-Still Grumpy
*****
Hey, parts of California, particularly the San Joaquin Valley, floods at the drop of a hat.
It's flatter than hell and the soil is generally hardpan, baked by the unrelenting summer sun. Rain just doesn't soak in like it does around here, it just stands there and eventually runs off to the nearest low spot.
The average rainfall for Modesto is about 12 inches annually, so three or four inches of rain in a 24 hour period will cause some serious flooding in some areas. I've seen it first hand.
Wasn't it Australia where they initially blamed droughts on climate change, then it started raining like crazy? Now they're saying droughts and floods are all part of climate change. Seems like the same playbook for California. Just add in normal weather as well, and you cover every year! Wish I could get paid for making predictions like that...
ReplyDeleteThe first European settlers described Australia as a land of floods and draughts. If it's still a land of floods and draughts a couple of hundred years later the climate can't be changing that much.
DeleteWhen it rains a lot here, it floods a lot. This is NOTHING new. It's a DESERT! The soil gets baked hard all summer long. The rain comes and the soil can't absorb it, so it goes "downstream." Sooner or later it hits a spot where it just kinda piles up and spreads out. This happens again and again. This is mute testimony to our "governors" and the fact that they'd rather spend our tax dollars on illegal aliens than flood control and runoff catchment...
ReplyDeleteMegafloods... What else?...
They should build a wall around the valley to keep the water in and illegals out.
ReplyDeleteOops.
Don't forget about the Super volcano!!
ReplyDeleteUntil recently (60-70 yrs ago) one could sail the Central Valley clear south to near Bakersfield. Peopple could book passage on ships from Stockton to Hanford and points south.
ReplyDeleteUp unto the 80s there were wharves and docks here and there in the valley.
I do know there were two paddle wheelers abandoned in the Hanford area . They were still there in the first decade of this century.
The San Joaquin valley is on top of +40k feet of alluvial soil with a high clay mix.
While everyone is yapping about water all of a sudden, has anyone noticed much of the "water shortage" is the direct result of Gavin Newsome? Wasn't HE the POS who was emptying all the reservoirs?
ReplyDeleteYet, interestingly, no one notices the dude with the freshly-waxed face and hair.
My HOA has instituted serious restrictions on maintaining rain barrels in my neat, orderly community, to collect water running off the roof on those infrequent occasions when it does finally RAIN down here in South Texas. We can go 5 or 6 weeks without a drop falling. But when it does, don't you DARE catch any of it without karen's permission. I never thought I would live long enough to see the day when accepting God's bounty pouring freely from the sky would require a permit from the lordly HOA. Phuckers.
ReplyDeleteThis happened in 1862, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862. Basically an atmospheric river that continued nonstop for 3 months. 160 years ago. Probably not due to "global warming".
ReplyDeleteDon in Oregon
It happened back in 1992 (I think) too. We got 22 inches of rain in February. This was in a region that usually got half that in a normal year. There was a heavy snowpack that year and the storm moved east and melted all that snow. The reservoirs were already full so they had to open the gates and just let it flow.
DeleteThe San Joaquin, Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers all overflowed their banks and merged, creating one huge lake in the Valley. It was a mess. Millions of dollars in houses flooded and cattle drowning by the thousands.
There are a lot of areas where flooding and deforestation were exacerbated by trapping out the beavers. Beaver dams did a great job in slowing down the runoff and letting g the land soak up more. Not in hardly any of California, of course.
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