When I lived in the Green Mountains of Vermont the summers were long and warm but there was always a day—a particular moment, actually—when unexpectedly the air let you know that winter wasn’t far off.

It could have been in October, a lovely afternoon except that, suddenly, the leaves on the maples rustle and a chill hits the skin. There might be many weeks of Indian Summer to come, but the reminder is timely: Old Man Winter is coming.

In coastal California, the sign is subtler, but it’s there, and I felt it yesterday. I don’t think I’ve put on long pants for the last 5 or 6 months, nor have I often needed any outerware like a hoodie, except maybe when walking Gus early in the morning; but yesterday, it was long pants and a flannel shirt all day. It wasn’t particularly cold by Eastern standards: the high was around 65 degrees. But we Californians have thinner blood than those hardy New Englanders, and even 65 can feel cold, if you’re in a shadowed place with wind. You can feel the icebergs in the Aleutians. Winter is coming to us, too.

It’s been an incredible spring, weather-wise. The upside for us humans has been six months of dry, mild-to-warm-to-hot weather (at least here in Oakland), with very little fog–clear evidence of a changing climate. There were many, many days when I thought no place on Earth could have better weather than what we were having in Oakland. The downside, of course, has been the Fires and the resultant smoke (I capitalize “Fires” because of their historical import: 4 million acres burned so far—five times the size of Rhode Island, and more than double the previous record). The damage has been appalling. In Napa alone, 31 wineries, restaurants (including Meadowood) and resorts up in smoke.

As an old wine journalist whose stomping ground was Napa Valley, this makes me very sad. Some very famous names are gone. The arrival of cool weather is welcome news to the firefighters. There have been weather forecasts the last few days about possible rain this weekend, but I just checked the latest weather reports and they’re backing off, saying only that it will be partly cloudy. There is a storm up there in the Pacific Northwest, but its southern edge will reach down only to around Eureka, near the Oregon border—a classic weather pattern for this time of year. We’re going to have to wait a bit longer for the first rains in six months to hit Northern California. It will warm up again next week, but fortunately, nowhere near the triple digits that inland areas have experienced this summer and autumn.

For all the grief in Napa Valley—and it’s substantial—there’s also a lot of optimism. Many of those people have money and will rebuild. The vineyards that burned will take longer to restore, of course, but they’ll come back eventually. One should keep in mind that Old Europe’s wine country, from Bordeaux and Burgundy and Champagne to the German regions, have experienced 1,000 years of wars, plagues, plant diseases and economic collapses, but no matter how tough things get, those regions have survived and, most of the time, thrived. This isn’t to underplay the disaster of the Fires, but only to put things into perspective. Napa Valley, and Sonoma too (which was less affected this year) will get by, and rise again.

And from the consumer’s point of view (and that’s what I am, a consumer), the Fires might have the desired effect of lower prices on wine. I’ve never understood how a bottle of Napa Valley Cabernet could be $300 or even higher in many cases. When hundred-dollar Cabs became numerous in the 1990s, I scratched my head and wondered how it had happened. But wine pricing is one of the most irrational economic phenomena in the world. It’s completely based on supply and demand, not inherent quality; and wine’s appeal is as much to the ego and the imagination as it is to the senses. People lust after certain wines, which then become “first growths,” and their prices soar accordingly. People who can no longer afford them settle for the second most expensive, and those are the “second growths,” and so on, down the line. Thus are wine hierarchies, like Bordeaux’s, created. But as a reading of Penning-Rowsell’s “The Wines of Bordeaux,” with its price charts over the centuries, attests, prices go up rapidly and fall equally rapidly, in a cycle as dependable as the West Coast’s weather patterns.

And now—not to mix topics—on to the Election! Vote! And vote Blue. We mus stop this crazed, dangerous president and the religious fanatics who prop him up.

Feb. 29 isn’t until Saturday, but it can reliably be predicted now that no rain will fall before then in Northern California, making February, 2020 the first time since the 1860s that San Francisco and the Bay Area have had zero rainfall during the month. February typically accounts for about 20% of the average annual rainfall in San Francisco.

