Last week, I said that up to a foot of rain could be seen in the Lake Oroville watershed due to a series of “supersoaker storms” coming through. Now, the largest of the storms is bearing down. Dr. Ryan Maue of WeatherBell says there’s going to be an unbelievable “10 trillion gallons” in the next 7 days as more storms come through.
Excessive rainfall on way to California 4 to 10 inches of rain along coast from Santa Cruz north … same for mountains above Oroville. –Dr. Ryan Maue on Twitter
Result in California over next 7-days is widespread heavy rain … 5″+ along coast up to 10-12″ at elevation. All told, 10 Trillion gallons –Dr. Ryan Maue on Twitter
Atmospheric moisture well above normal (150-200%) w/plume to landfall California but look at center of North America (250-400%) spring-like –Dr. Ryan Maue on Twitter
Only if we were able to ‘drop’ the global temperature by 1.5c – and none of this would have happened 🙂
Tangential, a bit, to this but I’d like to be educated on this if there’s an expert on it on here (which I’m guessing there is). What does this monster deluge situation (that I’ve been living in for weeks now) do to the water table and groundwater statewide. For example can these “experts” stop wetting the bed now, or are we still in the wrong order of magnitude:
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-groundwater-20150318-story.html
…. and who the heck likes almonds so much ??
EDIT: Just saw the comment above from WillHaas which I believe asks a similar question.
Not an expert, but some partial answers.
The supersoakers do only a little to replenish groundwater because so much runs off. In central valley, that which stands in fields helps. You need to filter the water through the earth to avoid contaminating aquifers. Best is a long slow snowpack melt. Much of that then soaks in, and finds its way down mountain to the plains aquifers. My grandfather had a cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains near Big Bear. Water was drawn in buckets from a spring. The spring flow always depended on how fast or slow the snowpack melted.
As for California almonds, lots of people in lots of places. Most of the crop is exported.
Quite true. Usually “flash” storms which heavy precipitation do not dramatically effect ground water levels in most drinking water aquifers (deeper and often isolated from the shallow surface by aquitards). Large precip events can easily raise shallow or alluvial water table aquifers if the water can have time to infiltrate. Similarly. the land along a river course can be where water can be naturally stored in “bank storage” during hogh flow events. Flooded ag land can help replenish the shallow water bearing zones (usually where most ag water wells are completed). Better still, as you noted, is slower infiltration from steady precipitation or snow melt. Unfortunately most deeper aquifers are not recharged locally but usually at some distance (recharge area) with water travel times in centuries or 1,000’s of years. Over exploration of those aquifers, prior to decent knowledge of how aquifers work, has resulted in a lost resource worldwide..
Having lived in CA, storms like this are great for mudslides. Only thing better for mudslides is a great fire year followed by a huge downpour.
Either way, mudslides are in your future.
Current research claims compaction from extraction can’t be reversed. Perhaps a megaflood that kept the San Joaquin Valley submerged awhile would falsify that hypothesis.
Each of those years have a very strong correlation with the burning of coal – no doubt.
Doubtful. Electrical generation for the irrigation pumps was mostly hydro during that period.
http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/sce_history.htm
Couldn’t resist:
She is a leftoid nut job, but she sure can sing.
I’ve always wondered why so many actors and singers were left wing.
I have three theories.
1) “Artists” are about feeling, not thinking.
2) There’s an old saying, if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. Building on that, most artists are actors and singers are doing what they love. Also they are getting a lot of money for not much work. So they feel guilty about all the money they have. This makes virtue signaling very important to them (After all, they are into feeling good, not doing good. From point 1.)
3) There is a lot of luck involved in breaking into the movies or the music industries. As a result, it’s natural to assume that everyone who is as wealthy as they are got there because of luck.
As long as the main spillway doesn’t collapse any further there should be no problem. But if it does they’ll have a HUGE problem. That’s why they are reinforcing the emergency spillway. It would be their only option as long as they can’t use the powerplant.
And even if the emergency spillway would collapse it would not drain the lake. Of course it all depends on the rock formation.
