21–30 of 75 posts
Native peoples have an oral history that the Sacramento and Central valleys can turn into inland seas during periods of unusual rain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862
Was hoping to hear more about other dams, the article focuses on Oroville. Lake Berryessa for instance is a concrete dam, much more like hoover than Oroville. It was built before they realized there was a nearby active fault, the Green Valley Fault. Lake Oroville (in the NYT article) is the 14th largest lake in California, Berryessa is #11. Lake Oroville does hold twice as much water when full though The big concern…
Recently we trekked to see the newly formed Tulare Lake. FWIW, Tulare lake ain't evaporating for another 2 years. Imagine the same size storm repeats for 10+ years.
Could one make a damn self repairing by using coolant lines and woodfibers aka https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete ? I imagine it similar to the bodies repair facilities, using the electricity from the damn to uphold cooling?
Our family is bunch of armchair hydrologists. Every random few months we trek from Bay area to Oroville to count the bathtub rings and study the drought situation. Recently we trekked to see the newly formed Tulare Lake. FWIW, Tulare lake ain't evaporating for another 2 years. Imagine the same size storm repeats for 10+ years.
I recently read "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner which I highly recommend if you're interested in the history of water issues in the west and California in particular. A great portion of the book is devoted to dams. The gist of it is that many dams of questionable utility were constructed throughout the 20th century due to pork barrel politics and the unstoppable bureaucratic engines of the Bureau of Reclamation and…
Our family is bunch of armchair hydrologists. Every random few months we trek from Bay area to Oroville to count the bathtub rings and study the drought situation. Recently we trekked to see the newly formed Tulare Lake. FWIW, Tulare lake ain't evaporating for another 2 years. Imagine the same size storm repeats for 10+ years.
Why should we imagine that?
Daniel Swain, who is quoted in the article, is a fantastic follow if you live in CA - he tweets at @weather_west and is a phenomenal resource for understanding what’s actually driving the weather patterns in California.