johnnyray
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Post by johnnyray on Aug 14, 2015 10:21:00 GMT -8
"There is a greater than 90% chance that El Niño will continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2015-16, and around an 85% chance it will last into early spring 2016." 1.usa.gov/1N7PFfp
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Post by ecocentric on Aug 14, 2015 13:25:36 GMT -8
It will bring rain, and the rain will bring mudslides. Best wishes for gentle showers, Left Coasters.
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sarbar
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After being here since 2001...I couldn't say goodbye yet!
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Post by sarbar on Aug 15, 2015 20:52:09 GMT -8
It rained yesterday for the first time in 3.5 months at our home, in western Washington. We have two 1100 gallon water tanks we installed this year in the late winter, that people mocked us for. Well, yesterday? We captured 150 gallons on EACH tank in one day. Who's laughing after 3.5 months of drought?
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sarbar
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After being here since 2001...I couldn't say goodbye yet!
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Post by sarbar on Aug 15, 2015 21:01:11 GMT -8
Our tanks yesterday
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BlueBear
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Post by BlueBear on Aug 20, 2015 14:04:52 GMT -8
Still going strong. For those who like a more visual look (and/or want to learn more), there's a pretty good slideshow of figures from NOAA here: www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdfIt's a mixed blessing. CA needs the rain very badly, and this would help. (Flooding they could do without, naturally. It'd help the reservoirs and short-term water outlooks, but it won't cure the longer-term problems of drought.) Keep in mind that global temperatures tend to take a huge hike in El Nino years, as the gigantic heat-sink of the Pacific Ocean ( which has been warming a lot as of late) releases some of its heat back into the atmosphere, which is what causes all the rain (lots of evaporation, clouds, etc). The Indian monsoons dry up in big El Nino's, and in the last big El Nino event ('97/'98) huge swaths of coral reefs were bleached white. It's hard to say for certain what will come of this one, but again, careful what you wish for. It's not all good. And of course, there's always the classic brief (and entirely accurate) overview of El Nino, sponsored by NOAA (I think?):
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rebeccad
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Post by rebeccad on Aug 21, 2015 7:40:21 GMT -8
I have to also note that if CA can survive only by praying for an El Nino event, we are doomed. This state needs to figure out how to live with the new reality, and soon. And that is going to be hell on agriculture, and no mistake. We've been farming unsustainable crops for a hundred years, but growing cotton and rice in a desert is...insane (of course, I also believe living in LA is insane, but how many million people do it anyway? Sanity doesn't look too promising!).
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BlueBear
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Post by BlueBear on Aug 24, 2015 10:30:39 GMT -8
I have to also note that if CA can survive only by praying for an El Nino event, we are doomed. This state needs to figure out how to live with the new reality, and soon. And that is going to be hell on agriculture, and no mistake. We've been farming unsustainable crops for a hundred years, but growing cotton and rice in a desert is...insane (of course, I also believe living in LA is insane, but how many million people do it anyway? Sanity doesn't look too promising!). What worries me is that a big El Nino year would only lull folks into a very-short-term sense of security. It doesn't fix the problems.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Aug 24, 2015 11:14:15 GMT -8
I have to also note that if CA can survive only by praying for an El Nino event, we are doomed. This state needs to figure out how to live with the new reality, and soon. And that is going to be hell on agriculture, and no mistake. We've been farming unsustainable crops for a hundred years, but growing cotton and rice in a desert is...insane (of course, I also believe living in LA is insane, but how many million people do it anyway? Sanity doesn't look too promising!). What worries me is that a big El Nino year would only lull folks into a very-short-term sense of security. It doesn't fix the problems. Oh yeah, it's amazing how many people define a single precipitation event as ending a drought. One of my pet peeves is the monster rainfall that supposedly makes up for a six month deficit in a couple hours. People don't get that those eight inches are all back in the ocean by morning, with the ground not having picked up much more than it would in a far smaller storm.
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whistlepunk
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Post by whistlepunk on Aug 24, 2015 12:56:23 GMT -8
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BlueBear
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Post by BlueBear on Aug 24, 2015 15:29:58 GMT -8
Quite possibly not. And perhaps even worse for the PNW (OR & WA). Perhaps, anyway. Lots goes into it. To poke a little hornet's nest though, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the "nonsense" of it. ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) is a pretty well-established phenomenon.
