The West Coast of the US has been hit by a set of storms that started on Thursday night and are scheduled to continue through the weekend. I do not usually think of heavy rainfall as a positive thing, but it is falling as snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Before next weekend there may be as much as ten-feet of new snow; ideal as I am planning to go skiing that weekend.
New Year
I saw the New Year arrive for the first time in the US. We watched the countdown to New Year on a recorded telecast that had been made hours previously. It was from Time Square in New York, which is three time zones ahead of the West Coast. The midnight hour was marked by an illuminated ball dropping down a pole; the chimes of Big Ben it was not. The program was presented by a legend of American TV, Dick Clark, who looked as though he had been embalmed a decade or so back and dug up for the occasion. Some degree of familiarity was restored by the playing of Auld Lang Syne.