We had our infamous Drought in the years between 2011 and 2019, when the State officially declared an end to 376 weeks of below-normal rainfall. San Francisco actually ended up with pretty good rain in the 2018-2019 rainy season, which made people relieved that, finally, we could flush our toilets after #1 and not have to ration our garden-watering or time our showers. In December, 2019, at the start of the new (2019-2020) rainy season, things got off to a great start: nearly 5 inches of rain, well above normal, about 1/4 of our seasonal average. The Tahoe ski resorts exulted, and so did state water officials. January, 2020 also was pretty good for rain, but then came February, and Bam! Nothing. Not a drop, from wine country in the north through the Bay Area and San Jose down to Monterey.

It hasn’t just been dry. For human critters, February has been crazy warm. In the 43 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen such glorious weather in the middle of winter. Day after day of sunny, blue skies, super-clean air quality, and daytime temperatures in the high-60s to mid-70s (and 80 or higher in wine country). Keep in mind, San Francisco’s average high temperature in February is just 60 degrees, so we’ve been running 8-15 degrees above. Just to put it in context, it’s as if New York City this February saw a solid month of highs near 60 degrees. That would turn a few heads.

The reason for the aberrant weather is a large, persistent ridge of high pressure parked over the Eastern Pacific. It is effectively blocking storms from reaching Northern California; instead, the jet stream carries them up to Seattle or Southern Alaska or, in a few cases, they meander down to Los Angeles and Arizona. This is precisely the same weather pattern that gave us our last drought.

Meteorologists say it’s too early to predict whether February is just a one-off, or the beginning of a new drought. Supposedly, a little rain is forecast to possibly hit San Francisco this Sunday, but that would be March 1, thus preserving Feb. 2020 in the history books for no rainfall. Despite the dry month, our reservoirs are in good shape after the winter of 2018-2019, so nobody’s panicking yet, although the ski resorts are getting a little antsy.

The backdrop of every low rainfall year in California is, of course, the coming wildfire season. After the infernos of the last four years, nobody in the state is in a mood for another bad burn year. There’s a political dimension to this: Northern California’s biggest electric utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, has been found guilty of (and has admitted to) inadvertently starting most of the big fires of recent years due to faulty equipment and poor maintenance. The company has had to declare bankruptcy, been fined billions of dollars to repay people who lost their homes, and is facing widespread calls to be taken over by the public—a move that is strongly resisted by PG&E’s worker unions.

Water or the lack of it, climate change, wildfires, mudslides, floods—it’s always something in California, and that doesn’t even take into account the earthquakes. The Big One is seriously overdue; everybody knows it; few are ready. I live on the Hayward Fault, which, while less known than the San Andreas Fault, actually poses a much greater risk, since it hasn’t snapped for 152 years. The Hayward runs down from San Pablo Bay (opposite the Carneros wine country) southeast through the densely-populated East Bay: Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland (my home town), Hayward, Milpitas and Fremont, and includes eastern Silicon Valley and north San Jose. On or alongside the Hayward Fault are scores of hospitals, schools, tunnels, dams, nursing homes, freeways, bridges and industrial parks, as well as millions of people packed closely together into cities and teeming suburbs. It’s literally unimaginable what a 7.2 magnitude on the Hayward would do. When—not if—it happens, it will make drought seem like a pesky inconvenience.

The Bay Area—all of California, actually–has had the most exquisite weather for the last 3-1/2 months. I always complain about our “summers” because, let’s face it, “summertime” in San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley is no bargain. My body longs for warmth, but warm days are rare: Mark Twain’s alleged “coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco” is most apt.

I mean, once the winter-spring rains cease (which in 2018-2019 didn’t happen until May), doesn’t one have the right to expect a spell of warm weather? However, we almost never get it, what with “June Gloom” and July fogs and winds that bring down a scent of glacial chill from the northwest. I can almost smell the Aleutians which, while 2,000 miles away, seem to heave their icy winds across the unbounded seas straight at us. July, frankly, can be a drag.

