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If there’s anyone bound to win a garden contest, it would certainly be Janet Chambers. Chambers is the 2025 Vista Irrigation District winner of the WaterSmart Landscape Contest for the design of her front yard. Now retired from her work as an office manager for a small printing broker, she has previously been a garden center manager in Oregon, worked for a landscaper, is a former master gardener and had her own landscape management business in the Bay Area. And, she has an associate degree in horticulture from junior college. But, mostly, she says, these days “I like to just play.”

Chambers and her husband Marc, a retired electrical inspector for the city of San Diego, bought their 1980s home in 2014. Back then, the 30-by-50-foot front yard space was pretty much a thick green lawn with a mature liquidambar tree. The original cement walkway from the garage and driveway leading to the small patio in front of the front door remains. In the squarish garden bed by the house that was created by an angled walkway, there was a seedling fan palm tree — since removed — along with still-intact rose bushes and a hibiscus, along with a collection of smaller flowering plants.

Water from the 108-year-old Lake Hodges dam was released into the San Dieguito River to meet safety requirements, the city of San Diego said Wednesday.

The city said recent rain raised the levels of the Hodges Reservoir beyond the 280-foot-elevation threshold set by the Division of Safety of Dams, making the water release necessary. The 280-foot level is 35 feet below the dam’s spillway.

The third and final round of this week’s winter weather will move through on Thursday, bringing more rain, wind, and possible mountain snow.

This round may not have as much moisture, but it will be colder, NBC 7’s meteorologist Greg Bledsoe said. Light to moderate rain will move in on Thursday afternoon. Rain totals will range from about a quarter to a half inch for the coast and valleys, and then about a half inch to an inch for the foothills and mountains.

The second wave of a dawdling Pacific storm hit San Diego County before dawn Wednesday, producing 76 mph winds on Palomar Mountain, 50 mph gusts at coast, heavy rain in such cities as Escondido and Valley Center, lightning near Miramar, and snow that’s continuing to fall on Mount Laguna, which could end up with one foot of the white power by late today, the National Weather Service said.

The weather also delayed 28 flights through 7:00 a.m. at San Diego International Airport and dropped enough rain to make freeways slick during the morning rush hour.

The first of two strong Pacific storms this week began battering Southern California on Monday, generating downpours and gusty winds, along with high surf along the coast.

The storm first hit Northern California before making its way to the southern part of the state, where it is expected to continue pouring rain into early Tuesday morning.