Huge destructive storms, big bruvver racism, what’s going on back in the uk? Over here we’re still in deep freeze – there’s no snow, not even a cloud, in California’s central valley, but there is frost on the fruit, and the price of oranges and other citrus is going to rise dramatically as a result. Yes, yes I know that the storms in Europe are trashing coastlines and blowing trees all over the place, and yes I know that enormous ice storms across the rest of the US have brought states of emergency, but here in (still sunny) California we’re having record low temperatures overnight. It’s still nice in the daytime, but first thing in the morning it’s a bit nippy, brrrr. And blimey, I don’t know how I’ll cope with having to pay a bit more for my tangerines.

Seriously though, it’s even made the BBC world service news, the citrus crop could be utterly destroyed, as well as other crops – avocadoes, for example – and this has a knock-on effect on the state’s economy. California is one of the most important agricultural bread-baskets of the US, and we just aint used to this sort of weather. Even in southern California they have been getting flurries of snow in the hills above Malibu. They’re making snowmen in LA. But it’s been so dry in most of California that there is the additional risk of wildfire, especially with the high cold winds.

So, since I’ve come here, we’ve had the heaviest rain on record, the hottest summer on record, and now the coldest winter on record. Bloody hell. And this sort of thing is going on all over the planet. I heard that in Russia they are having one of the warmest winters they’ve ever had. Last year at the same time was one of the coldest. Tornadoes in Kensal Rise. Yesterday Stephen Hawking said that the threat of global warming and its knock-on effects has brought humanity that little bit closer to doomsday. I think it’s about time we took this climate change thing a little bit more seriously, or I might have to give up eating oranges altogether.

Yesterday, someone said something that gave me the impression that they thought it was still Spring. I told them, look, if it’s nearly a hundred degrees Fahrenheit outside, that means it is Summer. I was assured that this is indeed still Spring, and that I will be looking back on the days when it was only in the 90s like some bygone cold spell. In Davis – in the Central Valley generally – it gets hot, and I mean HOT.

Not that I can go outside, of course. The hay fever is especially bad right now, and I’m tired of everyone asking me what I’m taking for it. Nothing works for me, and anything medicated makes me ridiculously drowsy. I’ve realised that the best thing for me is to just stay inside, in the safe insulated bubble of my office. I don’t have a window, so I don’t see how sunny it is, but my spies tell me it’s glorious right now.

I read somewhere that California got it’s name from the Spanish words ‘cali’, meaning ‘hot’, and ‘fornia’, meaning ‘oven’. Hot Oven. I don’t know about that folk etymology, but it’s a pretty good description. The hottest place in the world is in California, down in Death Valley. It is, of course, a ‘dry heat’, which means that you won’t sweat to death in desperate humidity as you might in the South. It also means that air-conditioning is essential, or plenty of fans at least. In our apartment, for example, we have more fans than Milton Keynes Dons.

And so all that was recently green is already golden brown, and the flooded plains that stretch from Davis to Sacramento have already all but dried up. The snowmelt from the Sierras is causing some Foothills rivers to rage violently, with frequent warnings about going anywhere near the icy cold torrents. Over on the East Coast, however, they are having some terrible rainstorms. By all accounts we in Davis have had our rain now, that’s it, that’s all we get until the winter. Not for Pete though – I’ll be back in London in just under a fortnight. Better bring me brolly.

My wife gave me a bike for Christmas, and I cannot wait to use it. Davis, being a college town (and flat as a pancake) is a bicycle haven, being the most two-wheel friendly city in the US. The bike lanes are bigger than the car lanes and run all over the place. I think I will have to wait until a little while for the maiden voyage though, because right now it is raining hard, and according to the news there is plenty more to come.

I swear to you, the news here in California is obsessed with the weather. The nightly headlines always open with the weather, promising downpours and showers, and warnings like “if you go outside, please bring an umbrella.” The local Sacramento station has a snazzy machine, the ‘Doppler Three’, a kind of radar which detects the stormclouds rolling in from the Pacific. Colourful images wash across the screen, commentated by excited forecasters on the verge of seizure. It is their favourite toy, and they play with it as much as possible.

A few weeks ago, the temperature actually dropped below freezing for about an hour or so. It happened overnight, but we had plenty of warning, telling us to “cover over plants” and “keeps pets indoors”. Meanwhile, in other parts of the US, ice-storms are ravaging communities and severe blizzards are blocking up roads and bringing down power-lines. Here in California though, it’s a little bit nippy – ooh, better watch out, better wear them gloves! The rest of the country must think Californians, so unused to adverse weather, are such babies.

It is easy to make fun, of course, and forget that the heavy rain is a serious issue in flood-threatened Sacramento valley. A lot of people are out on the roads over the Holiday Season, and the wet freeways can be very, very dangerous. Already this year California has seen more road-deaths over Christmas than last year – twenty-seven in all. But what gets me about the news service’s over-emphasis on the weather is that it provides a nice distraction from the real news. Shootings are reported every night in Sacramento; it’s like shotgun alley down there, but it almost always comes second to the weather. The other night it was briefly mentioned that President Bush managed to extend the heinous Patriot Act, while Dick Cheney was announcing ‘essential’ budget cuts to medicare and student loans. But it was all glossed over very quickly, because we had to get back to our report from Doppler Three, “Hey, where’s that rain?!”

Coming from the UK, I know about precipitation. It’s even in the national anthem (“Long To Rain Over Us…”). Part of me is even jealous of that Doppler machine – I bet Michael Fish wishes he had one of those back in ’87. But when there is real news going on in America, with its President conducting illegal wiretaps and members of his administration facing indictment after indictment, and when the weather in other states is beyond California’s wildest nightmares, I think it might be a good idea to step away from the Doppler. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to go and try out my bike. Luckily, my wife bought me a rain jacket too.