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rebeccad
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Post by rebeccad on Aug 24, 2015 16:06:12 GMT -8
What worries me is that a big El Nino year would only lull folks into a very-short-term sense of security. It doesn't fix the problems. Yeah, this. We've seen that already. We had one good rain event this winter and people were jumping for joy that the drought was over. Yeah, um, that didn't work out so much. And no, El Nino isn't necessarily good news for the PNW. IIRC, it typically brings more rain to the south, but less than normal up north. And yeah, what BlueBear says: ENSO isn't something the TV stations made up.
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Post by swimswithtrout on Aug 24, 2015 16:11:33 GMT -8
The problem is that it all evens out in the end. S Cali gets pounded and folks downstream of the airflow now have a drought of their own.
BlueBear, all of us in the astrophotography community have been saying that the past two years have been the cloudiest nights in the USA that we can remember. Do you have any data regarding the "perceived" increased clouds ?
Is this due to El Nino or is this just the tip of the iceberg from the ever increasing global temps/ moisture transport ? I don't think the general populace would even notice it, but when you HAVE TO have clear skies at night to take a photo, and everyone across the USA is saying the same thing, something is definitely up.
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BlueBear
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Post by BlueBear on Aug 24, 2015 20:00:41 GMT -8
The problem is that it all evens out in the end. S Cali gets pounded and folks downstream of the airflow now have a drought of their own. BlueBear, all of us in the astrophotography community have been saying that the past two years have been the cloudiest nights in the USA that we can remember. Do you have any data regarding the "perceived" increased clouds ? Is this due to El Nino or is this just the tip of the iceberg from the ever increasing global temps/ moisture transport ? I don't think the general populace would even notice it, but when you HAVE TO have clear skies at night to take a photo, and everyone across the USA is saying the same thing, something is definitely up. SWT, it's not my area of study, so I'm a bit out of my comfort zone. I have no idea whether the current perceived cloudiness has anything to do with longer trends or not. Total atmospheric water vapor is such a chaotically noisy signal that huge fluctuations naturally occur on daily, monthly and annual timescales, so it's hard to make much from a single year or two. It takes a lot of long-term averaging to confidently decipher a trend. All that said, signals are emerging from the noise, and an article in PNAS (Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences) in 2007 did identify a statistically significant increase in atmospheric water vapor since 1988 from passive microwave satellite observations. More water vapor doesn't instantly mean more clouds, but it's something to consider. Other independent studies and lines of evidence have backed that up. www.pnas.org/content/104/39/15248.shortI'd hesitate to draw large conclusions about this single year, or even a two-year trend per se. But that's just my personal take, and again it most certainly isn't my area of expertise, so don't read too much into my ramblings.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Aug 24, 2015 20:33:02 GMT -8
The problem is that it all evens out in the end. S Cali gets pounded and folks downstream of the airflow now have a drought of their own. BlueBear, all of us in the astrophotography community have been saying that the past two years have been the cloudiest nights in the USA that we can remember. Do you have any data regarding the "perceived" increased clouds ? Is this due to El Nino or is this just the tip of the iceberg from the ever increasing global temps/ moisture transport ? I don't think the general populace would even notice it, but when you HAVE TO have clear skies at night to take a photo, and everyone across the USA is saying the same thing, something is definitely up. ... and an article in PNAS (Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences) in 2007 did identify a statistically significant increase in atmospheric water vapor since 1988 from passive microwave satellite observations. More water vapor doesn't instantly mean more clouds, but it's something to consider ... I wouldn't take a guess on more clouds, but I bet there's a pretty solid temperature correlation.
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johnnyray
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Post by johnnyray on Aug 25, 2015 18:00:19 GMT -8
I read that most all big cities design their drainage systems to channel /drain away rainstorms to the quickest and greatest extent possible. But I wonder -- at least for places like southern Cal where water is precious -- can't the engineers integrate more catch basins, etc. to horde the water first -- and drain away the excess? I know, I know... sounds easy on paper... and I am sure there are costs and complications I haven't even thought about... but we have clever engineers, right?? I think you're right about that but attitudes are changing. Newer strategies around here anyhow (Northern Illinois) are retention ponds which allow water to percolate into the aquifer and be filtered rather than directing it straight into the nearest watercourse carrying all the pollution from our infrastructure. Another is called a bioswale which performs the same purpose, I see them next to some parking lots here and there. We don't have the issues here that Cali does though, a much bigger challenge for you.
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