They are working like crazy on the debris bar in the diversion pool. That is why spillway flow was cut to 55kcfs. They can safely approach the nonspillway side of the debris bar. They have an estimated 150,000 cubic yards of crumbled concrete, rock, uprooted trees, and mud to remove. Latest word is they are focussing now just on opening a narrow channel opposite spillway so the power plant can be used, rather than full diversion pool cleanup. Still, have to assemble three barges, load big hydraulic excavators onto them, and devise a spoils removal system from barge to land. The picture from this PM of that prep effort shows the urgency and complexity. Not as simple as dumping rock and concrete grout onto the emergency spillway erosion scours 24/7. That is supposedly going well.
Not sure what is worse, boredom or the high stress.
Why remove the debris now? The power plant is running at about 9k remove debris jump to 14k gain is 5k.. Drop spillway to 60k. Lose 40k. So 1 day lost at 40k to gain 5k which takes 8 days to catch up. Don’t they need to lower the level why they can at 100k?
TS. Two things. Your math appears wrong. And, the 14kcfs IF restored is independent of what happens on the damaged spillways. An insurance I would buy under the circumstances.
Just under three days to catch up. Mebbe not worth it, especially with snow melt as wild card.
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Three days to catch up for every day of 40K diminution. How many days already? Maybe they plan to make it up in volume. Yes, kim, volume of days. Such a volume that intake from even more rain and snow melt may make Ryan’s near term rain estimate seem puny.
I hope my math is wrong. That emergency spillway better hold. I sure hope California and the feds are co-operating effectively on contingency plans.
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http://www.chicoer.com/article/NA/20160324/NEWS/160329860
“The concrete spillway is located on the northwest end of the dam and can reach down to 813 feet.”
So if at 850 (the last goal I heard) they only have 37 more feet to drop before the spillway can not release any more water. I think that’s about a week.
So better to get some added clearance for using the other outlet before you are stuck with no drain.
ristvan February 19, 2017 at 4:04 pm
“That is why spillway flow was cut to 55kcfs. ”
DISCHARGE flows have been over 60,000 CFS since 11 Feb (up until 18 Feb) per:
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/jspplot/jspPlotServlet.jsp?sensor_no=3381&end=02/20/2017+09:42&geom=small&interval=30&cookies=cdec01
9 AM 20 Feb slow rate = 59823 CFS.
The biggest problem with a disintigration of the spillway would be all of the broken concrete in the former river bed.
The last time the Atmospheric River hit California, we in the north had great weather. And history is repeating itself. It is sunshine and 40 degrees here in Southeast Alaska.
A good friend in CA asked for some of our 13 feet of rain two years ago.
The Rain Dance, or the Rain God granted his request.
He has since asked me to refrain from sending him any more this year.
We will see what the Rain God says, but right now, it is beautiful outside.
Time for me to start work in the garden.
catastrophic anthropogenic government misalignment
Hey you critics, lay off – US engineers have used metrics for years!: “Thousands of an inch” 🙂
Lots of rain, indeed, but does Dr.Maue have to give the measurement in the trillions of gallons ? It rings like the meaningless ‘ # of Hiroshima bomb’ metrics that are just meant to sound sensational. That’s only 1/300 of a ‘Lake Superior’ anyway.
3911 square miles is 110 billion square feet
One foot on the basin is 111 billion cubic feet
7.48 gallons per cubic foot
One foot of rain on the basin is 822 billion gallons.
That amount of rain is also 2.5 million acre feet, compared to a reservoir volume of 3.5 million acre feet. I don’t have a stage – volume relationship available, but it doesn’t seem wildly out of proportion.
Also consider that if the rain falls over 7 days, it will take time for the rain on the remote parts of the basin to arrive, so it will arrive over more like two weeks.
Tell that to the engineers, they’ll be happy to hear it.
They are already wondering how fast all the snow will melt.
The engineers at the dam likely already have it modeled. Commenters here do not.
That’s why the previous poster asked about fortnights…
And consider also that much of the precipitation will fall as snow and also that there is one fair sized reservoir/dam upstream of Oroville — Canyon Dam-Lake Almanor — on the North Fork of the Feather River. Of course Lake Almanor is probably close to full as well.
