Cold... and RAINY

I noted yesterday that it's been cold here in the SF Bay Area. Most of that I missed because I've been elsewhere all but 2 days of the past 2 weeks. There's something else I missed, too. Rain. It rained a few times last week and the week before while I was out, and it's raining again this morning.

Not gonna lie, rain makes it dreary. But we need it. California (and the US west) has been in drought condition for several years. It's become severe. Rivers are running dry as reservoirs are at historic lows, and land in agricultural regions is sinking as groundwater tables are depleted.

Does this bit of rain help? Well, every little bit helps, but we need a lot more. Even after a rainy two weeks our total rainfall was still below seasonal average-to-date. With another half inch today we'll be right around average regionally. So now we only need three more months of this. Actually we need more than average, way more, to refill what's been depleted. Like, two years of above-average rain would be a good start.

Chernobyl

Last night Hawk and I watched the HBO miniseries Chernobyl. It's about about the 1986 nuclear accident at the Soviet power plant Chernobyl near the city of Pripyat in what is today Ukraine.



The miniseries aired in 2019. It's been on my watch list basically since then. As a scientifically educated person I've always been curious to learn more about what happened there. I knew from cursory reading years ago that the gist of it was that operators disabled or ignored multiple safety systems and protocols while running a horribly misconceived "experiment". I looked forward to learning more about it through this series critically acclaimed for its accuracy and depth of research.

Chernobyl spans five episodes, each about an hour long. We surprised ourselves by bingeing all five in one sitting Friday night, staying up until 2am Saturday. I'll post thoughts episode by episode soon.

Update: keep reading: 1:23:45. The Cost of Lies.