The mild weather will continue through the rest of the work week, and it is now beginning to look like the projected weekend storm will be weaker than the models had initially projected. For Thursday, sunshine in the morning will be replaced by a few afternoon clouds with mild high temperatures in the mid-50s…conditions that will essentially duplicate on Friday. A trough of low pressure late Saturday will start to kick up some winds and could bring some mainly mountain showers, but the latest computer models have weakened this storm significantly and now there is only a slight chance we will get any valley rain or snow. Temperatures will cool down to the 40s by the end of the weekend.

I certainly hope that by now everybody has shut off and winterized their irrigation systems. But one thing that gets forgotten every now and then is to make sure that you disconnect your hoses from your hose bibs. The reason for this is that if the hose stays attached, water can stay in the nozzle of the hose bib, which can then freeze and crack, whereas if you disconnect the hoses, the water will drain out and have nothing in them to freeze.