Showing posts with label California drought. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California drought. Show all posts

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Be careful what you wish for -

It just might come true. We've been hoping for rain, and my, my, my, did we ever get it!
A few storms rolled thru in December, they started to put a big  dent in the drought.
There were several nice sunsets:
12/12



12/25





A nice detail, just to right of center.


1/7
All week we've been listening to predictions of a whopper storm hitting us over the weekend, 1/7-1/9. It's 'sposed to be a once-every-25-years' event. Here's three images that show what's coming:






Always check this one out:

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We are lucky to live in times with the technology we have - here are the the different types of sat imagery:


Needless to say there is incredible software that can crunch information and generate computerized predictions. It wasn't so long ago that all we had were rudimentary prediction tools and communications media, so people had pretty simple warnings, and disaster striking caught most flat-footed:

Galveston hurricane

Radio was a recent invention, only decades old.

"Starting in late 1894, Guglielmo Marconi began pursuing the idea of building a wireless telegraphy system based on Hertzian waves (radio). Marconi gained a patent on the system in 1896 and developed it into a commercial communication system over the next few years."

And 60 years before that:

California Megaflood: Lessons from a Forgotten Catastrophe
A 43-day storm that began in December 1861 put central and southern California underwater for up to six months, and it could happen again.

Saturday 1/7 started calmly enough... then about 10:30, a ferocious wind kicked in, the huge tree out my window 1/2 block away is writhing in the gusts. The rest of the weekend was constant rain.
It abated by nonday AM, but returned again on Mon. PM.
This rain has certainly soothed the drought in Nor. Cal., the drought has been declared officially over in the northern 40% of the state. but So. Cal hasn't been so lucky.
There were some excellent rainbows to be seen, but not in my neck of the woods - photographically, this storm was uninteresting for me.

So what havoc has this winter dealt our beaches and shoreline?
Here's an example:


If you look at a longer history in a geologic time frame, the Ca. coast has always been under attack, since the last ice age, when ocean waters receded. The ice age ended, oceans rose, waves carved the coastline we know now and love.


But it ain't over yet. I've walked many a mile along the beaches from SF to Half Moon Bay, i know well how soft and malleable this land is - VERY!
Once i was walking Drakes Beach at Pt Reyes w/ a friend who dared to walk right along the cliff wall, taking pictures. I joked that this might make a good TV ad for Leica cameras (which have a soundless shutter) - the beachcomber walks, trips the shutter a few times with some other kind of camera here and there, which makes that 'ca-chunka' sound. Then suddenly, the cliff gives way, buries him. A voice says  "if only he'd been using a Leica..." (no sound vibration to disturb the cliff walls, shake anything loose.)


To wrap things up, here's an interesting story:




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Sunday, December 4, 2016

An interesting month, yes indeed it 'twas...

We got some good doses of rain!

 


... and some nice stretches in between, with a variety of arresting views. I keep rather voluminous notes, thinking they might be of interest. But no, mother nature is a whole lot more interesting than my yakety-yak. So let's get to mother nature's show, some nice sunsets in betwixt the rain.

















When it rains it pours - makes for interesting driving. The storm drain on the street outside my window:


Clogged! It's now a small lake! It made for some interesting driving:


Do you remember jumping into puddles when you were a kid? 
This is the adult automotive equivalent. Don't be standing on that corner!

LINKS
Hope all these work for you.

Polar stratospheric cloud
Something i stumbled upon, looks a few i have seen:

Polar stratospheric clouds or PSCs, also known as nacreous clouds, are clouds in the winter polar stratosphere at altitudes of 15,000–25,000 meters

A most devoted sky watcher reported:



where does the term nacreous come from?


It looks a lot like an abalone shell,  commonly found on the the No. Ca. coast.

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Plenty of talk about drought:


Megadroughts, rather scientific


"They are suspected of playing a primary role in the collapse of several pre-industrial civilizations, including the Anasazi of the North American Southwest, the Khmer Empire of Cambodia, the Mayan of Mesoamerica, the Tiwanaku of Bolivia, and the Yuan Dynasty of China."

"When megadroughts occur, lakes dry up and trees and other plants grow in the dry lake beds. When the drought ends the lakes refill, when this happens the trees are submerged and die. In some locations these trees have remained preserved and can be studied giving accurate radio-carbon dates, and the tree rings of the same long dead trees can be studied. Such trees have been found in Mono and Tenaya lakes in California, Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana; and various other lakes."

"During a 200-year mega drought in the Sierra Nevada that lasted from the 9th and 12th centuries, trees would grow on newly exposed shoreline at Fallen Leaf Lake, then as the lake grew once again, the trees were preserved under cold water."

