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White near-equinox
This photo, from Berkeleyside, shows Solano Ave. on Friday night. I was at a dinner party in the Oakland hills. When I returned to my house on Arch Street, I found the front and back yards and both decks covered with "snow" that felt and sounded like crushed ice. Although hail, in reality, it triggered a lot of merrymaking in the neighborhood. Something similar happened here in the early 1970s, when I lived above Euclid on Hearst.
The freeze of 1972 was a significant weather event. It froze for three days and there was snow, not hail lingering for three days in the shade. An ice patch stayed on the sidewalk at the SE corner of Vine and Oxford.
ReplyDeleteThis was a hard enough freeze in the hills to top kill thousands of eucalypts along the crest.
The removal of the dead forest allowed the open spaces to re-establish and the increase in native species and abundant browse are likely responsible for the gret increase in the deer population.
Prior to this freeze there were really only two places along Grizzly Peak Rd in the Park where one could see the Bay; the "Flat" and the "Wall," and there were no views of San Pablo Bay.
A great improvement over the unsuccessful Eucalyptus plantation.
Was that really in 1972? The hailstorm was around then, but I thought the eucalyptus episode was later.
ReplyDeleteIt was December 1972
ReplyDeleteThis article gives a good overview of the history of the Blue Gum in the Berkeley Hills, the freeze and the fuel removal that followed.
OOPS! Here's the link
ReplyDeletehttp://oep.berkeley.edu/news/2006/documents/Evanosky2.pdf