September and October have long been celebrated as our best months, weather-wise. But August can be iffy. If August follows July’s lead, August, too, continues the disappointment of no-summer. But in this year, 2019, we had the most beautiful August in my memory, which now spans 40 years of life here. Every day was more perfect than the previous. Temperatures of 80 degrees and more were common, with no humidity, under preternaturally blue skies, and hardly a hint of fog. Then came September, and the loveliness continued. Surely nowhere on Earth had better weather than we, in that now-gone month. In October, the days shortened, but remained glorious: shirtsleeves and shorts weather. This three-month spell of perfection—August, September, October—was intimidating, though, for I knew that it could not continue. Winter must come, finally, with its clouds, cold, winds, rain and, in the hills, snow.

So I greeted November with apprehension. Now here we are, with the month one-third over, and while summer is most definitively gone, the weather has remained tranquil. It’s cold in the mornings—cold for the Bay Area, anyway, with temperatures in the 30s in wine country, in the high 40s here in Oakland. But while the sun grows feebler with each tick of the clock until the equinox on Dec. 21, when it does rise low in the sky in the afternoon, one can take off the outerwear one dons for protection against the morning chill. One of my favorite places to enjoy afternoons is in the outdoor café of Whole Foods, which is wind-protected and gains the full impact of the afternoon sun.

No rain has fallen on us since last Spring. Well, we did have an oddball downpour in September, but it was from the remnants of a Pacific hurricane that drifted up through the Central Valley—not a rare occurrence in late summer or early autumn, but not really indicative of an early start to rainy season. The meteorologists are now saying that there’s no rain in the forecast as far out as they can see, which is about 15 days, so it may be that November is rainless. I knock on wood as I say that: we could have a real drencher by Nov. 30, and, after all, we always need the rain. My intellectual opposition to drought was always in constant battle with my animal love of dry warmth, during the drought years of 2011-2015; whenever it rained, I groaned, and Gus, even more than I, detests rain, and does his best to avoid going out in it. Not that he can: I am, after all, the Boss of this outfit. So he slinks along, tail between his rear legs, his ears droopy, with a hangdog look on his face.

So I’ll enjoy the dry weather as long as I can. December will be here soon enough: if it behaves as it has in the past, December will come howling into town with soaking rains and bone-chilling cold. By December, all hope of Indian summer will be vanquished. There is no Indian summer in December; winter arrives determinedly, planting its feet stubbornly on the land, and not prepared to recede until next May, or even June. And one thing I’ll never be able to figure out (as Mark Twain couldn’t, either): Why does a 44-degree winter day in San Francisco feel so much colder than a 17-degree day in Manhattan? It is, like much else in life, a mystery.

Have a lovely weekend!

Have you noticed how much sub-tropical moisture we’ve had since May? It seems like once a week the remnants of some hurricane or tropical storm are blowing over us. We even had heavy rain. We always get a little of this stuff, which is known as the North American Monsoon, but this year it seems really dominant. Typically, Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico get the heavy summer rainfall associated with it; California, especially along the coast, doesn’t. This year represents a big shift.

Several winemakers have told me the same thing. So I asked my meteorologist friend, Steve Paulsen, who’s the morning weatherman on KTVU-TV, what’s up, and he replied: “Not only do I think you and your friends are correct but I also feel we’ll see a lot more later this month and into September. Two different animals though. The ‘rain’ we had back on June 10th was the remains of Hurricane Blanca which came up from Baja. Monsoon moisture from AZ then made frequent visits throughout much of July. Then the remains of Hurricane Dolores brought torrential rain to SoCal. What we saw yesterday was the blow-off from Tropical Storm Guillermo. An unusual summer indeed. Very warm ocean temps.”

I’m not the only one who’s been impressed. Just yesterday, the California Weather Blog (CWB) reported that we’ve had “[q]uite a few waves of monsoonal moisture [which] have brought intense mountain and desert thunderstorm activity, some of which has locally made it into the coastal plain and Central Valley.” (The coastal plain is, of course, wine country.) In fact, CWB called those remains of Hurricane Dolores that Steve referred to “the most significant California tropical remnant event in recent memory” and added this startling fact: “the official city of San Diego observation site recorded more rainfall in 3 days during July 2015 than during all previous months of July since at least the 1800s….combined.” And how’s this: “[A]lmost all of southern California experienced more rain during one weekend in July 2015 than did most of Northern California during the entire month of January 2015.” I need hardly remind my readers that summer is California’s dry season; the rain is supposed to fall in the winter and early spring.

