Another dull month of drought...

Posted 6/28

6/10
It actually rained! Just for a while, but that's pretty unusual for the SF area in June.
Only got a 10th or a few 100th of an inch in many places, but that broke records!
That's how rare rain in June is here.

6/16 - some 'cirruss-ly'-interesting hi clouds.
Definitely some cirrus fibratus in here...
I am not sure what else... but it's definitely interesting!

So for lack of interesting new images, here's a few oldies but goodies:


Above, somewhere in Nevada, this is called 'virga' - rain starts to fall but a dry layer of air beneath it evaporates the rain before it ever reaches the ground.

Above, early morning low clouds/fog part, enough to let a blast of sun shine on the bay water. Princeton harbor, south of SF, close to the famous Mavericks surf spot.


Let's hope summer brings some fog!

This drought has inspired a whole lot of discussion about water in the west:

http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2015/05/29/10-california-drought-myths-debunked/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/federal-dollars-are-financing-the-water-crisis-in-the-west/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/the-disappearing-river

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rich-californians-youll-have-to-pry-the-hoses-from-our-cold-dead-hands/2015/06/13/fac6f998-0e39-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html

People “should not be forced to live on property with brown lawns, golf on brown courses or apologize for wanting their gardens to be beautiful,” Yuhas fumed recently on social media. “We pay significant property taxes based on where we live,” he added in an interview. “And, no, we’re not all equal when it comes to water.”


An editorial comment? We are all equal, we all live on the same planet...don't we?


http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/19/us-usa-drought-wine-insight-idUSKBN0OZ0CI20150619

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/science/troubled-delta-system-is-californias-water-battleground.html?_r=0

http://news.yahoo.com/decades-old-water-rights-california-halted-amid-drought-073114017.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/federal-dollars-are-financing-the-water-crisis-in-the-west/

Nor Cal residents worry water bottling plant will hurt environment:

"The glacier-studded stratovolcano is the source of much of California's water. Snowmelt percolates through fractured rock to burst forth in clear cold springs below before making its way to Shasta Lake, which holds about 40% of the federal Central Valley Project's stored supply"
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-83499853/

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http://www.boomcalifornia.com/2015/04/the-great-thirst/

http://www.boomcalifornia.com/2015/04/reading-the-drought/

http://www.npr.org/2015/05/02/403719502/all-tapped-out-in-a-tiny-california-town

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-california.html?_r=0

The end of California? I don't think so, not by a long shot.

The 'winter that never showed up'...

...is coming to an end....The fourth in a row.
March brought next to nothing, a few somewhat interesting skies as remnants of low pressure systems drifted over, but about enough rain to get the pavement wet.

And a bit of nice cirrus too.

I want to see more skies like this!

 

 

In the time I might have spent editing some new batches of stormy gnarly clouds, I did some research. What's been the cause of all this?
It's been dubbed the 'Ridiculously Resilient Ridge' (of high pressure).

http://coyot.es/slowwatermovement/2014/09/29/ridiculously-resilient-ridge-possibly-dismal-climate-scenario-for-california-and-beyond/

http://coyot.es/slowwatermovement/2014/09/29/ridiculously-resilient-ridge-possibly-dismal-climate-scenario-for-california-and-beyond/#ixzz3VXZWD8HY
To quote from this blog:
"I will, however, speculate on possible implications if the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge is going to be around for the next few decades. While we don’t know if the ridge has formed in the more distant past, we do have a good idea about what California’s climate was like over the past 10,000 years – and it isn’t a pretty picture. It has been very well established that droughts lasting MANY DECADES have come through the area, drying up lakes to the point that trees grew to mature size in their lakebeds, and possibly causing various civilizations in the Southwest to collapse. It’s certainly possible that the Ridge or something like it played a role in those droughts."

[[Canyon De Chelly is probably an example of this:

About a thousand years ago, there was a serious drought, and many if not most of the SW native americans pulled stakes, and moved to... who knows where?... probably north.]]

Pretty scientific for a guy like me, but understandable, give it a try, there's a nice animation part way down the page:
http://www.weatherwest.com/archives/tag/ridiculously-resilient-ridge

The RRR is coupled with the 'TTT':
"In the east, we’ve seen its southern-dipping counterpart, which I call the “Terribly Tenacious Trough.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weird-winter-weather-plot-thickens-as-arctic-swiftly-warms/

http://www.livescience.com/50103-february-temperatures-divide-us.html

Here's a map that says it all:

Many other interesting links:

SKI RESORTS CLOSE - NO SNOW!
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-83138341/

Aspen is running out of snow.
http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/aspen-and-the-end-of-snow-20140117

http://www.newsweek.com/why-californians-are-starved-water-314867

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/opinion/the-southwestern-water-wars.html?_r=0

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Owens Lake (now Owens Valley) is a prime example of short sighted water use.
The 110-square-mile lakebed has been dry since 1926, 13 years after Los Angeles officials opened an aqueduct that diverted water 200 miles away to the young metropolis. The audacious water grab, memorialized in the 1974 movie Chinatown, turned the lake into a ghostly white alkali void. Winds sweeping down the Sierra Nevada kicked up a toxic brew of arsenic and other carcinogens, carrying it up to 75 miles and threatening the 40,000 residents of the Owens Valley region and beyond with asthma and emphysema — even heart attacks.

