CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake Police Department is trying to locate a man who authorities say shot three people – one of them a pregnant woman – at a Sunset Avenue home on Sunday night.
Gabriel Cardenas Diaz, 30, is wanted for the shooting, according to a police department statement issued on Monday afternoon.
Just before 10 p.m. Sunday, Clearlake Police Department officers responded to a residence in the 4000 block of Sunset Avenue for a report of a male shooting a gun, police said.
Based on the investigation, authorities believe that Cardenas Diaz went to the residence to confront his girlfriend.
During the encounter, police say Cardenas Diaz fired a handgun multiple times into the residence where numerous people were located, including children.
Three adult females were struck by the gunfire, including one who is pregnant, police reported.
Police said Cardenas Diaz fled the scene in a white Acura MDX, which was later located abandoned in a shopping center.
Two victims were reported to be in critical condition, including the pregnant female. The third victim was treated and released, police said.
Cardenas Diaz is considered armed and dangerous and had not been located as of Monday afternoon.
If you see Cardenas Diaz, contact the Clearlake Police Department at 707-994-8251 or local law enforcement.
Additionally, anyone with information regarding this case is asked to contact Det. Leonardo Flores at 707-994-8251, Extension 315.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has a selection of several adult cats waiting for homes this week.
The following cats at the shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Female domestic short hair
This female domestic short hair has a calico coat with gold eyes.
She is in cat room kennel No. 4, ID No. 13387.
‘Isabella’
“Isabella” is a female domestic short hair cat with a chocolate point coat and blue eyes.
She has been spayed.
She is in cat room kennel No. 15a, ID No. 13413.
‘Delilah’
“Delilah” is a female brown tabby with a short coat and blue eyes.
She has been spayed.
She’s in cat room kennel No. 15b, ID No. 13414.
Male domestic short hair
This male domestic short hair has a brown tabby coat and gold eyes.
He is in cat room kennel No. V70, ID No. 13398.
‘Ishta’
“Ishta” is a female domestic medium hair cat with a seal point coat and blue eyes.
She has been spayed.
She’s in cat room kennel No. V105, ID No. 13411.
‘Mama’
“Mama” is a female domestic medium hair with a dilute tortoiseshell coat and green eyes.
She is in cat room kennel No. 134, ID No. 13388.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has several new dogs added to those waiting for new homes this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of bluetick coonhound, pit bull, Rhodesian Ridgeback, shepherd and treeing walker coonhound.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
‘Bruno’
“Bruno” is a male shepherd mix with a medium-length tricolor coat.
He is in kennel No. 18, ID No. 13432.
Male Labrador Retriever mix
This male Labrador Retriever mix puppy has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 21, ID No. 13427.
Female pit bull terrier
This female pit bull terrier has a short brown coat.
She is in kennel No. 23, ID No. 13428.
Female pit bull terrier
This female pit bull terrier has a short blue coat.
She is in kennel No. 24, ID No. 13429.
‘Max’
“Max” is a male bluetick coonhound-treeing walker coonhound with a short tricolor coat.
He is in kennel No. 25, ID No. 13289.
‘Blanca’
“Blanca” is a female pit bull terrier with a short white coat and black markings.
She has been spayed.
She is in kennel No. 26, ID No. 13406.
‘Oso’
“Oso” is a male shepherd mix with a long black and tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 3173.
Male Labrador Retriever
This male Labrador Retriever has a long tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is in kennel No. 28, ID No. 13408.
‘Daisey’
“Daisey” is a female treeing walker coonhound/bluetick coonhound mix with a short tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 29, ID No. 13291.
‘Goofy’
“Goofy” is a young male Rhodesian Ridgeback with a short tan and black coat.
Shelter staff said this boy is great with other dogs, although he is high energy and would benefit from obedience training. He would love to go jogging every day, he is very food motivated and willing to learn new things.
Goofy has been at the shelter since Nov. 5. He was originally taken from someone in Upper Lake and found on the highway in Clearlake. If anyone has any information on his owner please contact the shelter.
