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yamirzmmdx t1_j3wttzs wrote

From drought to wildfires to floods.

Sigh.

195

iskyoork t1_j3wua6a wrote

Climate Change isn't real. Sticks fingers in my ears, close my eyes, and lock myself in a climate-controlled building.

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ThomasEspresso t1_j3wuqrh wrote

Maybe instead of building high speed rail, build an aqueduct.

−31

Bthejerk t1_j3wxbha wrote

They should save every drop and stop killing the Colorado river.

−18

Moose_Nuts t1_j3wxm0v wrote

Yeah, I'm salty. We were promised so much rain in SoCal but probably got less than a quarter of an inch.

Time to buckle up and head toward another hot, dry summer.

4

deadman449 t1_j3x56kx wrote

I was reading articles during summer about 100inches of rain coming to California. I thought it was a feverish dream, but the scientists were right. This is suppose to be one of those every 100 year events that seems to happen every year now days.

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DeadwoodNative t1_j3x5plz wrote

This may be a stupid question, but are there expanded/enhanced statewide efforts in California to collect and divert flood waters to reservoirs? I know you can’t easily control flood waters but with all the resources and technology and brain power of that state, I’ve never heard of any brilliant collection diversion efforts. For instance I read a few months ago they plan on covering canals to lessen solar evaporation, covering them with solar panels to also generate energy. Sounds like a genius win/win. Any genius collection efforts?

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WholeintheAll t1_j3x7lwk wrote

It's ok they will be stealing it from norcal soon enough, those pools are so important and all.

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InsuranceToTheRescue t1_j3xbawb wrote

I think the issue is, how often does California get torrential rains like this (personally, I don't know)? Diverting them to reservoirs is possible, but that's a lot of expensive infrastructure to build and maintain for something that maybe only happens once every 50 years.

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TheBrokenSwagger t1_j3xigyb wrote

Different story in Nor Cal. We're getting entire towns flooded, trees coming down, and lightning/thunder. Last week I drove from LA to Sacramento and right as I get into Fresno, a bunch of Caltrans signs warn of floods and to take it slow while cars going 100 MPH were blowing right past me.

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BpositiveItWorks t1_j3xmk1g wrote

I know the flooding and infrastructure issues it’s causing are catastrophic and I am so sad so many have passed away, but as a resident of NorCal, I see both the negative and the positive.

The positive being we needed the moisture. To reiterate, I would rather so many in the bay were not dealing with damage to their homes and like i mentioned before the deaths and as of last night a missing 5 year old that got swept away. Just want to be clear I value life over getting rain.

Also, I’m getting hammered with snow and could use a break … it is up to my torso in my yard.

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rettaelin t1_j3xojrg wrote

I read this as north Carolina. Stupid brain.

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Maliluma t1_j3xp3we wrote

I live in the central San Joaquin valley and I read similar articles. Basically the articles were saying that where I currently live temporarily turned into a lake during the Gold Rush. Yes, I think about it and am a little concerned.

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DeadwoodNative t1_j3xpoxo wrote

Totally agree 100% They def dropped the ball there. Guessing some of it was ‘NIMBY’. Know the costs were gonna be ridiculous. That is def one area CA needs to pull there head out and deregulate a bit. Maher had a horror story of like 4 yrs to get his solar plans approved and built. There was a big story of proposals to build temp transitional housing to ease homeless fiasco, and it was like the price of a luxury apt per unit. Come fucking on! I’ve also heard disposal of salt byproduct would be a nightmare. Almost seems harnessing their reappearing ‘atmospheric river’ would be just as ‘easy’

−2

DeadwoodNative t1_j3xqfzl wrote

would def be interesting to study feasibility based on recent and changing patterns, but it seems every year or 2 there’s serious flooding somewhere in the state.

and if the reports are true about exorbitant water allocated to almond growing… a gallon per nut or whatever; I like almonds but that’s ridiculous

5

Rage_Like_Nic_Cage t1_j3xrqld wrote

it’s up to the Government bodies (like NOAA and FEMA) to update their rainfall data/models, which is done via statistical analysis.

That being said, some states aren’t waiting around and are starting to require standards/regulations to meet their own updated/“future storm event” models. For example, in New Jersey stormwater design has to be updated, so any proposed roadway projects that were previously required to contain/handle something like the 25 year storm event now are required to meet the “Future 25-year storm event”.

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kazyllis t1_j3xszkj wrote

We built a desal plant in San Diego. It cost a ton of money and only gives us 10% of our daily water usage, while being criticized by environmental groups because it impacts the ocean life. Still glad we have it but it would take a lost of these plants to support SD, and 4 times that amount to support LA.

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Friedumb t1_j3xzzlh wrote

Its in the works as of right now.

https://www.kcra.com/article/big-new-california-reservoir-on-track-for-large-federal-loan-sites/39465488

I believe the plan is to use wind/solar to pump water to the new reservoir and then utilize hydro to capture energy from the release.

Another decent project can be found here: https://apnews.com/article/floods-climate-science-business-wildlife-502590d610a78cb027baf260e79b8555

By recreating the old floodplains we can increase recharge while reducing flood risk. The issue with this project is that farmers are reluctant to give up land adjacent to rivers due to water rights.