“You don’t want to breathe this stuff,” says Schade. “It can kill you.”

http://www.hcn.org/issues/47.4/keeping-the-dust-down-in-californias-owens-valley

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http://www.houseofrain.com/ - click on 'the memory of water', it'll get you a PDF that's a good read, and it's free.
--------------------------
And in the course of doing some research for another one of my blogs, I came across some other very interesting pages. People like to criticize the government, but some of the services they provide are awesome, in particular the work of NOAA and NWS. Here's a few samples:

http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=MTR&issuedby=MTR&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1

http://www.weather.gov/informationcenter

http://www.ripcurrents.noaa.gov/beach_hazards.shtml

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/radar_tab.php

http://www.weather.gov/satellite?image=ir

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/

There is something here for a wide variety of people - from cloud watchers like me, to pilots, farmers and who knows how many others.

Let's not forget another great government operation - NASA!

http://www.nasa.gov/

(This blog is pretty nice too, if space is your cuppa tea:
http://wanderingspace.net/ )
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http://www.livescience.com/49287-california-droughts-ripple-effects.html

Yes, the ripple effects will be like dominos, one cascading into another.

Drier conditions? More fires. And forest fires start a series of events. The fire leaves the ground unable to absorb any further rain, so if and when it does rain? It doesn't sink in, it creates mudslides.
It takes many years for the land to heal itself... in the meantime....?

The Central Valley loses water, & farming & agriculture shrinks? People lose jobs and maybe move on, towns and businesses dry up. And what does this do to the price of your produce?

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/california-drought-matters-more-just-california

4/1 - announced today by order of Gerry Brown - a push for a 25% reduction in water use.
Of course this does not apply to agricultural water use, which is waaay more than consumer use.

http://news.yahoo.com/california-unveils-historic-water-restrictions-over-drought-crisis-200241456.html

One last totally excellent link, marvelous aerial photos:
http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/04/the-american-west-dries-up/389432/


I'll be back in a month, probably w/ more bad drought news, but with some good skies from my archives.

A winter with no 'winter' in it...

Everyone in the midwest and east is getting whacked eight ways to sunday. Here?.. winter is like a summer, except no fog, i go to work in shirt-sleeves most days, the rain gear and the umbrella are lost somewhere in my closet.

Predictions for a rain event of some magnitude, starting Thurs 2/5 had been in the media for days, but as i watched the sat. images and radar develop, i am disapppointed. Rain was predicted to start overnite, 2/5-2/6. Now i might wake up at 3AM, look out my windows to see a downpour, but at 5PM thursday it doesn't look like that will happen.

We finally got hit, on friday. And hit again on sunday. But nothing like a reeeeally big storm, and not enough to leave us with much more water.

There is some snow in the Sierras, ski resorts are back in business again.

No good images for this one, it just wasn't photographically interesting.

It continued to be a really dull month, photographically speaking.
Last week of the month, prediction for a minor event over the weekend. As of Saturday 2/28, it's blue skies, and puffy cotton candy clouds.
Then we did get hit, but only in a few spots for a short time.
I spotted this angry thing out my window, but it was miles away, I never saw a drop.



Some other people got some.. Hail! Wow!
http://abc7news.com/weather/wild-weather-hits-the-bay-area/538952/

And So.Cal. had some things going on too.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/600/article/p2p-82946812/

One very interesting lenticular cloud in the Grand Tetons:

Photo: Jackie Skaggs, NPS

http://www.livescience.com/49865-lenticular-clouds-grand-teton.html

We need some monster storms!
Here's another one of my cyber rain dances! It needs to roll in off the ocean like this:

 

And it needs to be soooo strong and nasty, 

that by time it passes over the mountains...

..it still dumps some snow on the high desert country:

(both above and below - Nevada, near Las Vegas)

Keeping up with drought news:

Extreme drought in Northern California just got 10% better
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82795622/

http://www.livescience.com/49700-flying-into-atmospheric-rivers-study.html?

