Unbelievable! Thanks for posting this. Wish I could fly down there just to witness that.


Sent from my iPhone using Mountain Buzz

 

Heavy precipitation for parts of Northern and Central California, and southern Oregon, Sat-Wed, Jan 7-11.

Freezing rain for portions of the valleys of the Pacific Northwest and Northern Intermountain West, Sat-Sun, Jan 7-8.

Heavy snow for parts of the Cascades, Sat-Wed, Jan 7-11.

We have a fair bit of snow in Redmond Oregon.
Expecting rain Sunday.
We don't flood much here because of the geology.
But elsewhere this be pretty serious.

 

Yep, by the end of the week Squawlywood will have received more snow in less than two weeks than Colorado has all season.

 

What all the concern is about:

Up to 12 inches of rain below 8,500 feet is expected, and massive amounts of snow — up to 6 feet — above that elevation. A fourth, colder storm two days behind will drop yet more heavy snow.

Plenty of doom:

California braces for 'once-in-10-year' storm amid fears of flooding, avalanches, blizzards - LA Times

 

Gee, seems like either drought or flood for CA these days. Of course this is in line with climate change predictions, but for the deniers it is obviously a hoax.

 

Here's to hoping that some of that action heads north and we get a refresh of some rain. Everything here in Oregon is just frigid. Water levels dropping on even low elevation rivers due to ice and snow. Send the white stuff to the mountains!

 

I heard that the drought ended in California on election day from all the crying that went on because Trump was elected?

 

Truckee river water park in Reno

someone got out and enjoyed the flood...

Watch: Rafter on flood-swollen Truckee River in Reno

hope it posts.

 

I came across footage of Yosemite falls at flood stage on their FB page.

Pretty intense to see all that water dropping a thousand feet...

-AH

 

That oarsmen on the Truckee just calmly parks his oar, takes a healthy shot of some whiskey for the audience and does a graceful exit. Love it.

 

Very reckless behavior.

NERD ALERT! You would think that with all this rain and snow that has come in California this heavy rainy season that every reservoir in the state would be overflowing. This is not the case yet. California built some big reservoirs in the last 100 years. And none of the top ten largest are full. Take Don Pedro for example, it is just about 80% full. And there is still about 400,000 acre feet of volume left (AF). You could drain all three upstream reservoirs (Cherry, Hetch Hetchy, and Lake Elenor) and then it would be full. As of today's flow data the states top ten reservoirs are 63% full. With 7,216,906 AF of additional volume. That is enough water to fill both Shast (the state's largest reservoir) and Don Pedro from empty to full.https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WxBVl1T2wtURkkH85rm-lqMaL-H5DscVEfHcXOFry_o/edit#gid=1302994285

They never let the reservoirs fill up in the winter. They have to consider the amount of water "stored" in the contributing basin and manage the runoff. If they filled up to 100% they would be in big trouble during the next event with no capacity to attenuate the flow, which leads to major flooding. Although this storm was warm, the remaining snow pack is saturated. If it gets cold and stays cold there is a substantial amount of water remaining for spring.

 

So, while there's been a lot of Cali coast and Sierra rain and snow, is it correct that the total amount so far, knowing more is on the way, is less than some of the earliest predictions, such as one newscasters comment on 5 - 10 feet of snow? Where did the Souht Fork of the American end up?

 

Lower than forecast about 30,000cfs this morning at Chili Bar.

 

I got on the lower-t at 13-15000 on Saturday. It was a bit much. https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOCiuMkrrenV59pJL1dQnCilSUTY6rLOoTCxydf

 

NERD ALERT! You would think that with all this rain and snow that has come in California this heavy rainy season that every reservoir in the state would be overflowing. This is not the case yet. California built some big reservoirs in the last 100 years. And none of the top ten largest are full. Take Don Pedro for example, it is just about 80% full. And there is still about 400,000 acre feet of volume left (AF). You could drain all three upstream reservoirs (Cherry, Hetch Hetchy, and Lake Elenor) and then it would be full. As of today's flow data the states top ten reservoirs are 63% full. With 7,216,906 AF of additional volume. That is enough water to fill both Shast (the state's largest reservoir) and Don Pedro from empty to full.https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WxBVl1T2wtURkkH85rm-lqMaL-H5DscVEfHcXOFry_o/edit#gid=1302994285

 

NERD ALERT! (cut for brevity)... And none of the top ten largest are full. Take Don Pedro for example, it is just about 80% full. And there is still about 400,000 acre feet of volume left (AF). You could drain all three upstream reservoirs (Cherry, Hetch Hetchy, and Lake Elenor) and then it would be full. (also cut for brevity)

FWIW, 400,000 acre-feet is approximately the annual flow through of our local aquifer/river system here in the Gallatin Valley. That really does illustrate how low things were getting over there. An entire years worth of precipitation for a basin the extends from Yellowstone National Park to north and west of Bozeman - approximately 1795 square miles. Wow. That impresses/scares me!

 

PS from the last paragraph:

Three months of heavy and sometimes record-breaking precipitation in this basin has still not dropped enough water to fill this monster of a reservoir. Not even close. Let the photo above be the example for the volume available to fill.

 

Agreed!