The climate change scam is all about preemptive action as long as they can make money stealing your tax dollars. So it seems that improving a dam was a bad investment. At least the money they need now to repair this dam cannot be used for windmills.
http://www.noodweercentrale.nl/de/wetter/profiwetter/wolken-niederschlagsfilm/nordamerika.html
Impressive !
Rereading the headline and the tweets, Dr Mue does not say 10 trillIon over Oroville.
One trillion gallons? that’s what… the entire volume of the reservoir?
Sure hope it doesn’t all fall as warm rain.
So it the Aquifer has been running a deficit in amount of water it contains why nor pump a bunch of the surface water into it. Just a thought. it would get filtered and be available when needed for crops and homes with no real losses from evaporation while stored.
Artificial recharge can be done but is very expensive and only works with the right aquifer conditions. In most cases the recharge project costs greatly exceed any future capture of the initial expense,
There are pumps all around the Thermalito Afterbay. (Shallow warming lake below lake Oroville) They were installed since water leaking through the bottom of it, into the ground, was raising the water table to the point where it was at the surface… They are used to pull the water table back down below the surface by pumping the water back into the Afterbay.
In my old back yard, about 12 miles away and NOT affected by the Afterbay, we dug a well. At 12 feet we hit hard pan. 2 feet further down we broke through it and stopped at about 15 feet… with the water level then at 10 feet down as the water below the hardpan rose up.
When your water table is at 10 feet down, it isn’t the dry spot…
One would need to ship that water south to Kern County, L.A., etc. etc. and then put it into the ground. Oh, wait, that’s what the California Aquaduct does…
BTW, for about 30 miles around in most directions, the area grows rice, so for months on end it is one giant ground water recharge basin. Then in winter it floods…
I saw that 10 trillion gallons figure attributed to Dr. Maue… several days ago, I thought.
Yes, it was from February 15th. Talking about the rain that’s been hitting over the past few days.
Is all that erosion to the right side of the spill way okay? No one seems to be worrying about it but doesn’t it represent a potential to under cut the bottom half of the spill way and destroy the whole thing?
The bottom half no longer matters. It is just a lump of junk in the way.
The only part that matters is the top half, and wether or not turbulence at the end undercuts it. As the water is now running clear, that says it isn’t being undercut, so is likely bedded into bedrock at that point.
The odds are that spillway will work fine as is for a few years…
First of all only an idiot would live in California, even visit in this day and age. Second they had droughts and now they are having rain. With all the ultra liberal progressive witchcraft, maybe this is a hint at judgment coming? Hmmm…”But oh no….that’s just a “conspiracy theory”. That would never happen.” Said every state and country that ever defied God for long periods of time.
Sure hope you forgot the sarc tag.
And/or defied common sense.
One would think that the climate change people with access to the fastest and biggest computers on earth would have been able to forecast this rain event. Instead they went right on with mega permanent drought. Their credibility is laughable if it weren’t so serious that they are playing politics. Until they they can start pinning down details of when these changes will occur, they shouldn’t be taken seriously. Here’s an example, sometime in the near future, the American mid west will see drought again. It’s a reoccurring event. If they want to reestablish some sort of professional opinion, then they have to get this right. When it will happen, how dry it will be, and how long it will last. That would be some useful information. This rain in California shouldn’t be a surprise. If they couldn’t predict this, they aren’t able to predict anything.
What surprises me is the shock when it floods in places like Australia or California. The CAGW people must believe their own propaganda. If nothing else the IPCC should be disbanded, it’s useless, and in fact harmful. Supplying even in the short term wrong information.
Looking at the precip charts for CA, I predict another such event in 10 years. The only models I have are wooden fish decoys for ice spearing. They actually work!
I too predict a drought in the midwest about 2030 + or – a few years.
Lake Winnebago?
Drought is still the general/base condition that will be found in both California and Australia.
Interrupted only by outbursts of extreme weather.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Climate change organizations can’t forecast when those outbursts when will occur? And worse they claim mega drought when it’s not ? Le Bottom Line, they don’t know squat.
In other words, the normal condition for the last 10,000 years or so is going to continue.
