Yosemite Falls roars back to life

Upper Yosemite Falls on Wednesday. Courtesy of National Park Service

If you read this, you live (most likely) in California. That makes Yosemite your hallowed place to revere, protect and enjoy — whether or not you appreciate this birthright (yet.) In that spirit, I post today's news from Yosemite National Park superintendent Don Neubacher that the current storms have awakened the famed Yosemite waterfalls from the drought. Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil Fall and Cascade Fall are flowing freely, feeding the streams and rivers that flow through Yosemite Valley and down into the rest of California.

"To see Yosemite Falls coming to life this morning is truly exhilarating,” Neubacher said.

The Tioga and Glacier Point roads are closed, as they typically are in December, but the other highways into the park are open.

Tomorrow, when it's light out, you can visit the Yosemite Conservancy webcam and watch the falls for a little bit. I plan to.

Here in Los Angeles, a few days of stormy weather have reminded people what happens when it rains here — some traffic disruption, mudslides in the usual places — along Pacific Coast Highway, in the canyons and along the front of the San Gabriels especially — and all that bad stuff on the streets and freeways washed into the ocean and making the surf a little toxic. But this was a pretty nice way to get back into rain mode. Steady but gentle rain most places, little storm fury, no records of note broken. Kind of the perfect LA winter storm in the benign sense, a National Weather Service official sound-bited (sound-bit?) for the LA Times.

Here are the 72-hour rainfall totals picked up by the county's Department of Public Works meters. Higher where you expect it, up in the San Gabriels, but not too extreme anywhere.