Caleb Shaw
Pacific storms have been crashing into the west coast, and another his drenching them this evening (February 4, 2024.)
This will likely cause some mudslides, but is nothing like the terrible floods of 1862 which shut down Sacramento.
Amazing floods struck California back then,
The people in charge of maintaining California’s infrastructure have to take the possibility of such a storm into account, when planning, at the same time as tax-payers don’t want to pay for the levees and dams and culverts and spillways necessary to handle what was, after all, a “once every 1,000 year event.” The attitude seems to be, “We still have 838 years to go before it happens again. Let those future taxpayers deal with it.” However the people in charge know weather doesn’t obey man’s logic. In 1969 I saw two “once every hundred year” storms hit New England in February, and in 1978 it happened again. In any case, the people in charge (who will bear the blame if things go wrong) in California call the worst-case scenario of a repeat of 1862, “The ARcStorm”, and confess that, despite all the technical advancements of modern science, they can not prevent major flooding from occurring.
I suspect that there are some who hope to profit from increasing the public’s awareness of the possibility of an ARcStorm. For example, the man who sells really big culverts.
However this is nothing, compared to the people who hope to profit from the fantasy of Global Warming. When trillions of dollars are involved, some people behave in a very foolish manner. These people seemingly like to misinform the public, behaving as if a perfectly ordinary rainstorm was the ARcStorm, and that furthermore the disaster is all your fault for not buying an electric car.
We need to remind these foolish people that only a year ago they were predicting a mega-drought, and stating it was all our fault for not purchasing an electric car. Where is that drought now?
There is almost no drought to be seen in California. What happened?Did the entire population rush out and buy electric cars?
No. California weather just did what California weather is notorious for doing, which is to fluctuate between floods and droughts. No big deal. It is something people learn to live with. It is something described by Steinbeck in “Grapes of Wrath” and “To a God Unknown”. It is old news. Yet, if you bring up this old news, the politically correct get offended that you are daring to defy their new news. But their new news is balderdash.
Where is this mega-drought they were so crazed with worry about, a year ago?
According to the Old Testament, once a prophet is proven to be false, they are to be taken to the edge of town and stoned to death. This seems a bit extreme to me. However, as I have faced the outrage of the politically correct, and been “shadow banned” and have experienced other unpleasant aspects of “cancel culture”, I do think “turnabout is fair play”. Maybe it is their turn to feel what it is like to be “cancelled”.
This is not to say California doesn’t need to think hard about how it uses water. Roughly a billion gallons of water each day is slurped from the Colorado River to feed the thirst of San Diego and Los Angeles. If the population of California is roughly 40 million, that means each person guzzles 25 gallons each day. Something to think about. How much goes to stupid lawns which people never even use? How much goes to growing food that feeds 49 other states?
P.S. The level of Lake Mead is rising.
What is interesting is how little is being sucked out of Lake Mead (“outflow”) to water Southern California’s crops, because the rains are blessing California’s fields.
It is important to count our blessings. I remember to thank California (and our Creator) every time I enjoy an almond.
Neat article, informative and interestingly written. Thanks.
I agree, except for, “We need to remind these foolish people that only a year ago they were predicting a mega-drought,” Nope, not predicting, they were proclaiming “the worst drought in 1000 years”, and zero of the CAGW “climate scientists” corrected them from this lie.
One aquaintance was loudly asserting this “once in a thousand year drought to me. I could have showed him geological reports of historic Calif drought where most of the oak trees died, but as that would have required actually reading a skeptical paper, I asked him to check the Mammoth mountain 60 year snow record, (central Sierras, so a good barometer for Calif percipitation) and compare the last 20 years “greatest drought in 1000 years” to the first 20 years of Mammoth operating in the 1960s and 1970s.