“Griff February 20, 2017 at 4:03 am
Drought is still the general/base condition that will be found in both California and Australia.
Interrupted only by outbursts of extreme weather.”
No Griff, *JUST* weather, that’s all it is and all it will ever be.
https://www.change.org/p/melissa-melendez-recall-gov-brown-and-lt-governor-gavin-newsom-in-california-a87b8aea-e47d-4abb-8b6b-50105815373e?recruiter=565241915&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_for_starters_page&utm_term=mob-xs-no_src-no_msg
HELP SAVE CALIFORNIA FROM DESTRUCTIVE LIBERAL POLITICS! SIGN AND SHARE THIS PETITION PLEASE!
Is this rain Biblical?
http://blog.ucsusa.org/juliet-christian-smith/el-nino-wont-fill-up-californias-critical-groundwater-reservoirs
“One wet season will have very little effect on our groundwater supplies. The only kind of rain that would refill our groundwater aquifers this year is of truly Biblical proportions—or else a steady flow of storms for years to come. So, while it is time to enjoy this rain, don’t be fooled into thinking California’s water problems will go away—they are still right underfoot.”
I don’t think you are allowed to use the word “Biblical” in any of the 57 U. S. states.
I think that is one of the new rules signed by the recently retired POTUS.
Besides, CA’s problems will never go away, including the wet/dry nature of the climate.
As long as you are ok with Koranic as well.
No. It’s Natural….
Interesting way to see the rain over 24hrs.
Pass your cursor over the hr marker.
http://storms.meas.ncsu.edu/users/mdparker/radarchive/
Cliff Mass writes …
Serious Threat to the Oroville Dam
The latest forecasts are very worrying regarding the heavily damaged Oroville Dam in California. And I am surprised there is to so little talk by CA state officials and the media about the danger.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2017/02/serious-threat-to-oroville-dam.html
Wow!
Was the dam damaged?
THIS is ‘series’ and ‘Yuge’ if so and should be HEADLINE NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I thought it was the spillway )
.
.
/sarc
.
Also: NOTING the BIG step backwards in rationality mankind is taking as spurred to the fore by this issue.
42 billion tons of Water! Think of the latent heat released ! With co2 retaining that heat we are gonna fry. …. ( sarc) forget about windmills how much energy is that dropped from 900 feet ?
@Ryan Maue tweeted
6″ Rain on 3607 mi2 #Oroville #Dam catchment = 1,650,000 Acre Ft
= 22% of 8 day design inflow volume of 5,217,300 acre-feet
Simply scaling to 22% of Peak Outflow of 798,000 cfs suggests
Spillway flows of 177,000 CFS? bit.ly/2m24ZAA
That suggests a potential of 177% of the 100,000 CFS flow over the damaged spillway!
The current 72 hour forecast suggests 5″ to 11″ or about 8″ of rain across the Oroville dam catchment area.
That could delivery about 2,200,000 acre ft to Lake Oroville or 42% of the 8 day design inflow.
Scaling to 42% peak outflow of 798000 cfs suggests spillway flows could reach 380,000 cfs.
ie 380% of the 100,000 cfs flow over the damaged spillway!
(Please check conversions & calculations)
(The 10 trillion gallons appears to be into California.)
3607 X 640 equals 2,308,480 acres
0.5 ft on 2,308,480 acres is 1,154,240 acre-ft
8 inches is 1,538,986 acre-ft.
Flood storage is approximately 800,000 Acre-ft
The spillway At 150,000 cfs puts out 300,000 acre-ft per day , that matches downstream channel capacity.
For 8 inches of rain 1,540,000 acre-ft storing 800,000 acre feet means discharging 740,000 acre-ft, or a bit more than two days at full bore.
An 8 inch rain is well within the capacity of the dam as it will take several days for the bulk of the flow to reach the reservoir from the far end of the drainage area.
And once this is done, will we get a nice WARM spring rain to melt the record snowpack? What then?
A point of interest, in all the posts on the Orville dam and rain storms where are the so concerned CAGW climate people? One would expect them to be greatly interested in this situation and full of suggestion and recommendations. But not a peep. Do they not care?
Heh heh.
michael
Lets not let them forget this.