He’s in kennel No. 33, ID No. 13210.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – This week the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to hold a discussion regarding the city of Clearlake’s letter to the county regarding issues with the performance of the Treasurer-Tax Collector’s Office.
The board will meet beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 14, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
The meeting can be watched live on Channel 8 and online at https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx. Accompanying board documents, the agenda and archived board meeting videos also are available at that link.
At 10:15 a.m., the board will discuss and consider a response to the letter the city of Clearlake sent the county in November regarding the performance of the Treasurer-Tax Collector’s Office with regard to the sale of tax-defaulted properties.
With thousands of properties totaling millions of dollars waiting to be offered for sale at auction, the city has raised issues with Treasurer-Tax Collector Barbara Ringen’s performance of her official duties, and has requested an investigation and action not just of the Board of Supervisors but also of state agencies and the Lake County Grand Jury.
In a memo to the board, Supervisor Bruno Sabatier and Supervisor Rob Brown, who sit on a board-appointed ad hoc committee delegated early last year to work with Ringen, said the committee “has met and discussed this letter and will present some answers to the Board as well as to the public.”
The memo added that they also will offer an update as to what the status of the current tax auction status is for the anticipated March 2020 tax sale of defaulted properties.
During the public comment period at Thursday’s Clearlake City Council meeting, Sabatier spoke to city officials to inform them of the meeting and to ask them to attend to take part in the Tuesday discussion.
The full agenda follows.
CONSENT ITEMS
5.1: Approve the updated bylaws of the Western Region Town Hall.
5.2: Approve Amendment No. 3 to the contract between the county of Lake and Granicus Inc. for PEAK Agenda Management and Government Transparency Services at no additional cost and authorize the chair to sign.
5.3: Approve change in board member assignment to the Treasurer-Tax Collector Ad Hoc Committee.
5.4: Approve long-distance travel from March 16 to March 20, 2020, for Chief Deputy Auditor-Controller Marcy Harrison and Chief Deputy Auditor-Controller Lisa Casian to attend the CentralSquare 2020 Customer Event in Las Vegas, Nevada.
5.5: Approve minutes of the Board of Supervisors meetings held Oct. 8, 2019; Oct. 22, 2019; and Nov. 5, 2019.
5.6: Approve appropriate workplace attire for the Community Development Department.
5.7: Adopt resolution approving Amendment No.1 to Agreement No. 18G30117 between the Secretary of State and the county of Lake for voting system replacement funds.
5.8: Adopt resolution approving the application and certification statement for the State Department of Health Care Services, CMS Branch’s California Children’s Services Administration Plan Renewal Grant for FY 2019-2020 and authorize the board chair to sign said certification statement.
5.9: Adopt resolution approving the application and certification statement for the State Department of Health Services, CMS Branch’s Child Health & Disability Program, Health Care Program for Children in Foster Care Program (HCPCFC), Monitoring Oversight of Foster Children Treated with Psychotropic Meds (HCPCFC-PMMO) and Caseload Relief (HCPCFC-CR) Grant for FY 2019-2020 and authorize the board chair to sign said certification statement.
5.10: Adopt resolution approving the Lake County Health Services Department to submit acceptance paperwork and a certification clause from the California Department of Public Health Tuberculosis Control Branch for real-time allotment funding for tuberculosis cases in Lake County in the amount of $9,513 for FY2019-2020 and authorizing the board chair to sign said certification clause.
5.11: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the atmospheric river event 2019.
5.12: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the Mendocino Complex fire incident (River and Ranch fires).
5.13: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the Pawnee fire incident.
5.14: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the Kincade fire incident, the Burris fire incident and the October 2019 Pacific Gas and Electric public safety power shutoff events.
5.15: (a) Approve letter of agreement between the Lake County Sheriff's Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States Department of Justice in the amount of $210,000 for the period Oct. 1, 2019, to Sept. 30, 2020; and (b) authorize sheriff to sign the agreement and (c) authorize the chairman to sign workplace certifications and grant assurances.
5.16: Approve the distribution of excess proceeds in the amount of $199,021.71 from tax-defaulted land sale #144A held on June 13, 2005.