Sheepishly he came back to me and admitted that the last 20 years of “the greatest drought in 1000 years,” had produced considerably MORE snow in the Sierras then the “greatest drought in 1000 years”!
oops, “The the greatest drought in 1000 years,” had produced considerably MORE snow in the Sierras then the average years when everyone thought everythin was normal.
More fronts with precipitation will reach California from the northwest.
Everything tends to the average, eventually…
Everything defines the average, so I guess your statement is correct.
. . . which reminds me of this truism: Half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
We underestimate the variability of weather because it is not normally distributed like a coin toss. Bad weather follows bad weather and good weather follows good weather. Unlike a coin toss where each throw is independent.
As a result, it is in the nature of weather to not act “normally”.
…or it is the nature of weather to usually not act normally.
So the normal is not “normal”.
If the data were to fit under a bell curve, then it would by definition be ‘normal.’
“Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California
But girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours”
Albert Hammond
Thanks for the update on California, and especially the Governor Newsom prediction “get used to permanent drought.”. Good to see Lake Mead recovering, but it has a ways to go. Lake Mead full seems to be elevation of 1220 feet, so another 145 feet, or so, to go. Hoover Dam is around 726 feet high, but the silted-up bottom means it has lost some storage capacity, however it is now around three-fourths full (the surface size increases significantly as it fills, so this is approximate). Fun fact: the average inch of Lake Mead rise requires two billion gallons of excess inflow.
Isn’t there any way to remove some of that silt? The same way they dredge harbors?
For power generation, the silt does not have any effect since it is the elevation difference between the water intake and the outflow that matters.
For volume of water stored, as mentioned in Ron’s post, the higher the lake level the more water per inch there is since the surface area grows substantially, so low level silt is not an issue.
There will come a time where ANY lake will silt up so as to be useless. For Lake Mead, possibly 1000 years.
https://www.nps.gov/lake/learn/nature/sedimentation-lake-mead.htm
Lake Mead area is 640 km2. Big job compared to say a harbor channel.
Fairly easy technology-wise to dredge up silt from the lake bottom . . . extremely difficult eco-friendly-wise to find some place to put it on nearby dry land.
I’m pretty sure its easy to find dry land near Lake Mead.
I guess you missed the part about “eco-friendly”.
From the article: “Pacific storms have been crashing into the west coast, and another is drenching them this evening (February 4, 2024.)
This will likely cause some mudslides, but is nothing like the terrible floods of 1862 which shut down Sacramento.”
Somebody needs to tell our national weather forecasters. They keep claiming this current flooding in California is “historic”, as if it never flooded in California before now.
It’s Weather Weaponization.
Like the new “Bomb Cyclones”
Got too much water? Simples really just divert it to the lithium mines-
Lithium mining for EV batteries threatens WATER supplies | MGUY Australia – YouTube
As a one-time California resident decades ago, I can attest that in even a “normal” year, whatever that is, California shifts from bad drought to huge rains every single year. In the summer months we got brush fires that would denude the slopes of hills and mountains of grasses and brush… then in the winter months, we’d get horrendous rainstorms, and given the denuded slopes, they caused massive mudslides that would take out a bunch of hillside homes. The heavy winter rains also produced a bumper crop of new grasses, which when the inevitably dried out during the usual summer drought, produced abundant fuel for the brush fires … which produced … on and on an on.
It never ends.
California’s problem was not drought or rains, but the fact that its population quadrupled between the 1960s and today, while maintaining agricultural production. California as it exists today could only exist with the importation of huge amounts of out-of-state water, mostly from the Colorado River basin. It’s not a water shortage – it’s an excess of people.
Consider the fact that 25% of California residents are foreign born and you’ll immediately see where all sustainability problems lie.
And most of the other 75% are descendants within recorded history of someone foreign-born…so I’ll up-vote Duane….yah, I know, a bleeding heart wokeist attitude….but still drought is not caused by CO2….
