Canal at sunrise~SkyWatch Friday 120409

I stopped to view the All-American Canal in Indio, CA last weekend. I had to run over to our daughter's house to pick up my husband, who stayed overnight to watch the UCLA/USC football game. So, during the early morning, I walked up to the canal to view the sunrise. This canal serves the farmers of the Coachella Valley, with the water that they need for their 365 day growing season. Most of the rest of us receive our water from the local water districts, who drill down into the vast underground aquafer. Sometimes they drill down to 1,500 feet. And, it takes 8 years for the snow on our mountains to melt and move down through the sand and strata to the aquafer. So, we are hoping for more snow this year, as we haven't had much the last several years. And rain? Last weekend we had a trace and a storm is heading our way the beginning of next week, but we usually get less than 6" of rain in our desert. That's why it is a desert! SkyWatch Friday for December 4, 2009. While the canal looks calm and peaceful, underneath the water is flowing at a rapid speed, thanks to a series of intake valves. NO SWIMMING! NO NADES! The canal always wins and if someone falls in, because of the slippery sides and the intake valves, they do not survive.