've been getting rain?  Where and when?
  I live in the lower Sacramento Valley and while of course you (when I 
say "you" I'm assuming this list mostly serves the westside 
Oregon/Washington region) get a lot more moisture than we do, we usually 
at least notice that a system is moving through.  This rain is news to me 
and although I'm a recent arrival, I'm interested in tracking climate 
changes in my greater bioregion (the series of valleys between the Coast 
range and the Sierras-Cascades).
  This summer most of our weather, which may be too strong a word to use, 
has been coming from the south, on currents from Baja and Arizona -- very 
unusual as they nearly always come from the southwest (ocean) or north 
(you folks).  A friend who reads up on such things says that climate 
change models predict we in the Sacramento Valley will be getting more 
summer coolness and monsoons from the south.  (Last year we had a shocking 
monsoon in late August -- an inch of rain -- which came from the south.)
  All I can say is that we had an unusually mild (rarely upper 90s) summer 
which was perfect for irrigated crops of all kinds, seed and otherwise.  
However, an exceptionally early start to our drought (March 1st)meant that 
many rainfed cool-season plants were unable to set seed at all.  (If we 
had any perennial grassland remaining except in carefully prayed-over 
hedgerows, which I hope one day we will, that would be where this would 
make any difference.)
  I have been enjoying the few seedgeeks posts I've read so far and am 
really looking forward to learning more about the seed movement in the 
West.
  your friend still covered in dust,
-Wolfgang
 Davis, CA