quote:

Originally posted by kkina:

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
This is probably a stupid question and I most likely know the answer but does CA have any means to capture this water for future use? Maybe divert some of the reparation money to build some water resources.

Not a stupid question at all. We certainly went from drought to floods quickly. It's too soon to call whether the drought is officially over.

Lake Shasta and Oroville were nearly empty. They’ll take a lot of it.

Here’s my question. Every year California moans about drought, and they continually pump from the Californian Central Valley Aquifer. Bakersfield is something like 16-20 feet lower than it was in the 1980s. They always say they will pump water into the aquifer during these wet years, but I never hear anything about it happening. Billions of gallons flow to the ocean in these years, and I’d suspect that not a drop is reverse pumped. Does nobody want to pay the bill to do this? I suppose it’s cheaper to blame AGW than implement a solution.

Lake Meade and Powell fill from the upper basin snowpack, mostly UT, CO, NM, and WY. It won’t start to fill significantly until April when the snowpack begins to melt. There’s a lot of upstream reservoirs that are also low, such as Flaming George, Gunnison River, Powell, and scores of smaller reservoirs. They will all need to be filled prior to Meade filling. Lake Mead is quite downstream in the CO river system. Why is everyone so myopic WRT Meade?

Although the AGW alarmists like to call this drought “unprecedented”, Lake Meade was this low in the 1950s due to drought, and that was before the river had as much demand on it as it does now. The difference, I believe, is this country wasn’t so filled with hateful grifters as it is now. Hopefully, we will have a few years of weather like this.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
Control of water in the West equals power; many, many books and studies revolve around this topic.

...and movies. Take Chinatown for example.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Be thankful it's not a BOMB CYCLONE!!!!!

Actually, the one coming in Wed/Thurs is being called a bomb cyclone. It will double-whammy the west coast as it combines with the Pineapple Express, the atmospheric river that originates from the Pacific tropics.

In all, 3 storms are in the pipeline over the next 7 days.

I'm learning a lot of meteorology this week. Seriously, I've never seen it so bad in my 64 years here.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kkina,

Early tomorrow we're expected to get slammed with the next big system, hope they were able to patch up the breached levies along Cosumnes River.

Juan Browne gives some perspective. This rain season is back to what got him started with reporting on the Oroville Dam overflow failure back in 2017.



If you have the time and like maps and various factoids of information, Zach at The Lookout is a good resource for N.Cal

This message has been edited. Last edited by: corsair,

Today's storm now upgraded to CAT 5. Everyone's hunkering down.

Isn't CA having a drought?

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Isn't CA having a drought?

Keep up man …

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
....Flaming George....

That dude has really got it bad!

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by konata88:
Yes. I’ve noticed that freeways are closed in many locations in the area. And 80 to Tahoe is indicated as closed through Sunday at least. There are some lakes that are approaching capacity despite being at very low levels during the summer. [/QUOTE
New Melones is up 8 feet since yesterday. I think that is still about 200 feet shy of full, though.

I imagine the dam operators are trying to balance capturing what is prudent while weighing that against the potential for a wet winter and a big snow pack. It seems to me it is a bit of a balancing act.

New Melones was almost amply wasn’t it ? A childhood friend lives in murphy’s and posted photos of the old buildings at the bottom can be seen from the town they flooded when it was built.

The old town of Melones

Regarding the delta smelt, and allowing water to flow to the ocean, this water flow also keeps the salmon population alive. Salmon fishing has often been a $3+ billion dollar a year industry, and is a big part of quality of life.

You could capture all the water, kill off the salmon, and save the water for BIG agribusiness and BIG developers who build cities in the desert. Who is that helping? Just the big, super rich, and not the local citizens and residents. Also, bit agribusiness sells much of their crop to China, so once again screwing over the regular person and helping China. Those people are no better than Pelosi and her type.

As it is, in a good year 93% of the San Joaquin drainage system water is captured. Most of that gets shipped to SoCal, for cities built in a desert, and for agribusiness. No point in building more dams.

We need to tear down some of the old dams so salmon can migrate and spawn. Take care of the citizens, not the elite.

They haven’t built a reservoir in over 40 years. The CA population has neatly doubled since then. So cal is a desert. Not only do they need more water storage capacity, tearing damns down would be lunacy. Building reservoirs and at the same time adding clean hydro energy production could be done without further harming the salmon runs

Welp, that’s a new one for me… was just woken up by my iPhone and Apple Watch screaming at me. Apparently a tornado warning was issued for my area. It did wake me up in time to watch the heaviest storm action I’ve ever seen in my area. Very very heavy rain and lots of lightning. The lightning is near constant right now and that is exceedingly rare here. The only time I’ve seen weather like this is once when we were caught in a severe storm in Virginia about 11 years ago and then again a few months ago crossing into New Mexico from Arizona on the freeway. This is most assuredly NOT weather we ever see in this area.

Next Summer we’ll be hearing about water shortages, the cycle continues.

every time I see something about this flooding in California all I can think is: Well at least it isn't on fire right now......

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
Next Summer we’ll be hearing about water shortages, the cycle continues.

Undoubtedly true.

First the fires, then the rains, next the mudslides.

Predictable cycle exacerbated by piss-poor land management. What you say? CA thinks itself so enlightened green they won't clear wildlands of fire fuels. That's where it starts & I predict we'll see mudslides there within the month.

quote:

Originally posted by vinnybass:
First the fires, then the rains, next the mudslides.

Predictable cycle exacerbated by piss-poor land management. What you say? CA thinks itself so enlightened green they won't clear wildlands of fire fuels. That's where it starts & I predict we'll see mudslides there within the month.

Now now… You know it’s all your fault. Between your natgas kitchen stove, and your gas guzzling pick‘em up truck…

Montecito is underwater and Ellen’s crying that she’s never seen water in her riverbed before. End of the world as we know it. lol

She must’ve thought that pretty geological feature of a dry creek bed got there by the magic of nature without any energy required. Lmao …

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
Next Summer we’ll be hearing about water shortages, the cycle continues.

Undoubtedly true.

Drought conditions are predicated on the water content of the snowpack in the Sierras.

Many of the drought alarmists live along the coast, their water doesn't come from the Sierras but, existing reservoirs; more reservoirs need to built along the Coastal Mtns or, less people should be living there.

Regarding snowpack:

An article I read a couple days ago cited snowpack in parts of Utah at 180%. It also said that it needs to be a number like that in April to yield real gains in the Colorado River Reservoirs. In other words, it's too early to be anything but cautiously optimistic.

It's been a wetter than usual winter here in NV. I'll take it.

The current storms we've been experiencing are warmer than average, which translates to very heavy wet snow at the higher elevations in Sierras. All a good thing. What we don't want is higher temps in Mar-May to accelerate its melt and overwhelming the reservoir system.

I imagine it's the same situation in S.Utah & CO where runoff is going into Lake Powell which is dangerously low.