California Drought

[jerrybob]

Trump brought the water back to California, like he promised if elected.



Bruce

Make America wet again!

 

[houstonscott]

No matter how much it rains, California only has capacity to hold what the reservoirs will hold, all the rest goes into ocean. Without more capacity to hold more the droughts will continue. HS

 

[dickfoster]

Here's a photo showing the South Yuba River right now, one of many origins for all that water.

Today on the South Yuba River

Source w comments:

Raging water on the South Yuba River : Sacramento


(Photos - Normal summer water levels there)


That's sort of my 'back yard', I used to go 4-wheeling on the fire roads in that region years ago. Grandpa was a mining engineer in charge of several gold mines up that canyon. Dad and I explored and found a couple of the sites where he had worked for his father 60 years prior.

In Nevada County, the South Yuba is my backyard. I think I'll go to Washington today and have a look to see if the town is still there. The river should be rip roaring. That first picture looks like the old Hwy 49 bridge.

 

[California]

Make America wet again!

Sounds like that's a specialty of his!

 

[TomSeller]

No matter how much it rains, California only has capacity to hold what the reservoirs will hold, all the rest goes into ocean. Without more capacity to hold more the droughts will continue. HS

You are not accounting for water having time during a flood to become ground water and recharge the aquifers. It is not just what reservoirs can hold. Flooding fields also lets sediment deposit in the fields like it was intended.

 

[ultrarunner]

Last night the main county road to the farm washed out... simply gone where the road crossed the creek...

Some of this weeks rain totals have been impressive... 4 to 13 inches.

Honestly, many have not given much thought to wet weather after years of little precipitation.

Only January and the dams/reservoirs here are over capacity...

Several of the downtowns too have been flooded.

For most the damage nearby could have been worse.

 

[California]

I-80 over the summit (Donner Pass, California to Reno) is still 'must drive single file, chains required, 30 mph limit, low visibility'. Still intermittent snow.

Caltrans has 150 lane-miles of this mess to clean up before the pass is back to normal.

USA Today - Too much snow closes ski resorts in California, Nevada. Nobody can get in or out.

 

[houstonscott]

I-80 over the summit (Donner Pass, California to Reno) is still 'must drive single file, chains required, 30 mph limit, low visibility'. Still intermittent snow. Caltrans has 150 lane-miles of this mess to clean up before the pass is back to normal. USA Today - Too much snow closes ski resorts in California, Nevada. Nobody can get in or out.

Happens several times every winter. HS

 

[ultrarunner]

I believe first time in 10 years that Caltrans issued a Winter Blizzard advisory...

 

[houstonscott]

I believe first time in 10 years that Caltrans issued a Winter Blizzard advisory...

Grew up in Bay Area, Sunnyvale. Can't tell how many times 80 was closed to all but 4x4 or all traffic, several times every year. I had an FJ40 in those days, and we had a cabin in both south and north Lake Tahoe. CHP would check to see if I had front hubs locked up and off we'd go. Believe me it's normal, the drought is not an anomaly, either. Tree ring data does show droughts in California can last 200 years, it's happened before. Nothing special here... I skied at Alpine once where several hundred people were trapped on slops because a whiteout blizzard struck, some people had to just stop where they were and wait to be picked up by snowcat. People tend to think the WEATHER they observed while living there is normal, that may not be true, because it's all constantly changing. Anyway all the newbies in California may not understand the history of the State. HS