TIMED ITEMS
6.2, 9:06 a.m.: Consideration of continuation of a local health emergency and order prohibiting the endangerment of the community through the unsafe removal, transportation, and disposal of fire debris for the Mendocino Complex fire.
6.3, 9:30 a.m.: Public hearing, consideration of appeal, AB 19-02 of Use Permit, UP 18-23 and Initial Study, IS 18-28. APN: 013-060-18.
6.4, 10 a.m.: Public hearing, consideration of appeal, AB 19-06 of Major Use Permit, UP 18-43 and Initial Study, IS 18-58. APN: 014-004-20.
6.5, 10:15 a.m.: Discussion and consideration of a response to a letter from the city of Clearlake regarding the treasurer-tax collector.
UNTIMED ITEMS
7.2: (a) Consideration of resolution declaring county property surplus and authorizing the sale of a portion of the property to the Lake County Transit Authority, or, LTA, and (b) consideration of letter of support for LTA’s bus depot project.
CLOSED SESSION
8.1: Conference with labor negotiator: (a) chief negotiator: M. Long; county negotiators: C. Huchingson and P. Samac; and (b) employee organizations: LCDDAA, LCDSA, LCCOA, LCEA, LCSEA and LCSMA.
8.2: Conference with legal counsel: Existing litigation pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 45956.9 (d)(1): Heart Consciousness Church v. County of Lake, et al.
8.3: Conference with legal counsel: Existing litigation pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 54956.9(d)(1): John vs. County of Lake, et al.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Thanks to a state grant, the Lake County Land Trust is in the midst of finalizing its largest property purchase to date, one which is meant to preserve a key area of Clear Lake’s wetlands.
The state Wildlife Conservation Board approved a $675,000 grant for the 200-acre Wright property purchase at its Nov. 21 meeting.
“It’s really exciting. It’s a keystone project for us, so we’re thrilled,” said Land Trust President Valerie Nixon, who noted that the Land Trust has been interested in the property for at least 15 years.
That grant was among a total of $28.7 million in grant funding the board approved at that time.
The Wildlife Conservation Board reported that funding for the projects comes from a combination of sources including the Habitat Conservation Fund and bond measures approved by voters to help preserve and protect California's natural resources.
The Land Trust’s Wright property project is located at the southwestern shore of Clear Lake, behind the Lakeport movie drive-in. It includes parts of the original Manning Creek channel, Nixon said.
The project is meant to protect shoreline freshwater wetlands, riparian woodlands and wet meadow habitats that support the state-threatened Clear Lake hitch along with the western pond turtle, a state species of special concern. The land also is home to everything from deer to waterfowl, and otter, mink, turkey and raptors. A key goal is to provide future wildlife-oriented, public-use opportunities.
The Land Trust reported that the Wright property is “as close to original shoreline as you can get.”
The Land Trust previously received a $110,000 Wildlife Conservation Board grant for its purchase of what is known as the Melo property, a 34-acre parcel also located in the Big Valley wetland areas, located on Clipper Lane off Soda Bay Road. The total purchase price was $215,000, with that purchase completed in October 2016.
Nixon said the Land Trust is grateful to the Wright family for offering the property and being willing to wait through the process, as well as the community for its support.
Nixon offered special recognition to Bernie and Lynne Butcher, owners of the Tallman Hotel and Blue Wing Saloon, who put up the initial $40,000 match for the property purchase, noting they’ve been fantastic supporters of the Land Trust and the community at large.
“Without the local support, we just couldn’t move forward,” Nixon said.
Nixon said the Big Valley wetlands is the No. 1 area in the Land Trust’s conservation priority plan.
The Land Trust first developed its conservation priority plan in 2007 with public workshops that involved state and local land use and natural resources experts identifying and ranking Lake County’s unique areas and ecosystems in order to prioritize the organization’s conservation efforts.
The Land Trust reported that the Wright property was identified by community stakeholders as a priority for saving and preserving because of the special qualities found there.