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Persistent drought in North America:
a climate modeling and paleoclimate perspective
Richard Seager
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University

A millennium of North American droughts and pluvials

A farm during the Dust Bowl. This one is in South Dakota during May 1936.
For year after year across vast areas of North America rainfall was low. Summers were parched and the heat excessive. Plants withered and sand dunes moved freely across a formerly green landscape. Human settlements had to be abandoned and populations migrated, forcing social change. By some measures the drought lasted more than a decade.
No, this is not a description of the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s but of the truly severe drought of the late thirteenth century, which coincided with the end of the Anasazi civilization. It could just as easily describe the severe drought of the late sixteenth century. Or it could describe the droughts of the mid-Holocene which so taxed the indigenous peoples of the Great Plains."



'A tree stump in Mono Lake in California that grew during an ancient drought and was submerged when wet years returned. Scott Stine used carbon dating of stumps to recreate the drought history of the area'

Photo - Scott Stine






Another excellent weather blog for those on the north west coast - CA, OR, & Washington:




Even with drought, a California river will begin flowing year-round for the first time in 60 years
A decade ago, environmentalists and the federal government agreed to revive a 150-mile stretch of California's second-longest river, an ambitious effort aimed at allowing salmon again to swim up to the Sierra Nevada foothills to spawn.
A major milestone is expected by the end of the month, when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says the stretch of the San Joaquin River will be flowing year-round for the first time in more than 60 years.

Some news is good:

"We're currently at over 17 inches of liquid for October and November combined—that's 200 percent above normal—and haven't had that high of a reading since 1985-86.

"It has really been a pretty good start to the water year," Kurth, who work's in the NOAA's Sacramento office, said. "We had a really wet October. We had a dry start to November, but last week things changed."



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Fall snow, rains have 'satisfied the drought debt' in Northern Sierra Nevada, climatologist says

In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, concerns over dry conditions were quickly dispatched when more than two feet of snow dropped around the lake in just two days.

Let's see what happens - you can tell from al the links above, there is much room for discussion!





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Saturday, May 7, 2016

This El Nino was a bust!


Winter went out with a whimper, no bangs to be had here.
3/14 - 19 - like summer without the fog.
Sunday 3/20 things begin to change.......
It looks like it's all heading north of me, just brushing Nor. Cal. a wee bit.
By 11AM a few drops, enough to make the street wet.
3PM - light showers, very bright skies, not much of a cloud layer, not much of a 'storm'.
3/22
My open window is whistling at me - i used to live in an apt on the 4th floor of a marvelous apt. building in SF, 12th Ave, just north of GG Park, never modernized ( thankfully) i could open the kitchen ( west facing window) and the living room window ( east facing ) and almost fly a kite in the apt. It had the original phone, a bread board pull-out, an ironing board, and pull-out seats and kitchen table. Makes big use of small spaces.
This wind is almost as nice. It shakes the small palm plant in my window, i can feel it on my cheeks. I would love to be back in that apt., but SF real estate has gone *whacko* the last 15 years. I'll bet the apt i paid 550$ for is now worth close to 2K$.
March 22 - Conditions were ripe for rainbows:
Rainbows over San Francisco
Douglas Zimmerman Updated 10:44 am, Tuesday, March 22,
In the course of doing some rainbow research, i came across this:
Wowee-Zowie!!
April 9-10 Weekend
This might well be winter's last gasp.
Mucho rain, mostly at nite, i wake up at mid night Saturday for a quick trip to the bathroom, and outside my window? Cats, dogs, (and other small mammals) comin' down. The New Yorker magazine sells a nice umbrella, that is cats and dogs :-)

4/21
An interesting day for clouds:
We're 'sposed to get some rain tonite, tommorow, but nothing to get excited about, showers is about it, probably to move south of me by early PM. Thru the night, some nice rain. By 7 AM friday, it looks like it's over, but looks can be deceiving - By 8:30, skies have turned ugly, i get rained on, on the the way to work. But that's it - the skies are filled with huge beautifully puffy cumulus. There are long range forecasts for another round like this one, middle of next week.
4/25 - some serious wind, 'knock me over even though i walk with a cane' wind.
5/5 - In the last 10 days, a few systems have come ashore, but not much rain where i am, close to the coast.
The real action seems to be east of me, as the front passes over the Sierras - read latest entry in http://weatherwest.com.
Here's what the snow pack looks like:
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I wish i had seen more skies like this, this winter:
Guess not. Summer is right around the corner, and that means coastal fog... if el nino doesn't mess with that too.

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A few good links worth checking out/bookmarking:
Sierra Nevada Snow Won’t End California’s Thirst
By Henry Fountain - APRIL 11, 2016
And a story of how it came to be:
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"Our foundation of Earth knowledge, largely derived from historically observed patterns, has been central to society’s progress......
But as Earth warms, our historical understanding will turn obsolete faster than we can replace it with new knowledge."