The state planners accounted for population growth and water needs back in the 60s and 70s, including drought and excess rainfall. When the eco-warriors came into political power, they canceled all the planned dams, then went about removing any of the existing dams they could. They did that even when the fresh water outflow caused havoc in the bays.
When the drought hit, they had no water. When the rains returned, they had nowhere to put it.
edit: At least, not the supply or storage they should have had.
Dice have no memory. Apparently, neither does the Green Blob.
I think the misunderstanding is in the “once in x years” designation. That simply gives a silly way to tell us the percentage chance of an event happening in a given year. “Once in 100 years” means there is a 1% chance of it happening in a given year, it doesn’t mean it will only happen once every 100 years. And that percentage applies to each and every year so you can have an event happen a couple of years in a row.
The one percent chance claims are often totally bogus, let alone the .01 percent claims.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/06/california-mega-drought-update/#comment-3862243
A hundred year storm can cover a square mile or so and still be a hundred year storm.
In Las Vegas, with the slope of the valley, a hundred year storm of a couple of square miles can cause flooded houses downslope.
Had a friend whose house was built in the 60s, far out of town at the time, and never had a water problem. The house was even down slope of a road that ran almost perpendicular to the slope. We had a 100 year storm covering 5 square miles or so upslope from his house and his house was flooded. Someone had built a house across the street from him and the walls they put in around this 1 acre property concentrated and diverted the couple of inches of water sheeting across the desert into a foot or more aimed directly at my friend’s house. Apparently the Building department didn’t follow the codes when approving the plans for the house. No drainage study, which was required.
After the flood, the county made a berm on the upslope side of the road. Don’t know if it helped since we didn’t have another similar rain event. Since the time of that flood, the whole area near his home is built out and flood control has been installed. One house caused a problem, buildout of hundreds of acres upslope made in almost impossible to get flooded again.
Vegas got hit by the remnants of the Cali Pineapple Express 2 days ago and now, sitting in my Cabin on Cedar Mountain in SW Utah, we are getting hit. It has been snowing for about 24 hours, averaging about 1/2 inch of snow per hour, and expected to continue at that pace for another 24 to 30 hours.
Last year pre El Nino, we had a very good snow year, around 200% of median. This year appeared to be a typical El Nino low water winter (60% median) until about 8 days ago. As of midnight we are right on 100% of median snow water equivalent, 5 inches worth water in the last 8 days, 3 inches just yesterday, with a couple more inches to come.
I will be blowing snow this morning as soon as it is light enough. After shoveling the deck once yesterday, I need to do that again today. The fun never ends. It is good exercise, and I actually enjoy it when it is not too windy. We shall see.
Huzzah! The Steinbeck references, 1862 and all. And to add, the 40-year droughts which are evidenced in tree ring studies. We’re in the real world – let the wild rumpus start!
The distinguished Peter Gleick is the California drought expert. Last year when I gently queried him on his Twitter account about the hefty snow pack and water abundance which flooded the last drought he blocked me from any further access. His schtick of human caused climate change driven drought has lost it’s mendacious luster following the continued dry to wet cycles which California has always experienced.
I’m heading up to my cabin this morning. I hear about 4 feet on snow on the 7500′ pass I have to go through, 30 inches of wet heavy snow at 6,400′ on top of my solar panels. These are mounted on top of my garage and it’s a wet nasty job getting that off but I’m so glad this storm happened. My big project this coming year is moving them to a ground rack.
20 year annual average precipitation for Kennedy Meadows is 9″/year. 2023 was 18″. 23″ if you count the six weeks prior to Jan1. My fakometric tally since Jan 1 2024 is 6.5″ based on grid models and weather stations. This latest storm totaled 5.5″. My neighbor swears (literally) that it’s 4″ more. Of course, he lives there and has to shovel and plow the stuff.