The Big Valley wetlands area, which stretches from Clear Lake State Park to Lakeport, also is part of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Big Valley Conceptual Area Plan. The wetlands are prioritized for preservation because of their impacts on Clear Lake watershed’s health.
The process to purchase the Wright property began a few years ago, Nixon said.
The Wright property is the largest that the Land Trust has purchased, and Nixon said it’s a very special place. The first time she went out to visit, she saw a prairie falcon – rare in Lake County – and a large number of pelicans.
The goal is to allow public use and access so people can see the wetlands and the wildlife, Nixon said.
The land currently isn’t heavily used but is still grazed. Nixon said the Land Trust may continue to allow grazing to keep the grasses down.
Nixon said the next step is to close escrow. She said they’ve received the grant, done the match and are now making sure the land is clear of liens. Helping on that process is Land Trust Executive Director Tom Smythe, a retired county of Lake employee whose expertise on lands has been key to the group’s work on the purchase.
Once escrow is complete, the Land Trust will begin working on the next, more extensive aspect, which is stewardship, including how to allow safe public access.
Nixon said the Wright property is just part of what the group would like to acquire in the Big Valley wetlands area. “As easements or other properties come up, we will be looking to purchase those,” Nixon said.
There are other areas in the county where they are interested in acquisitions, including property near a development at Langtry Estate and any land protecting oak woodlands, Nixon said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Astronomers using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, have shown that Alpha Draconis, a well-studied star visible to the naked eye, and its fainter companion star regularly eclipse each other. While astronomers previously knew this was a binary system, the mutual eclipses came as a complete surprise.
“The first question that comes to mind is ‘how did we miss this?’” said Angela Kochoska, a postdoctoral researcher at Villanova University in Pennsylvania who presented the findings at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu on Jan. 6. “The eclipses are brief, lasting only six hours, so ground-based observations can easily miss them. And because the star is so bright, it would have quickly saturated detectors on NASA’s Kepler observatory, which would also mask the eclipses.”
The system ranks among the brightest-known eclipsing binaries where the two stars are widely separated, or detached, and only interact gravitationally. Such systems are important because astronomers can measure the masses and sizes of both stars with unrivaled accuracy.
Alpha Draconis, also known as Thuban, lies about 270 light-years away in the northern constellation Draco. Despite its “alpha” designation, it shines as Draco’s fourth-brightest star. Thuban’s fame arises from a historical role it played some 4,700 years ago, back when the earliest pyramids were being built in Egypt.
At that time, it appeared as the North Star, the one closest to the northern pole of Earth’s spin axis, the point around which all of the other stars appear to turn in their nightly motion.
Today, this role is played by Polaris, a brighter star in the constellation Ursa Minor. The change happened because Earth’s spin axis performs a cyclic 26,000-year wobble, called precession, that slowly alters the sky position of the rotational pole.
TESS monitors large swaths of the sky, called sectors, for 27 days at a time. This long stare allows the satellite to track changes in stellar brightness. While NASA’s newest planet hunter mainly seeks dimmings caused by planets crossing in front of their stars, TESS data can be used to study many other phenomena as well.
A 2004 report suggested that Thuban displayed small brightness changes that cycled over about an hour, suggesting the possibility that the system’s brightest star was pulsating.
To check this, Timothy Bedding, Daniel Hey, and Simon Murphy at the University of Sydney, Australia, and Aarhus University, Denmark, turned to TESS measurements. In October, they published a paper that described the discovery of eclipses by both stars and ruling out the existence of pulsations over periods less than eight hours.
Now Kochoska is working with Hey to understand the system in greater detail.
“I've been collaborating with Daniel to model the eclipses and advising on how to bring together more data to better constrain our model.” Kochoska explained. “The two of us took different approaches to modeling the system, and we hope our efforts will result in its full characterization.”
As known from earlier studies, the stars orbit every 51.4 days at an average distance of about 38 million miles (61 million kilometers), slightly more than Mercury’s distance from the Sun. The current preliminary model shows that we view the system about three degrees above the stars’ orbital plane, which means neither star completely covers the other during the eclipses.
