LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A little bit of snow and rain fell on Lake County on Monday, with forecasters expecting more rain through the rest of this week plus additional snow in the mountains around the North State.

The National Weather Service has Lake County and other parts of Northern California under a winter weather advisory, which originally lasted until 10 p.m. Wednesday. However, on Monday, the agency updated and extended the advisory until 4 a.m. Thursday.

A light dusting of snow was reported in various parts of Lake County on Monday, but it didn't last for long, according to area residents.

In addition to the small amount of snow that fell on Lake County on Monday, there were trace amounts of rain reported throughout the county, according to the National Weather Service's network of weather stations.

Forecasters said a very cold airmass coupled with rain will continue to bring snow over interior Northern California much of this week, with significant snow accumulations of up to 12 inches anticipated on Tuesday above the 3,000-foot elevation mark.

In Lake County, forecasters said the Cobb Mountain area could see snow, as well as higher elevations along the Coastal Range.

Additionally, the agency said forecast models were continuing to show a wet but milder weather pattern for Wednesday and into next week, resulting in additional rain and mountain snow, adding that the situation could change.

The National Weather Service's seven-day precipitation forecast model, ending at 4 p.m. Jan. 8, has much of Lake County receiving between 4 and 6 inches of rain during that time period, with areas in the south county and in the north county's mountains forecast to get between 6 and 8 inches.

Based on the specific Lake County forecast, the only expected break in the wet weather is on Friday, with rain expected every other day this week.

Nighttime lows are forecast to be in the mid 30s, with daytime highs up to around 50 degrees.

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.

The University of California, Berkeley's worldwide network of smartphone earthquake detectors has recorded nearly 400 earthquakes since the MyShake app was made available for download in February, with one of the most active areas of the world the fracking fields of Oklahoma.

The Android app harnesses a smartphone's motion detectors to measure earthquake ground motion, then sends that data back to the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory for analysis.

The eventual goal is to send early-warning alerts to users a bit farther from ground zero, giving them seconds to a minute of warning that the ground will start shaking. That's enough time to take cover or switch off equipment that might be damaged in a quake.

To date, nearly 220,000 people have downloaded the app, and at any one time, between 8,000 and 10,000 phones are active – turned on, lying on a horizontal surface and connected to a wi-fi network – and thus primed to respond.

An updated version of the MyShake app became available for download Dec. 14 from the Google Play Store, providing an option for push notifications of recent quakes within a distance determined by the user, and the option of turning the app off until the phone is plugged in, which could extend the life of a single charge in older phones.

"The notifications will not be fast initially – not fast enough for early warning – but it puts into place the technology to deliver the alerts and we can then work toward making them faster and faster as we improve our real-time detection system within MyShake," said project leader Richard Allen, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary sciences and director of the seismology lab.

In a presentation on Dec. 14, during the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, UC Berkeley developer and graduate student Qingkai Kong summarized the app's performance.

Ten months of operation clearly shows that the sensitivity of the smartphone accelerometers and the density of phones in many places are sufficient to provide data quickly enough for early warning.

The phones readily detect the first seismic waves to arrive – the less destructive P waves – and send the information to Berkeley in time to issue an alert that the stronger S wave will soon arrive.

"We already have the algorithm to detect the earthquakes running on our server, but we have to make sure it is accurate and stable before we can start issuing warnings, which we hope to do in the near future," Kong said in a separate statement.

The app can detect quakes as small as magnitude 2.5, with the best sensitivity in areas with a greater density of phones.

The largest number of phones to record a quake was 103, after the 5.2 magnitude quake that occurred on the San Jacinto fault near Borrego Springs in San Diego County on June 10. Phones 200 kilometers from the epicenter detected that temblor.

The largest quake detected occurred on April 16 in Ecuador: a 7.8 magnitude quake that triggered two phones, 170 and 200 kilometers from the epicenter.

Allen, Kong and their colleagues at Deutsche Telekom's Silicon Valley Innovation Center believe the app's performance shows it can complement traditional seismic networks, such as that operated nationally by the U.S. Geological Survey, but can also serve as a stand-alone system in places with few seismic stations, helping to reduce injuries and damage from earthquakes.

While the app has detected quakes in seismically active areas such as Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan and the West Coast of the U.S., one surprising hot spot has been the traditionally quiet state of Oklahoma.

The practice of injecting oil well wastewater deep underground has activated faults in the area to the extent that the state is rattled hundreds of times a year.

"Oklahoma is now clearly No. 1 in terms of the number of earthquakes in the lower 48 states," Kong said.

Most of Oklahoma's earthquakes are small, but MyShake users in the state, which number only about 200, easily detected the Sept. 3 magnitude 5.8 quake, the strongest ever to hit the state.

During that event, 14 phones in the state triggered, but even this relatively small number of phones allowed the seismology lab to peg the magnitude within 1 percent of estimates from ground seismic stations, and located the epicenter to within 4 kilometers (2.5 miles).

