The priorities of the current population and governance of California are truly impaired, it is like watching a person intoxicated on alcohol or pot trying to walk a tight rope while painting something like the Sistine Chapel.
Michelangelo they are not. And certainly not the Flying Wallendas.
California spent most of the past century developing the arid lands of the San Joaquin into viable farming communities, and the first problem was to tame the annual floods that swept in with the melting snow on the Sierras. A series of retention dams were constructed, damming up a number of rivers, and a water allotment program was worked out, whereby the water released from the retention dams was distributed in an orderly fashion, each of the enterprises being allotted so many hours to divert the water to their use, then waiting in turn for the next time water is available to them. The right to tap into the water flow was a large part of the value of the agricultural land, and over time, the system made the San Joaquin one of the true breadbaskets of the world, divided between being a huge truck farm for most vegetables, orange groves, grape arbors, cotton, and alfalfa hay, with crops possible almost all around the entire year, and the area does not know “winter” as such. Most of the fall and winter months are shrouded in a pervasive fog, which supplies a considerable amount of moisture in its own right, and is an excellent climate for tillage crops like small grains and winter vegetables.
There is a sizable aquifer beneath the San Joaquin, but with the spring melt not being allowed to be retained and released for agricultural purposes, there is great danger of overpumping the aquifer in an effort to provide even limited agricultural production, so the farm ground is either lying fallow, or given up for other non-agricultural purposes.
Either way, a way of life is being strangled in the name of some sort of obeisance to a nameless deity.
The second half of the upcoming week will feature soaking rain and mountain snow returning to drought-stricken California.
Confidence is growing for California to receive a substantial amount of rain and mountain snow from two storm systems later next week.
The first system is scheduled to move through California Wednesday through Thursday with the second to follow for Friday through the first part of the next weekend.
The second is likely to be the stronger and wetter of the two systems, bringing a much-needed soaking to many communities (with the deserts being the exception).
If the first storm bypasses or only grazes Southern California, the second will not. It is possible that Downtown Los Angeles receives at least half of the rain that fell in all of 2013 (3.60 inches) from this one storm Friday through next week.
Several inches of rain could soak the northern California coast, while feet of snow may blanket the Sierra. Snow levels could drop low enough to whiten the mountains of Southern California. . .