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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: No Mo Mo who wrote (228982)	8/8/2013 12:21:02 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 544066

2013 has been extremely dry. We can easily get whiplashed, with the Valley flooding, if big storms stall out over us, like that can ever happen.. oy. This event chased my sons out of Guerneville, when the Russian flooded. Last Nov, town flooded with 7 inches overnight. January 1997 Floods A. Hydrologic Summary The New Year's Day Flood of 1997 was probably the largest in the 90-year northern California measured record which begins in 1906. It was notable in the sustained intensity of rainfall, the volume of floodwater, and the areal extent--from the Oregon border down to the southern end of the Sierra. New flood records were set on many of the major Central Valley rivers. Over the 3-day period centered on New Year's Day, warm moist winds from the southwest blowing over the Sierra Nevada poured more than 30 inches of rain onto watersheds that were already saturated by one of the wettest Decembers on record. The sheer volume of runoff exceeded the flood control capacity of Don Pedro Reservoir on the Tuolumne River and Millerton Lake on the upper San Joaquin River. Most of the other large dams in northern California were full or nearly full within the first days in January. Rain amounts at lower elevations in the Central Valley were not unusually high. Many valley residents could not understand why there was a flood problem because they were not seeing much rain. Meanwhile, the entire northern Sierra saw 20 inches, some 40 percent of average annual precipitation. Floods were produced on the Coast Range as well, but not to record levels. The Russian, Napa, and Pajaro rivers did not rise as high as the severe floods of 1995. Farther north, the Eel, Klamath and Smith rivers rose higher than in 1995, but did not set records. water.ca.gov Something like this would overwhelm our reservoirs. Worse, there is now 4 or 5% more water in the air than in 1861, from warming. The intense rainstorms sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean began to pound central California on Christmas Eve in 1861 and continued virtually unabated for 43 days. The deluges quickly transformed rivers running down from the Sierra Nevada mountains along the state’s eastern border into raging torrents that swept away entire communities and mining settlements. The rivers and rains poured into the state’s vast Central Valley, turning it into an inland sea 300 miles long and 20 miles wide. Thousands of people died, and one quarter of the state’s estimated 800,000 cattle drowned. Downtown Sacramento was submerged under 10 feet of brown water filled with debris from countless mudslides on the region’s steep slopes. California’s legislature, unable to function, moved to San Francisco until Sacramento dried out—six months later. By then, the state was bankrupt. scientificamerican.com