http://cdip.ucsd.edu/?nav=recent⊂=nowcast&units=metric&tz=UTC&pub=public&map_stati=1,2,3
Posted on 12/28/2005 4:44:57 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - The first in what is expected to be a series of drenching winter storms has prompted flood warnings and swelled Northern California rivers to their highest levels in seven years.
Warnings went into effect across the northern half of the state after the first storm swept through Tuesday and Wednesday. Steady downpours and rising rivers led to an evacuation, scattered power outages, and flooded roads and parks. Water district officials in Sacramento closed a flood gate on the American River as a precaution.
"It's been several years since we've had this widespread of flooding, and we're not done," said Rob Hartman of the National Weather Service's California-Nevada River Forecast Center in Sacramento.
The last significant flooding in Northern California was during the El Nino year of 1998 and a year earlier, when three people died after levees collapsed north of Sacramento. The danger is lower this time because there was relatively little snow in the Sierra Nevada to be melted by the warm rains.
More storms are forecast to begin Friday and remain through the New Year's weekend. The next system is expected to spread farther south and bring the potential of mudslides, debris flows and flash floods in recently burned areas of Southern California by Saturday, Hartman said.
Hillsides already were giving way in some parts of Northern California, as the steady rain soaked ground that was saturated. In Modesto, a mudslide led to a pileup that killed a motorist on Monday. In Mendocino County, four homes near Fort Bragg were evacuated after a landslide Tuesday night.
Rivers were cresting from the Napa County wine country to the far northern coast, including the Russian, Navarro, Scott, Klamath and Eel rivers. They are expected to rise to flood stage periodically through the weekend without causing severe damage.
"We're getting an early start on the rain and snow season, which is good as long as we don't get flooding," said Don Strickland, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources.
The main concern is warm rains melting the early season snowpack in the Sierra, sending flood waters cascading out of the range and overwhelming the Central Valley's intricate system of dams, weirs and levees.
Housing developments have boomed in Central Valley flood plains in recent years, raising the stakes for water managers who try to empty downstream reservoirs before they overflow with runoff.
Federal and state water managers were releasing torrents of water at the Oroville and Folsom dams, but both reservoirs had plenty of capacity to handle additional runoff.
"We're in good shape," said Jeff McCracken, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. "The system's working everywhere it should. This is a wet storm, but there's not a lot of snow to melt like there was in '96-'97."
The northern Sierra had 226 percent of its normal precipitation for this time of year. Most has fallen as rain, although a weekend cold front is expected to bring snow. Wet, heavy snow at the highest elevations prompted an avalanche warning Tuesday and Wednesday on Mount Shasta, north of the Sierra in the Cascade Range.
The Sacramento River is expected to rise to 27 feet by the weekend, four feet below its flood level. That is still high enough to concern water managers, who plan to open a massive weir north of downtown and divert river water to a vast wetlands.
We have had about 20" in the last two months. 3" in the last 36 hours. We could lose power or fiber optic cable at any time...
Democratic Party Politics or Sierra Club and friends????
You would have to scrape their fingernails to find any difference...
Substantial? Really? Like give me a range of these "substantial" percentages, please... (Oh! And the pavement in NOT interminable so the incoming liquid reaches that "duff" and stuff in a relatively short distance with good grading and drainage, don'tcha think???
http://cdip.ucsd.edu/?nav=recent⊂=nowcast&units=metric&tz=UTC&pub=public&map_stati=1,2,3
I've seen vegetation cut peak flows in half.
And the pavement in NOT interminable so the incoming liquid reaches that "duff" and stuff in a relatively short distance with good grading and drainage, don'tcha think???
Typically pavement concentrates flows via drains and pipes while interrupting far less destructive sheet wash. That concentration does substantial damage, particularly downcutting. It also redirects flows and bypasses adsorption areas.
That problem can be mitigated somewhat via more modern drainage design in a manner similar to the way forest skid roads are now constructed, that is, if the engineer has a clue about how to use the lay of the land to reduce flow concentration (they usually don't). Liability for hydroplaning is one reason the designs abet landslides. Most drainage systems these days look as if they were designed by lawyers.
It's scary.
The reason is that when 30 foot waves come into a sand bar under 25 feet of water, you can see the rocks on the bottom.
They're white.
Carter got pist because CA went for Gerald R. Ford in the 1976 election and Governor Jerry (Mediteranian Fruit Fly) Brown whispered in Jimmah's ear at the behest of his rafting buddies to defund the dam on which 600+ million 1977 dollars were already poured into the 2/3rds complete project!!!
You can tell that I despise all these pukes, can't you?
Thanks for posting that link. Modern technology is a far cry from KHB-49. This gray-haired sea dog appreciates the update.
Love your tagline, too!
Why they be white? Are you talkin bout the out flow just as the wave crests?
Dunno. That's what I was told.
I sure as hell wouldn't want to be there to confirm it myself. That place is nasty even on a good day.
At this site you plot all sorts of data: currents, wind, gusts, tide heights....etc etc...
Actually, it's FEAR of allegators and litigators, don'tcha know?
I now realize that when you said that about duff and stuff that you were thinking of the absorbtion in somewhat natural areas while I was thinking of drainage/runoff in mass pad grading site complete with roofs, bare dirt and paved streets waiting for homeowners to come and roll out ye old NV sod!!!
One of the ideas that enthralls the militant GovernMental EnvironMental Nazis that convinced Arnold to create the Sierra-Nevada CONservancy is that the Sierra is a giant sponge and that if we'd quit all timber removal and other economic development, that we wouldn't need man-made flood control so that rafting could continue unabated.
This even though they beat down river banks like a bunch of city slicker cattle in a drunken stupor, oblivious to local landowner's rights and concerns!!!
I like your tagline best!!!
They are if you are talking about Cal-Trans. A friend is doing the engineering and EIRs for the culvert replacements for Salmon restoration and he explained to me that the legal dept has the final say on all projects because Cal-Trans self insures for liability and the legal beagles do the risk assessments...
And because of the cost, many roads don't get repaired, so they slide, causing... siltation in creeks.
The system is broken, but hey, the lawyers get full retirement on nearly full pay!
WASS
How far south of Garberville is that? Is it going to be closed for a long time?
(If you know.)
My sister was planning on driving over to San Diego from Tucson - this storm doesn't look good for making that trip through the mountains.
Do you know how I can get the weather for the route - all I can find is a southwest region - and it's not definitive enough to tell if the trip would be in the unsafe range.
From what I can tell on GoogleMaps, about 22 miles.
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