Posted on 11/30/2012 3:04:06 PM PST by blam
California Is About To Get Pummeled With Rivers Of Rain
Mark Fischetti, Scientific American
November 30, 2012
An atmospheric river (thin yellow band) feeds torrential rain into northern California on Nov. 30.
Northern California is experiencing the first days of what weather forecasters are warning will be a long series of torrential rainstorms that could cause serious flooding across the northern one-third of the state.
The relentless storms are being driven by a feature in the atmosphere you have probably never heard of: an atmospheric river.
Oh, and another atmospheric river created the worst flooding since the 1960s in western England and Wales this past week, where more than 1,000 homes had to be evacuated.
An atmospheric river is a narrow conveyor belt of vapor about a mile high that extends thousands of miles from out at sea and can carry as much water as 15 Mississippi Rivers.
It strikes as a series of storms that arrive for days or weeks on end. Each storm can dump inches of rain or feet of snow. For more details, see this feature story that Scientific American has just published, written by two experts on these storms.
Scientists discovered atmospheric rivers in 1998 and have only recently characterized them fully enough to allow forecasters to warn of their arrival.
They can strike the west coasts of most continents, but California seems to be a prime target. As many as nine small atmospheric rivers reach the state each year, each lasting two to three days, including the famous “pineapple express” storms that come straight from the Hawaii region of the Pacific Ocean.
This story was originally published by Scientific American. Reprinted with permission.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
If it comes from Hawaii shouldn’t it be called the
OBAMA Express??
Last year that jet stream dumped a record level of snow in Alaska.
Now, it’s your turn. At least you don’t have to shovel the stuff...
Started last night about 6 and did not stop till 1pm next day tomorrow night supposed to be a lot worse.
Simulations of a 23-day storm there indicate that more than $400 billion of damage and losses would occur,
Just lovely.
We are the worst run/poorest of the 50 states, and probably on the way to a financial death spiral. What next, frogs?
Oh, cry me a river. Its winter in No Cal. It rains. BTW, if that picture means SF will get flooded, then it looks like Latin America will get washed away.
The Northwest coast is rainforest country even under normal conditions. So I guess this is going to be pretty bad, if the forecast is right.
>>>The satellite pic looks as if God himself is throwing a punch at California :)<<<
Right in Nancy Pelosi’s fat kisser (ie district)
quack quack
learn to swim
bump
Looks like Mammoth Mountain is in for one hell of a ride!
Now, it’s your turn. At least you don’t have to shovel the stuff...
No shoveling along the coastal areas, but we sure do where I live in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Calif. Nine feet of snow out of a storm like this isn't unusual here.
A plague of mud slides. Be careful.
Let's face it, California has become the home of every unclean bird of the earth. Every weirdo movement we're being forced to clean up after today came out of California.
Now, it’s your turn. At least you don’t have to shovel the stuff...
No shoveling along the coastal areas, but we sure do where I live in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Calif. Nine feet of snow out of a storm like this isn't unusual here.
Hey, send some of that snow over to Colorado, we could sure use some!
13 And Moonbeam stretched out his staff over the Golden State, and the rain flushed homeless out of creekbeds across the land 14 pushing shopping carts they invaded all California and settled down in coffee shops in great numbers. 15 They sought out unlocked garages and community centers. They devoured all that was left —everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing remained that wasn't nailed down in all the land of California.
Direct a storm toward us so we to can recieve federal monies
The article was going along good until of course THE NEW STUDY TYING IT INTO CLIMATE CHANGE. I guess CLIMATE CHANGE must have really started in 1861. I’ll have to email AL GORE and have him update his movie.
Sorry Excellence. I am sure you personally don’t deserve any of this. I am an Orange County girl and had my two oldest babies at St Joseph’s, married a marine that was at El Toro (since closed). Lived thru an El Nino or two, maybe an El Nina, I wasn’t paying attention. Those days were the days I remember when I think of Cali. That state wouldn’t want my conservative butt now.
That being said, God is in control.
I hope you are safe.
California needs rain. In Southern California, we’ve experienced one of the worst droughts of my lifetime.
Just looked at the latest weather map, and it looks like it’s already mostly gone past us, heading eastward. We still have a light drizzle here in Hollywood.
In La Jolla (San Diego) people are praying for rain. There are tons of Pelican, Cormorant, and seal crap piled on the rocks. You can smell it a mile away. The state environmental regulations prevent the city from hosing down the rocks.
Doesn’t Northern California have some lightly maintained levees that are always just about to break?
I love rain!
Or one of His angels. Certainly is an interesting visual pattern.
Already knee deep in snow in the Town of Mammoth Lakes so far today and it is just light snowfall. More on the way!
The birds
“Doesn’t Northern California have some lightly maintained levees that are always just about to break?”
Yes
Don’t worry, they have been working like crazy to put up 20 foot walls on both sides of I-5. You’ll be able to drive right thru it.
Maynard was so cute and cuddly. What happened?
Too close to reality.
The high desert is so flat the water has nowhere to go and just piles up into the front door. I hope this bypasses us; I’m in no mood for this.
Take care.
Right now, neither do I.
First thing Monday morning, the state legislature will vote to tax the rainfall.
First thing Monday morning, the state legislature will vote to tax the rainfall.
An ark is starting to look like a good idea! ;-)
My in laws live in Placer County. They say the wind is scary.
Every tiem I’ve been to SF in the last two decades the place has smelled like urine.
It could use a good scouring.
It was pretty windy here earlier today, but it has died down a little. I’m worried about my brother, he has a Walnut ranch (as they call it there) in the Sacramento Valley.
History starts the day you were born as evidenced by the writer of the article. We still haven’t recovered from the 1,000 year flood of 1964 when entire towns were wiped out in Humboldt county...
Climate change is real and it started billions of years before 1861. The lie is that humans cause it. The Left has done a propaganda job worthy of Orwell's Big Brother by morphing the brainless concept of anthropogenic global warming into the new code words Climate Change. Those two words now imply that humans -- specifically fossil fuel-using humans -- cause all climate catastrophes. Pure hogwash!
I studied college geology in the 1950s. I've read voluminously on the subject ever since and practice a profession that's an offspring of geology. I've never had the slightest doubt that the climate is in a constant state of change, sometimes catastrophic change. All you have to do is put those changes into the perspective of geological time.
I grew up hearing the phrase: "Everybody complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it." Apparently Algore and his evil brain trust decided they could politicize it and make fortunes while herding the ignorant American sheeple into the World Socialism pen at the U.N. Ranch.
According to the Congressional Office, the coming deluge will create jobs by tranferring Federal Emergency Funds to the State of California. /s
“Someday a real rain will come....”
That song from the 60s told me it never rained in California. :~))
Just kidding, but please stay safe. Mother Nature is a b***h.
Travis Bickel.
Not too bad unless maybe you live in a semi-arid region where creek and river beds don't cut deeply because they don't have to handle lots of runoff every year -- as in the Central Valley. :-(
But we've seen worse and probably won't sweat it too much (unless that precip forecast increases by a factor of four or five).
After Sunday, AccuWeather is predicting a day or two of light rain, interspersed with two or three days of no rain all the way up until Christmas. Not that AccuWeather doesn't make mistakes. They make a lot of them, but not invariably. OTOH, all these end-of-the-world-storm-of-the-millenium tall tales the scaremongers regularly fling at the public, like so many big smelly cow pies, to frighten and panic it, are always, Always, ALWAYS TOTALLY WRONG!!! Invariably!
Telling us the big one hits tomorrow night here in the Bay Area...We also have a light drizzle this evening..
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