The primary star is 4.3 times bigger than the Sun and has a surface temperature around 17,500 degrees Fahrenheit (9,700 C), making it 70 percent hotter than our Sun. Its companion, which is five times fainter, is most likely half the primary’s size and 40 percent hotter than the Sun.
Kochoska says she is planning ground-based follow-up observations and anticipating additional eclipses in future TESS sectors.
“Discovering eclipses in a well-known, bright, historically important star highlights how TESS impacts the broader astronomical community,” said Padi Boyd, the TESS project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “In this case, the high precision, uninterrupted TESS data can be used to help constrain fundamental stellar parameters at a level we’ve never before achieved.”
TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.
Francis Reddy works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – One person was seriously injured in a Sunday afternoon crash on Highway 20 in the Blue Lakes area.
The three-vehicle wreck was first reported shortly before 4:15 p.m. in front of Blue Lakes Lodge, according to radio reports.
Northshore Fire and Lakeport Fire sent units to the wreck, where two of the vehicles were found to be blocking the westbound lane, scanner reports indicated.
The reports indicated that two of the vehicles involved were a Ram pickup and a Toyota pickup. Dispatch said the Toyota had been reported before the crash as possibly involving a drunk driver.
Incident command requested an air ambulance respond to fly out a critically injured driver, but the air ambulance would not fly due to the rainy weather conditions, based on radio reports.
In addition to the one person with major injuries, there were four other vehicle occupants involved who were not injured, according to incident command.
Scanner traffic indicated the injured driver was transported by ambulance to a local hospital.
Radio reports said that Caltrans responded to the scene to assist with traffic control, with a tow company responding to remove all vehicles.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
COBB, Calif. – Taking a walk in still-beautiful Boggs Ridge Nature Trail located behind Cobb Elementary School is like music to my soul.
Although it will never be the same after the 2015 Valley fire, there is still grandeur among the pines, oaks and other flora with thrilling panoramas to take in.
This quiet corner of Lake County – about 50 acres – resides in the Cache and Putah Creek watersheds. Our amazing watershed, a hydrologic system, in due course, arrives at the Pacific Ocean!
According to the park's Nature Trail interpretive panel:
"Water from the north side of Cobb and Highway 175 drains into Kelsey Creek which in turn drains into Clear Lake ... Clear Lake's only outlet is Cache Creek at the southern end of the Lake, which borders Anderson Marsh State Historic Park. From there, Cache Creek winds its way south passing through Cache Creek Dam and then entering the Capay Valley. As the Creek leaves Capay Valley it enters the northern Central Valley. The Creek becomes smaller and smaller as farms along its banks remove water for irrigation of crops. The Creek eventually enters a settling basin east of Woodland with excess water flowing through a flood control canal into the Sacramento River. Water from the south side of Cobb and Highway 175 drains into Putah Creek which flows into Lake Berryessa. That water is used by local cities with some of the excess water continuing to flow down Putah Creek below the Lake and eventually enters the Sacramento River. The Sacramento River drains into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which in turn drains into the San Pablo Bay. The same water that falls as rain where you are standing turns into runoff and travels hundreds of miles through creeks, lakes, and bays and then enters the San Francisco Bay and its final destination the Pacific Ocean."
The interpretive panel, one of numerous and informative signs along the trail, goes on to describe how watersheds make up a large natural habitat that is home to important species of plants and animals.
It describes the importance of maintaining our watersheds through keeping them clean, beginning with the tippy-top of our creeks, to the ground-stores, or aquifers deep below the ground through monitoring the use of cleaning products, fertilizers, etc.
What a boon this park is to the lucky Cobb Elementary students!
Plants that thrive up on Boggs include white fir, Douglas fir, California fescue, California bay laurel, coffeeberry, sugar pine, Pacific madrone, mountain dogwood, canyon live oak, California black oak and much more.
Animals that call Boggs home include dusky-footed wood rat, gray fox, black bear, striped skunk, mountain lion, western gray squirrel, Sonoma chipmunk, black-tailed jackrabbit, black-tailed deer, raccoon and other forest-dwellers.