A good read, for sure. The New York Times will never let ya down :-)

It just might look like this 'til september:


I'll survive this, no problem ;-)
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Tuesday, March 15, 2016

An unevenful month until...

2/17 
OK, it's back to winter, storm system movin' in brought interesting clouds thru the AM hours, by 3PM, gusty winds, and showers.







There's an interesting detail in this shot, it's on the left side:



I gotta title this one 'angry!'
 

I woke up at 4:45 AM on the 18th, to hear rain whacking my windows, bigtime. I almost never get rain or my north facing windows. A look outside, and the street lamp lights up furious rain, coming down about 30 degrees less than horizontal. I sat, smoked a cigarette, and listened to and watched the show. A movie w/ sound effects. Wowweezowee!!

After that? 10 days of summer, without the fog.

2/28
Another weak front moves thru. Grey skies w/ a few interesting patches of blue. Nothing to get excited about, no rain.

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National Drought Summary for March 1, 2016
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Always check this link out:
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On Thursday 3/3 predictions are for a major event over the weekend - heavy rain, strong winds.
"Through noon on Saturday, showers are scattered in nature. From noon until 6 p.m. widespread downpours develop and winds strengthen to near 45 mph at times. Between 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., very heavy rain develops along with potentially damaging wind gusts of 50 mph. After 9 p.m. the winds begin to diminish and the rain lessens."

Of course this is rather general, it all depends on where you are - I am in San Rafael, just north of SF. Weather in the west is very dependent on elevation - precipitation is rain at the coast, in the valley - in the mountains it becomes snow.

At 7:30AM Sat., showers start. It's on and off for a while, later in the day it gets steadier and very windy.

Sun AM, i wake to clear blue skies thinking 'this ain't much of a storm!' but by 10 AM showers start, with periods of broken clouds and some sunshine.

Sun 3 PM - angry skies, but no fucking rain at all.

Sun 6 PM - OK, predictions come true, it's raining... but nothing bombastic, just a nice steady 'so glad i paid the rent and can hide inside' kinda rain.

Sun - Midnite - Heavy duty rain! With wind? 45° rain!

Monday - A few scattered showers in my neck of the woods... but dig this, not so quiet elsewhere:

Storm slams parts of Bay Area with nearly 7 inches of rain

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The next few days (tuesday & wednesday) kinda quiet.

By late Wednesday 3/9, forecasts are a-changin' - more on the way, satellite says it all:



It's 'aka' as the 'pineapple express', 
low pressure systems suck up moisture from way out in the ocean, like Hawaii, and send it on NE.
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Here's the bookmarks i have, FWIW - if you're on the west coast:



http://www.weatherwest.com - as of 3/9 PM
A look (even further) ahead
"In the longer run, it seems likely that a fairly active weather pattern will continue across California for much of March. It’s hard to say at this point whether precipitation this month might approach the remarkable late-season levels of the “Miracle March” in 1991, but it does at least appear likely that California’s snowpack will recover toward or even above average levels in the coming weeks. It’s less clear whether Southern California will be able to make up the seasonal precipitation deficit that has accumulated this year despite the near record-strength El Nino event in the tropical Pacific. Still, it appears increasingly likely that March will at least be able to make a dent–even though it’s quite clear that California’s multi-year drought will persist through the summer."
Thursday, the rain kicked in again, starting mid afternoon. I have a 2 piece suit that keeps me dry from head to toe, wore the top part, didn't wear the pants, which i regretted on the way home from work. Rained all nite, friday AM, the pattern changed to on & off showers - sunny for 1/2 an hour, turning grey, then raining for 20 minutes, the stopping - the cycle repeated through the day, 'til mid afternoon.
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"Drenched by 'March Miracle,' Northern California reservoirs inch toward capacity"
BY JOSEPH SERNA
March 14, 2016, 4:25 p.m.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-86215247/

Nicasio reservoir, western Marin County - full.
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There are many effects of the drought, on ecosystems, and on plants and animals already stressed. 
A sad progression for sure: 'Probably drought hastens the decline of Joshua tree."
Los Angeles Times - Published 2:25 pm, Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 
Re-published in sfgate.com:

A sad sight.
These are proud plants, they should look like this:


But i guess nature ('mother earth') needs protection from humans.
What a chilling thought.
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I get the 'New Yorker' newsletter, i have been a subscriber for many years, this one is a 'paid post' an ad for the book, but that's OK, Mr Wilson has most excellent credentials, well worth listening to.
"For the first time in history a conviction has developed among those who can actually think more than a decade ahead that we are playing a global endgame" - Edward O. Wilson
This includes a lengthy excerpt from the book - it's a long read, well worth it.

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