Scientists go high and low for data on drought-fighting 'sky rivers'
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-82819173/

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/lack-rain-one-stories-behind-wests-inevitable-2015-drought/

http://www.livescience.com/49794-megadrought-prediction-southwest-plains.html

http://news.yahoo.com/california-drought-linked-natural-causes-not-climate-change-230935805.html


Threatened Smelt Touches Off Battles in California’s Endless Water Wars
By KATE GALBRAITHFEB. 14, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/us/threatened-smelt-touches-off-battles-in-californias-endless-water-wars.html?_r=0


California's Drought Exposes Long-Hidden Detritus - NPR
FEBRUARY 22, 2015 4:26 PM ET
http://www.npr.org/2015/02/22/387599629/californias-drought-exposes-long-hidden-detritus


Trees Rooted Under 70 Feet of Water?
Yes! - Read these next four links!

http://sierranaturenotes.com/naturenotes/paleodrought1.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-droughts-a-warning-to-california.html


http://www.monolake.org/today/2014/01/03/on-snow-surveys-drought-water-conservation-and-mono-lake/

http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewild/aquatic/drought-shrinking-mono-lake.html

3/4 - I read that an El Nino is developing - a weak one, and rather too late to be any good:

http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/El-Nino-finally-here-but-this-1-is-weak-weird-6116484.php


Weak El Nino
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-82976976/

Here's the science behind this prediction:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml



Let's hope that next month, I have to find my rain gear and umbrella.

August was a rather uneventful month...

.....with a few exceptions:
A prismatic event - remember that cirrus clouds are really ice, and as such, like glass, they fracture light beams:

And some early AM fog burning off, it's always magical, ever changing.
Helps one wake up easily, slowly, softly.

But the real topic this time round?.......I took in some marvelous fog, at the end of the July 4 weekend, 7/6.
'I bought the ticket, & took the ride' as Hunter Thompson has written... via Golden Gate transit and SF Muni to Marin Headlands, hoping for some some photogenic fog. I got my wish.
I go to a particular area that I have found to be most interesting for fog.
I start at the last bus stop before the bus goes over the hill, into the next/northern valley, there is a semi-circle of hills that block the fog when it is only 800+ ft. high off the ocean, the hills are on the north, west and east - the south opens to the ocean.
This topography is what makes it interesting, it forces the fog to do interesting things, spill over the hills, wrap around them, and burn off in magical ways.
Here's the topographic map:

You can see how the north, west, and east are blocked off, to almost 900 ft elevation... but the south? ..is open to sea level.
The imbalance in elevation is what makes things happen.

Here's the results:

Here's some links worth your time:

http://www.livescience.com/47225-california-wildfire-fire-clouds-fighter-jet-photos.html
http://www.livescience.com/34024-gallery-weird-clouds.html
 http://abc7news.com/weather/gps-devices-find-huge-water-loss-in-west/275920/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2731091/California-s-vanishing-lakes-Before-photos-reveal-shocking-shriveling-effect-state-s-devastating-drought-decades.html

We got some relief, but not much.

I have been watching this winter's weather unfold w/ no small amount of amusement.
I grew up back east, in Maine & New Hampshire. I remember winters well, there were only three colors, the white of snow, the green of pine trees, and the cold blue sky. Out west, where I am, the California coast, it's a bit more varied - we hope for rain, and variously green hillsides, partly cloudy skies. Which this year has not been the case. My color pallette has been confused by brown hills.
But at the beginning of March that hi pressure system that had been parked over the eastern Pacific drifted south, and the jet stream drifted south too...
and the 'storm door' opened:

....bringing... RAIN!

It also brought some nice clouds. I can't classify all these, or name them, there are many layers, some made a bit soft by a lowest layer of 'off the ocean mist'(light fog).

 

 

After they passed, it's been a cirrus sky.

These are definitely cirrus uncinus, a subform of cirrus clouds.

 

 

For more scientific stuff? go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_clouds

It is interesting to note that cirrus clouds are also seen on other planets:
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune... if it is indeed a planet.

Above, probably Cirrus fibratus

Meanwhile, drought is the topic du jour. Just because we had some rain doesn't mean we are out of the woods, oh no, not by a long shot.

"Within the span of a single afternoon, it’s possible to witness the past, present, and future of water issues in the West. We accomplished this by driving past the Hoover Dam, through Las Vegas, and on into California via Death Valley."

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/03/las_vegas_water_conservation_it_s_a_mirage.html

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Harpers Magazine:
Only viewable in full if you are a subscriber, but i strongly urge you become one.
It'll be the best 35$ you ever spent, i read the paper mag. from cover to cover.

http://harpers.org/archive/2014/04/razing-arizona/

Here's an excerpt:

"It was a river of drought, low enough that we could walk alongside the rafts, our feet sinking into the silky bottom. We had put in near Moab, Utah, at the mouth of Meander Canyon, where the Colorado River turns sluggish after racing out of the Rocky Mountains. There would be no worry about rapids for the next forty miles, not until Cataract Canyon, a stretch of white water that has a penchant for flipping boats and killing boatmen. Occasionally our rafts caught on sandbars and spun like lily pads, and we had to rally around them in the water and push. Where the flow deepened to the waist, a big-toothed writer named Bill deBuys, of New Mexico, who was once a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his book River of Traps, got out and swam. All but one of our party — the trip leader, John Weisheit, a slope-shouldered, slow-talking Moab river runner who had given up alcohol — popped open cold beers and jumped into the water, escaping the August heat as our boats drifted....."