Boggs Mountain obtained its name from Henry Boggs, who hailed from Missouri, and landed in Lake County in 1864, making his arrival over a decade after John Cobb.
Boggs was an industrious fellow who controlled ventures such as a gristmill, a steam-powered sawmill as well as a wood planer on what is now the east portion of Boggs Mountain Demonstration State Forest. Boggs purchased and logged most of the area by 1884. After his time, Boggs was clear-cut by subsequent owners all of the way up to 1949.
Next, the California Division of Forestry, now known as Cal Fire, acquired 3,433 acres for their demonstration forest.
You don't have to peer closely to locate Boggs’ beauty of another “genre.” There is some interesting geology at Boggs Ridge Nature Trail.
Along the trail amazing Boggs Mountain andesite boulders proliferate. Andesite is an igneous volcanic rock that started out in a sweltering fluid state.
Since, according to the interpretive display, Boggs Mountain State Forest is located on a lava cap roughly 1 mile wide, by 3 1/2 miles long andesite is exposed over large areas of the forest.
These flows, known as originating from a Clear Lake volcanic lava flow, are one to two million years old!
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, freelance writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.”
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The National Weather Service said two strong winter storms are headed to the region over the coming week, bringing rain and mountain snow.
The agency’s long-range forecast said that the first of the storms will push into interior Northern California Monday night.
That first storm will bring chances for snow in elevations above 3,000 feet. There are expected to be accumulations around 12 to 18 inches at Sierra pass levels and a few inches of snow possible for the I-5 mountain pass as well.
Midweek another wet weather system is expected to bring rain and lower snow levels to elevations between 2,000 and 3,000 feet – and potentially heavy mountain snow – across the North State.
The system also has the potential for gusty winds, the National Weather Service said.
The local forecast calls for a mostly sunny Saturday, with winds into the mid-teens and gusts of around 20 miles per hour.
There are chances of showers from Sunday through Friday, with winds in the mid-teens forecast through Sunday night. The possibility of snow also exists in Lake County’s higher elevations.
Temperatures overall are expected to be colder in the coming week. Nighttime temperatures will range from the low to high 30s and daytime temperatures from the lost to high 40s.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A Sacramento man was arrested early Sunday on suspicion of driving under the influence after police officers stopped him for driving with a missing tire.
Martin Diaz Barajas Jr. was taken into custody following a traffic stop that took place just before 1 a.m. Sunday, according to the Lakeport Police Department.
The agency reported that officers observed a 2018 Red Ford Ecosport traveling eastbound on 11th Street with severe right front end damage and a missing right front tire.
The officers conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle as it turned northbound on Pool Street and contacted the driver, Diaz Barajas, police said.
Diaz Barajas told officers that he had just crashed his vehicle prior to taking the 11th Street exit from Highway 29 northbound and that he was aware that his tire was missing but he believed that he would be able to drive home on the rim, according to the Lakeport Police Department.
The department said officers suspected that Diaz Barajas was driving under the influence and conducted field sobriety tests.
In the end, Diaz Barajas complied with a preliminary alcohol screening test – or breathalyzer – and his results showed a blood alcohol content of .082% and .085 in the field, police said.
Police said Diaz Barajas was placed under arrest and later transported to the Lake County Jail where he was booked for driving under the influence.
Jail records indicate he has since been released.
The Lakeport Police Department reported that it is committed to keeping impaired drivers off of the roadways and keeping our community safe.
“If you see someone you suspect is driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol please call 9-1-1,” the agency said.
A new year typically brings new resolutions. While making resolutions is easy, sticking with them is not. Exercise-related resolutions consistently make the top 10 list, but up to 80% of resolutions to be healthier, including promises to exercise more, are tossed aside by February.
You know physical activity is good for you. But, that isn’t always enough to get or keep you moving. You’re not alone. Fewer than half of American adults are as active as they should be.
How active should you be? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity every week.
So, let’s think about physical activity in a different way. As a nurse who researches exercise, I can tell you that it is likely the closest thing to a fountain of youth or a magic pill that you will have in your lifetime.
Bottom line: If you want to live a long and healthy life, you need to be active.