I don’t know if this is related to climate change or global warming or what, but for those of us who’ve lived here for a long time, it’s really strange. Meteorologists are trained scientists; they don’t freak out easily, or say something’s “unusual” unless they really, really think it is. When we get century-long records being shattered, the weathermen sit up and take notice. And now, here comes what some people are calling a “monster” El Nino.

Wouldn’t it be bizarre if we went from extreme drought to floods and mudslides? But then, climate change by definition is giving the world bizarre weather patterns.

* * *

I just got my favorite wine store newsletter, from Kermit Lynch, and as always, I read through it. Wow, when did French wine prices get so high? I don’t mean Burgundy and Bordeaux, I mean everything. I used to drink a lot of Faugeres; now, Kermit has some for $72 a bottle! Yikes. We hear a lot about the French shooting themselves in the foot, price-wise, at least here in the States. I’m not saying the wine isn’t worth it, since I haven’t had it. I’m just boggled.

California has had so many “early harvests” lately that we’re going to have to redefine what the word “early” means. Maybe “early” is the new “normal.”

It seems like the last two years, 2013-2014, were mind-blowingly early. The 2013 vintage was “Early [with] exceptional quality vintage throughout the state,” said the Wine Institute.

Then, in 2014, Wine Spectator said that, in 2014, “Everything was ready to go in early- to mid-August, even Cabernet Sauvignon, which usually ripens much later.”

And now, here comes 2015, “which is expected to arrive earlier than usual,” according to the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat.

That’s what I also heard last week, while walking through Andy Beckstoffer’s Georges III vineyard in Rutherford, where veraison had already started. Of course, all this comes amidst persistent reports of above-average temperatures in California. Just yesterday, it was reported that June was “the warmest ever for California,” as it also was for Nevada, Oregon and Washington. That simply extended this year’s trend: The entire West Coast, plus Nevada, just went through its warmest-ever January-June.

And that was for the second year in a row! Last year, 2014, also was the warmest ever recorded up to then in California, Arizona, southern Nevada and parts of southern and coastal Oregon, according to NOAA.

You’d think statistics like these would be enough to convince the most die-hard climate-change denier, but there’s just enough anomalistic weather to keep them hoping against hope that their delusions are real. May, 2015, for example, was unusually wet and cool in California (actually, it helpfully slowed down the ripening)—but, even at that, May “was the first cooler-than-average month in well over a year for the state.” So when a climate-change denier, like Sen. Ted Cruz, declares that, “I believe in following evidence and data. On the global warming alarmists, anyone who actually points to the evidence that disproves their apocalyptical claims, they don’t engage in reasoned debate,” he would seem to be on increasingly shaky intellectual footing, and not abiding by his own rules for reasoned debate.

However, I’m not here to indulge in pretentious political-scientific jiggery-pokery (thank you, Justice Scalia!), merely to chat about our freaky weather. And now, here comes El Nino! We’ve heard rumors of its approach for years now—rumors that turned out not to be true. But for the last two weeks or so, the media increasingly has been rife with reports, such as this one, of “strong El Nino rainfall” this coming winter. Just yesterday, AccuWeather reported that it “could be one of the strongest in 50 years,” with all that that implies, especially powerful rains.

In big El Nino years, California is drenched, wih L.A. sometimes having even more rain than NoCal. I vividly recall the January, 1995 storms, which brought “disastrous rainstorms throughout California,” said the USGS; poor Guerneville in particular, in the Russian River Valley, was hit hard, with people having to be airlifted off their roofs. We want El Nino’s rain, but we certainly don’t want the natural catastrophes. The problem is, usually the two can’t be separated. Fortunately, a lot of the river dwellers in Guerneville, bless them, put their houses up on stilts after 1995.