-----------------------
For Imperial Valley farmers, abundant water amid drought.

While some areas of California face supply cutbacks because of the drought, the Imperial Valley has all the water it can use, thanks to senior rights on the Colorado River established decades ago.


http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-imperial-valley-water-20140317,0,7579263.story#ixzz2wGTQt7mb

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-imperial-valley-water-20140317,0,7579263.story#axzz2wGTI6IQx

On the other hand.......
Most Central Valley growers to get no water from Central Valley Project
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-drought-cvp-20140221,0,3521779.story

If L.A.'s the gauge, there doesn't seem to be a drought
By Tom Stienstra
Updated 9:52 pm, Sunday, March 2, 2014

http://www.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/If-L-A-s-the-gauge-there-doesn-t-seem-to-be-a-5282987.php

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Drying up the delta: 19th century policies underlie today's crises

Because they got there first, irrigation districts most Californians have never heard of have dibs on vast amounts of water upstream from the delta— even in times of drought.
Thanks to seniority, powerful Central Valley irrigation districts that most Californians have never heard of are at the head of the line for vast amounts of water, even at the expense of the environment and the rest of the state

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-delta-flows-20140323,0,4858708.story#axzz2wndwayXb

It's good to see that this talk about drought has brought the topic of water use in the west into the headlines, and fostered some discussion and attention.

http://www.sfgate.com/drought/

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Central-Valley-farmland-on-5342892.php

"19th century policies underlie today's crises"
You reap what you sow.

'Drought'

....that's the word on everyone's mind in the west these days.

It's still a bit too early to say for sure, sometimes winter out west takes it's *sweet time* to arrive, Nov. Dec. and Jan. can be dry... but in February, March, and April we get blasted eight ways to Sunday, and catch up. Let's hope that kicks in this year, but so far no forecasts predict that.
Here's the stats to date:
Driest year since 1977. Driest year since records were kept, in 1849.
Snow pack in the Sierras? - 17% of normal.
Here's an image of last year (at left) and this year, at right, courtesy of the NOAA.

Pretty grim, methinks. It could all get 'fixed' in February March and April... but then again.. it could not. It could, in fact last much, much longer than that, according to an SF Chronicle article:

"carbon dating of tree stumps found in Mono Lake when water levels there were at a low point indicate that some California droughts have lasted as long as 150 years, time enough for a tree to grow in a lake basin."

Mono Lake is now 150+ ft deep at it's deepest.

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Water-officials-look-to-rules-5156261.php

http://www.monolake.org/

That's a very scary thought, a 150 year drought.
If you are not out west, and think you might not be affected, consider this:
California grows about 1/2 of the US food - fruit and veggies.
And 80% of the almonds, worldwide.
If all this (rain and agriculture in Ca.) collapses? I don't even want to think about the consequences. They are catasthropthic.... even if you don't like almonds.
Think about the possibility of a produce aisle w/ a lot less produce, and much more expensive. Think about VERY long lines for anything green, and prices thru the roof.
And wine? Vineyards are not a 'plant some seeds, and harvest in a few months' thing. They could get hit pretty hard too.

What can anyone do? Well, i can't do jack-shit about it all...I can try and conserve, but really, what difference does one person in a studio apt. make?
Only thing I can do? How about a digital 'rain-dance' and post it online.

Here it is:

Maybe if we ALL think *rain!* it may happen!

Here's a few links that go a bit deeper than CNN:

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/is-the-wests-dry-spell-really-a-megadrought-16824

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/What-s-Causing-West-Coast-Drought-/story.xhtml?story_id=103005RZ2AXF

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/20/california-officially-drought-desal-answer/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/desert-southwest-may-be-first/

And one w/ a very local concern:

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-threatens-coho-salmon-with-5175736.php

On Saturday, Jan 25th, my favorite pacific satellite image
(http://www.intellicast.com/Storm/Hurricane/PacificSatellite.aspx?animate=true) looked like this:

It looks like that big hi pressure system has moved north(?), maybe that's a good sign. There's definitely some serious moisture headed our way ( that's the blue areas).
The evening before, there was enough cloud cover for a nice sunset:

But rain just didn't arrive, a smattering, scattered wimp of a 'storm. It doesn't even deserve to be called a storm. Enough to get the streets wet. BFD, ya know?

Let's hope for the best...but we had better prepare for the worst.