But “that’s easier said than done,” you might be saying to yourself. In fact, increasing your physical activity is probably easier than you think. You don’t need to buy expensive equipment or join a gym. And you will begin to reap the rewards of physical activity almost as soon as you start. Adding small amounts of movement to your daily routine goes a long way.
Brisk walking, at a pace of at least a 20-minute mile, provides health benefits similar to running, and probably more social benefits. Plus, your risk of injury is much lower. And you can walk – for free with nothing more than comfortable shoes – from almost anywhere: your neighborhood, your office, or in lieu of waiting behind the wheel of your car in the pickup line at your kid’s school. A 22-minute walk every day, or two 11-minute ones, would put you just over 150 minutes every week.
It isn’t cheating to break your 150 minutes a week into small increments. In fact, even for people who are physically fit and exercise every day, breaking up periods of sitting is critically important. Even if you are getting enough exercise, sitting for the rest of the day can undo the health benefits of your workout. If you aren’t yet ready to aim for 2.5 hours of brisk walking each week, reducing the time you spend sitting would be a great starting goal.
Setting other goals
Many experts who work with clients or patients to set goals use the acronym SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based) to guide goal-setting. This simple method could help you achieve a goal to sit less and move more in the new year:
Be specific. Rather than just “sit less, move more,” include when you will start and how will you do it. Specify what actions you will take to meet your goal. For example, make a list of how you can get more steps in each day by doing specific things, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
Make it measurable. Again, “less” and “more” are hard to measure. Instead, try “Walk for 5 minutes after every hour of sitting.” Without a way to measure your goal, it becomes hard to know when you have achieved it.
Make it attainable. If you currently don’t exercise at all, 150 minutes a week may not be realistic. How about three 20-minute walks per week? You can slowly increase after you achieve that first goal. And choose an activity you might enjoy. If you already know you hate running, a goal to do it every day would be less attainable.
Set realistic goals. Your new activity goal should work for you and fit within your lifestyle. It’s great to challenge yourself, but break up challenging goals into smaller, more realistic, goals to help keep on track.
Set a time by which you will meet your goal. For example, will you take a certain number of steps by noon each day? Or, will you build up to 150 minutes a week by mid-April? You’re more likely to achieve short-term goals that lead into a long-term one.
One of the best ways to keep up with your efforts is to track your progress. You can do it with pen and paper, in a journal, or in one of many smartphone apps. As you see yourself making progress, it can be easier to keep up the routine.
Expand your view of exercise
Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to go a gym to get moving. There are ways to make exercise part of your lifestyle, without too much inconvenience.
Get the family involved. Play tag, go on a scavenger hunt at a local park, or walk to your favorite hangout.
Park farther away from your workplace, the store, the library, etc.
Walk during your breaks at work and over your lunch period.
Instead of having coffee with friends, take a walk with them.
Whenever you are on the phone, stand up and walk around.
If you are at your kid’s or grandkid’s sporting event, walk the sidelines instead of sitting on the bleachers.
Try to find ways to make walking more meaningful. For example, try walking your own dog or a shelter dog. Dogs make great exercise companions that will never turn down an opportunity to walk.
As you undertake the big change from being inactive to becoming active, understand that setbacks happen. Don’t let one slip-up derail your whole goal. When possible, have a backup plan to deal with barriers like weather or time constraints. And celebrate the small victories you make toward reaching longer-term goals.
Looking for more tips on how to get started? Check out this guide.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – On Tuesday, Jan. 21, Congressman Mike Thompson (CA-05) will hold two events in Lake County.
In the first event, Thompson will host a town hall at the Tom Aiken Community Hall at Kelseyville High School, 5480 Main St., from 5:30 to 7 p.m.
The second event, “Coffee with our Congressman,” will be held at the Grinders Steep Coffee Shop, 21187 Calistoga Road in Middletown, from noon to 1 p.m.
All constituents of California’s Fifth Congressional District and members of the press are invited to attend.
Thompson represents California’s Fifth Congressional District, which includes all or part of Contra Costa, Lake, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties.