I recall visiting my uncle in Arizona for Thanksgiving one year. In the afternoon, it rained maybe one centimeter. It was the first thing on the evening news.

First time I was in California, it was September. I get off the plane and the recruiter picks me up in a convertible.

"See that cloud?" he points.

"Yep"

"That's the first cloud I've seen in almost three months"

I found that a strange thing to say.

A couple of months later, I get off work and go back to the apartment. I'm watching Jeoprady and they do one of these "Action News Storm Team 7" break-ins. They cut to the meterologist who's pointing out breaking news on the triple doplar jetstream radar or whatnot.

It's rain. Looks like a tiny shower, maybe 500 yards across.

The guy says "Looks like this storm will be headed across I5 very soon, so motorist should be extremely cautious"

a small snow storm will debilitate the valley and bay area... stuff like that just doesn't happen too often here.

On the i5 rain the threat is real on first rains as the roads have trace oil that will wash off and cars will shed months of carwash soap residue.

I've heard that before - is it urban legend, or is there some truth to it?

It's in the CA DMV handbook that the roads are most dangerous in "first rain" conditions. You get tested on it!

Sure; I've answered that question on that test. It seemed odd at the time, to find an urban legend in the DMV test.

In fairness, we get like 20cm of rainfall per year. :)

Two days ago: http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/12/09/0300Z/wind/surface/l...

Or this: http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/12/11/0900Z/wind/surface/l...

Big beast brewing in the Pacific:

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orth...