The rainy season has arrived and is off to a good start. About a month ago we had a few storms come through that dropped a couple of inches of rain, and just this week we got another couple inches.

This means that the hills are starting to gain their winter color. To see a contrast between summer and winter here in California, see my post: Colorful Hills

Since it is the inspiration for this post, this one is Colorful Hills II.

Since traffic was light on the way up the Altamont Pass on Wednesday morning I decided to take a few pictures. You can really see that the hills are starting to get their winter color.

This also came during a break in the rain and you can see that the sun is lighting up the hills ahead of me.

This picture is interesting to me for several reasons. The hills on the right int he picture are lit up and the one on the left is dark. This is because of the breaks in the clouds on this Wet and Windy Wednesday.

If you look at my Colorful Hills post, you will also see that this is where the pictures in that post were taken from.

As I got just a little bit farther I notice that there was a rainbow up ahead. You can also see that I am driving in a cloudy area and that there are clear spots up ahead. I knew that there was rain ahead as you will see in the next picture.

I debated with myself as to whether I should post this picture. I took this picture after it started to rain again and the camera focused on the raindrops on the windshield.

I do like this picture as it looks like it may have been painted by a French Impressionist painter.

I really like the rainbow and the blurry windmills.

I took one last picture before the rain hit with a vengeance. Here is a picture through the passenger side window just a few seconds later after I passed the next little hill.

Here we see a nice double rainbow and two lines of windmills. You can also see that the sky was getting darker and it was only a few minutes before I was driving through heavy rain.

I am really glad that we are starting off the rainy season with a lot of rain. I really don’t like driving in rain during rush hour traffic, but we really need it. We have been really dry the last couple of years.

Does your grass turn green in the winter?

Steven