Posted on 04/03/2023 12:20:36 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
People have worked for a century to make California’s Tulare Basin into a food grower’s paradise. That pastoral landscape now looks more like the Pacific Ocean in many areas.
Months of atmospheric river storms have pummeled the area and saturated the basin’s soil, which sits about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, not far from Fresno. The rains have led to floods that damaged towns and deluged farms and have begun to refill what was once a sprawling lake.
The floods have pitted neighboring property owners against one another and raised tensions over how to manage the flows, which have damaged hundreds of structures. And more water is on the way.
Experts say a monthslong, slow-burning crisis will play out next: A historic snowpack looms in the mountains above the basin — as it melts, it is likely to put downstream communities through months of torment. The flooding, which follows several years of extreme drought, showcases the weather whiplash typical of California, which vacillates between too wet and too dry. The influence of climate change can make the state’s extremes more intense.
“This is a slowly unfolding natural disaster,” said Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Water Policy Center of the Public Policy Institute of California. “There’s no way to handle it with the existing infrastructure.”
The re-forming Tulare Lake — which was drained for farming a century ago — could remain on the landscape for years, disrupting growers in a region that produces a significant proportion of the nation’s supply of almonds, pistachios, milk and fruit. High-stakes decisions over where that water travels could resonate across the country’s grocery store shelves.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
So people built farms on an old lake bottom. And now there is a lot of rain. The lake is filling back up. This is not a natural disaster. This is a man made disaster. Nature is doing what it always does. The men put their farms in a flood plain. Just because the average rain fall doesn’t happen every year does not make it a disaster. An average is just that. You can have far more or far less rain in any year. And since this continent is a million years old. Averaging the rain fall over the past hundred years is not enough data to calculate expected rain fall.
Droughts are caused by climate change. Floods are caused by climate change. Whatever happens, it’s bad, because everything is climate change.
Regards,
This is what happens when you build on a lake bed.
CC
What about the Salton Sea?
CC
Atmosphere river, river, river. Wait’ll the atmospheric ocean hits ‘em.
And it only happens in California. They're special.
A pretty good silver lining, probably, is the water table is rising, groundwater is being refilled.
Will have to do a bit of googling. The environmentalists are probably doing a gleeful "Rain Dance".
NONE of this would happen if we didn’t have gas stoves and didn’t drive a car!!
Diverting water is not a new concept.
The Genesee River flooded the City of Rochester until they built a damn. They release water periodically. Or would everyone prefer no city...No kodak...no Xerox...No U of R...
Nothing wrong with Engineering to solve problems. Climate change CAUSED BY MAN has nothing to do with this.
“Experts say”
If they were experts, they would have predicted, advised, and avoided the consequences. I’d guess these are opinionated fools, rather than experts.
Not sure what qualifies one to be considered an expert, but I’m betting the bar is pretty low.
God is in control.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.