There is hope, it just requires everyone coming together for a single goal. Ok maybe there isnt much hope...

4

Clouds2589 t1_j3y0i9z wrote

Funny, here I am sitting in southern California, after just weathering a huge rainstorm yesterday. Guess in reality I'm actually bone dry, who knew?

2

PhoenixReborn t1_j3y3hwz wrote

There was a segment on our local NPR station the other day about this.

https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101891818/flooding-during-a-drought-rethinking-californias-water-system

One of the things they mentioned was having to strike a balance between pumping water from the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta for human use, and maintaining enough water flow to the bay to prevent backfill with salt water. One of the guests wrote an op-ed arguing for intelligent land use to allow water to refill the water table.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/opinion/california-flood-atmospheric-river-drought.html

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macross1984 t1_j3y89ay wrote

This morning I read my local paper and it predicted 600% rainfall compared to the past.

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Vlad_the_Homeowner t1_j3ya507 wrote

The rain just stopped yesterday evening after about a week nonstop. We get two days and it picks up again through next Tuesday.

That said, it's nowhere near as bad where I am compared to some of the photos I've seen up north.

10

WildYams t1_j3yepqp wrote

Actually when the hurricanes hit Florida, right wingers were claiming it was the Biden administration controlling the weather to punish Ron DeSantis, but I guess storms hitting California are "god's wrath".

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WildYams t1_j3yf42u wrote

The headline was just poorly phrased, what the article meant is that more rain is hitting northern California while SoCal will get a break from the rain for a couple days (though it's supposed to rain here again over the weekend).

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ObjectiveDark40 t1_j3yf7qn wrote

Except the large amount of growth that will occur in spring and then die off in summer and lay down on top of the rest of the unburnt fuel. 7 years of draught and 1 year of floods is not going to solve anything.

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LargeWeinerDog t1_j3yg6sx wrote

Just tilt California up a little bit. Let it drain down south. Problem solved

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Johns-schlong t1_j3yjbgb wrote

Depopulate the rural areas, reintroduce the beavers, destroy the levies and turn most of it back into flood plains. We don't own the land, and we can't keep disrupting it. Our kids only get what we leave them. More human intervention isn't the answer.

1

GoArray t1_j3yo03t wrote

Right, that's the point of my comment, this is actually a 100 year storm. Not, as the OC put it and a bunch agreed, happening every year or two.

Of all the events to use as ammo or make fun or w.e., this ain't one of them. (Though still likely a result of cc)

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lasvegasnv11 t1_j3yx52i wrote

I live in the South Bay, a little north of you and we definitely got rain and high winds. I'm guessing you havent went outside or opened your blinds in a while. And I looked it up, Long Beach received a little over 3" of rain since January started. Thats a lot for 10 days in Long Beach.

7

Jklipsch t1_j3z5txg wrote

I love the rain NorCal is getting and wish it would continue (though not at this condensed pace) to actually make a huge difference for the drought.

Cali is soft. Complain about drought. Complain about a couple of storms. And what is up with CA drivers forgetting how to drive with a bit of rain.

−10

WholeintheAll t1_j3zktev wrote

I won't commit on what I don't know about and alfafa is one of those things but I am sick of the vegans screaming almond milk that is bad for the planet, environment and our water resources. If you want to go that way it has to be oat milk for the resource trade to even out.

0

The_Meek t1_j3zldn5 wrote

Another notable issue is that the first duty of these reservoirs is flood control (and even if you deprioritize flood control, you need to maintain the integrity of the dam itself). That means that collecting rainwater mid season isn’t actually all that helpful—most of the dams will be doing large releases to bring their levels down over the next few days and weeks. You can’t absorb the large surge from a flooding event without unused reservoir capacity. Bad things happen when reservoirs are full with more rain on the way, eg Oroville 2017. Once the forecast dries up and snow starts to melt, the reservoirs will shift to maximizing stored volume for the dry season (vs maintaining flood control capacity for the rainy season).

2

Taman_Should t1_j3zqigo wrote

That's not really the point though, the point is that their beliefs have no consistency. One minute they'll say God sent natural disasters, the next minute, the democrats are responsible for equally bad natural disasters.

Remember when we were young and naive enough that we thought we could argue about things based on their own supposed internal logical frameworks? Doesn't that seem quaint now?

6

Hopeful_Hamster21 t1_j3zt5vd wrote

Between this and the recent east coast storms... This is basically "the day after tomorrow". That movie was sensationalized, but it was based on a book called "the global superstore", whose premise was that climate change would trigger a series of giant ass storms world wide. Granted, the book was pseudo-science at best, but it is what we're seeing.

8

qtx t1_j40jije wrote

> The positive being we needed the moisture

But the thng is, the soils is so dry it's like cement. The water isn't penetrating, it just flows over it.

So it's not helping one iota.

4

briansabeans t1_j41ga4m wrote

But that's not happening nor is there any sign of that. We are just getting hit by storm after storm after storm for a few weeks. That's not a "plus side"; this is a recipe for mudslides and wildfires. Fixing our water shortage takes a lot more than 1 month and takes a lot more than 1 year.

2