"These initial studies suggest that the data will be useful for a variety of scientific studies of induced seismicity phenomena in Oklahoma, as well as having the potential to provide earthquake early warning in the future," Kong said.

The MyShake app and the computer algorithm behind it were developed by Allen, Kong and a team of programmers at the Silicon Valley Innovation Center in Mountain View, California, which is part of the Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs) operated by Deutsche Telekom, owner of T-Mobile.

Louis Schreier, the leader of that team, co-wrote a paper with Allen and Kong on the first six months of MyShake's observations, published Sept. 29 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Snow is still in the forecast for parts of Lake County, with some reports of very light snow on Sunday night and early Monday.

The National Weather Service has Lake County and parts of Northern California under a winter weather advisory through 10 p.m. Tuesday due to chances of snow.

Lower elevations are forecast to receive primarily rain, while areas in the mountains are expected to receive several inches of snow this week, according to the specific forecast.

Late Sunday and early Monday, Lake County News readers reported brief, light snowfall in and around Clearlake, Kelseyville and Lakeport, with rain reported in other areas.

Temperatures over the next few days are expected to range from the low 30s at night to the high 40s during the day.

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. – If you're looking to start off 2017 with a new feline friend, check out the cats ready to fill that role at Lake County Animal Care and Control.

The cats for this first week of the new year include calicoes, orange and gray tabbies, and black and tuxedo cats.

Several of the cats are being offered for $10 each – including spay/neuter, vaccination and microchip – thanks to a sponsorship begun last week that so far has resulted in five other cats getting new homes. The cats offered for $10 are noted below. The all-black cat also has been sponsored and is available for free to an approved home.

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets there, hoping you'll choose them.

For those looking for a barn cat to keep the rodents at bay, be sure to ask about the barn cat adoption program. Feral barn cats are adopted out for $1 each, which includes altering, ear notching and vaccines. 

In addition to the animals featured here, all adoptable animals in Lake County can be seen at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Shelter_Animal_Search.htm .

The following cats at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (other cats pictured on the animal control Web site that are not listed here are still “on hold”).

Domestic short hair

This young female tuxedo cat has a short cat and gold eyes.

She's in cat room kennel No. 7, ID No. 6666.

Domestic long hair

This female domestic long hair cat has a calico coat.

She is in cat room kennel No. 15, ID No. 6660.

Male lynx point

This male lynx point has a short coat and blue eyes.

He is offered for adoption for $10.

He's in cat room kennel No. 19, ID No. 6564.

Domestic short hair

This female domestic short hair has a calico coat gold eyes.

She's in cat room kennel No. 32, ID No. 6687.

'Muchy'

“Muchy” is a gray and white female domestic short hair mix.

She has green eyes and already has been spayed.

She's in cat room kennel No. 39, ID No. 6714.

Domestic short hair

This young female domestic short hair has a black and white coat and gold eyes.

She's in cat room kennel No. 75a, ID No. 6658.

Domestic short hair

This young male domestic short hair cat has an orange and white coat and gold eyes.

He's in cat room kennel No. 75b, ID No. 6663.

Domestic short hair

This young male domestic short hair has an orange tabby coat with white markings and gold eyes.

He's in cat room kennel No. 109a, ID No. 6659.

Domestic short hair

This young male domestic short hair has an all-black coat and gold eyes.

He has been sponsored and is available for free to an approved family.

He's in cat room kennel No. 109b, ID No. 6661.

Domestic short hair

This young female domestic short hair cat has a gray tabby coat and gold eyes.

She is offered for adoption for $10.

She's in cat room kennel No. 112, ID No. 6555.

Domestic short hair

This female domestic short hair has a gray tabby coat and gold eyes.

She is offered for adoption for $10.

She's in cat room kennel No. 120, ID No. 6416.

To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .

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.

Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .

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.

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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – A new bocce league that wants to use Middletown Trailside Park as the location for its courts will hold a planning meeting this weekend and will be discussed at next week's Middletown Area Town Hall meeting.

Middletown Bocce League Robert Battaile said league members will hold their first planning meeting from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, at the Middletown Community Center, 21256 Washington St.

Battaile said the meeting is open to the public.

At a meeting of the Middletown Area Town Hall, or MATH, late in 2016, Battaile introduced the formation of the league.

He said the meeting this Saturday is preparation for going back to MATH at its Jan. 12 meeting, at which point the league will be on the group's agenda.

One of the issues to be decided is whether or not the league will use Trailside Park on Highway 175 as the site of its courts.

Battaile said the county of Lake, which owns the park has suggested that location to the league.

The park was badly damaged in the Valley fire. Most of its trees have been cut down due to the damage from the fire, but there are plans to plant new trees.

A map of the park with illustrations of where the four bocce courts would go shows them located near the park's parking lot and restrooms.

To learn more or take a survey, visit www.middletownbocce.org .