Being a citizen of the Central Valley of California, the talk of drought was tempered by the fact that our water problems were largely caused by the failure of the government to keep up with the growth of population. The last dam built in the area was fifty years ago when the population was half what it is now. Environmental wackos have prevented new dams being built. Combine this with the 30% increase in agricultural use has caused our reservoirs to diminish. Two years ago the mini drought was broken with a massive snowfall twice the average, but to hide their incompetence the socialist government hardly acknowledged it.
personally I was hoping the mega drought would actually appear and cause millions of people to leave California. I’m disappointed that the last three years of precipitation indicates no migration of the magnitude of half the population .
So many prophets of gloom-and-doom eventually suffer from foot-in-mouth disease.
Or, as has been keenly observed:
“Those who do not learn the lesson of history are doomed to repeat it.”
— attributed to George Santayana
From the USGS:
“What is a 1,000-year flood?
The term “1,000-year flood” means that, statistically speaking, a flood of that magnitude (or greater) has a 1 in 1,000 chance of occurring in any given year. In terms of probability, the 1,000-year flood has a 0.1% chance of happening in any given year.
These statistical values are based on observed data.”
A (fill in the blank)-year flood or drought is one of those terms that those working in the field understood it wasn’t literally “years”. (Sort of like “horsepower”. Hooking up 260 horses to your car won’t enable you to 0-60 in 5 seconds.)
But “(fill in the blank)-year flood or drought” is when used (or heard) by those outside the field, it is easily misunderstood.
A lot of educated guesses and extrapolation are involved when your observation record doesn’t cover a thousand year period a few times over. So “once in a 1000 year” events are on an accuracy level right up there with judges scores for figure skaters, equine dressage, and other “feels-like” ratings.
The ‘people’ in CA only use 11% of the collected water, 50+% is ‘fish water’ let flow to the ocean. Ag uses about 40% .
see; https://water.ca.gov/Programs/California-Water-Plan/Water-Portfolios
There is little damage with heavy rains here in northern CA. It’s the unstable soils and the homes built on them in SoCal that results in mud/rock flows and homes being damaged.
And 1/3rd of all energy used in California is used to pump water to the south state.
Yes, the biggest energy user in the state are the pumps that move water over the Techacipis.
All statewide elections are determined in Southern California, so the Diablo Nuclear power plant’s shutdown was extended with little fanfare from the environmentally concerned. Can’t be droughting up the voters excessively now, can we?
Hummm??
From the DWR site, the pumps use 6 million mWhr to 9.5 million mWhrs per year.
see; https://water.ca.gov/What-We-Do/Power
That work out to 685 MW to 1,084 MW average continuous.
They also claim to produce the same no. of MWhrs…
From the CAISO, CA uses from 23,000 MW to 40,000 MW average.
see; https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html
So, the DWR uses 3.0 to 4.8% of the generated power….not a huge amount.
The DWR is the single largest user of electricity in the state, but not an excessive percent of that generated.
People don’t realize, downtown Sacramento is three feet above sea level. In the 1880s, downtown Sacramento was raised ten feet by filling in the streets. The ground floor structures became basements. In many downtown Sacramento sidewalks, you can see glass ‘jewels’ which provide daylight to the underground spaces.
This being an El Nino year, the Southwest will receive about three times its average non-El Nino rainfall. El Nino is of course a cyclical event tied to solar cycles, not CO2 levels.
Heavy rainfall in San Francisco today.
FWIW, my friend in the Chico area grows almonds. He says the Chinese are well along in killing the California producers profit margins.
“Where is this mega-drought they were so crazed with worry about, a year ago?”
They largely have a Mediterranean climate. Their mega-drought is also called “summer”. It’s climate same, not climate change.
Very nice Caleb. I think it is disgraceful that California takes that much water from the Colorado. They need to find other sources.
The US should by up as much imperial county land and retire it
https://www.google.com/search?q=lake+mead+level&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:29f933b9,vid:Tnrqu-3LWb4,st:0
‘Reversion to the mean‘ (the average) – who’d have thunk it??