We don't know about you, but we were awoken in the middle of the night by howling wind and driving rain that made us think about just how secure our windows were and if the roof is leaking or are we just imaging it and dear God, not the Dementors again! No! Stay away from us!

Uh, where were we? Oh yeah, well, the reason for all the raining is that we are in the beginnings of a full-fledged winter storm. If the rain isn't good enough for you, there are also predictions of thundershowers tonight and hail. We love hail. Things are expected to be clear tomorrow, then get right nasty over the weekend and into next week. In fact, we looked at the weather chart on SFGate and if it was something that came up in playing slots, we'd be rich.

Traffic was supposedly a mess this morning between accidents and flooding. Word is that it's not so bad right now but that'll change if things get worse. All of this is good for Tahoe as more than a foot of snow will be dumped on the ski resorts by the end of today and there's more on the way. Yay skiers.