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I live in Santa Ana and there has been very little wind, just constant rain. Not coming down as heavy as some past rains, but just raining non-stop. I went to a restaurant on Friday that had a roof leak, my house sprung a leak on Sat., then we went to another restaurant with several roof leaks. So if my anecdotal evidence is any indication, I will get a lot of roof leak claims.

By the way it is "Santa Ana" winds, not "Santa Anna". Santa Anna was the name of the Mexican General at the Alamo, later President of Mexico. Different spelling. The winds were actually called "Santana" by some people when I was little. They hit all of SoCal, not just Santa Ana city. "Santana" may have actually been derived from "satanas" as in Satan, like "devil wind". In Northern California they are called "Diablo" which of course means devil. So now days they are called Santa Ana even though that is not really historically correct. We have a lot of Spanish words here that get Anglicized in odd ways. Same thing happens in Texas- Amarillo used to be pronounced A MAR EEE YOH like correct Spanish but so many people outside of Texas said "A MAR ILLO" that's how it's said today.

When I was growing up we lived on a corner lot where two streets came together in a "L" . When the Santa Ana winds came a little whirlwind would build in the corner and all the leaves and branches from the street would land on my yard, for me to clean up. As kids we would walk around and look at all the trees that would come out of the ground. Many times the owners would just push the tree back up and 20 years later that tree would still be fine. People nowadays don't seem to know that's possible.

These hot dry winds are found all over the world and are blamed for all kinds of crime like fighting and murder. Lots of car names come from these kinds of winds- Volkswagen Scirocco, Maserati Khamsin, etc. In Austria the hot dry wind is called "Fohn" which is also the word for "hairdryer".

One thing I have always noticed is that people in California think hurricanes, hail, and tornadoes sound real scary.

People from the Midwest think mudslides, smog, wildfires and earthquakes are real scary.

For me, earthquakes are pretty normal. Sometimes people in California will just keep right on working through a mild earthquake.

Thanks for the spelling correction. My computer does this every once in a while. it's just part of living in Mt. The weather changes here every 20 minutes and screws up everyone's computer spellings. LOL

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND MAY GOD BLESS YOU IN THE NEW YEAR

Will my NY license be useful this year? just wondering...