El Niño 2015

Wash Supertopo of all sin !!!!!!!!!

In 1861, farmers and ranchers were praying for rain after two exceptionally dry decades. In December their prayers were answered with a vengeance, as a series of monstrous Pacific storms slammed—one after another—into the West coast of North America, from Mexico to Canada. The storms produced the most violent flooding residents had ever seen, before or since.

Sixty-six inches of rain fell in Los Angeles that year, more than four times the normal annual amount, causing rivers to surge over their banks, spreading muddy water for miles across the arid landscape. Large brown lakes formed on the normally dry plains between Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean, even covering vast areas of the Mojave Desert. In and around Anaheim, , flooding of the Santa Ana River created an inland sea four feet deep, stretching up to four miles from the river and lasting four weeks.

"The rainy season commenced on the 8th of November, and for four weeks, with scarcely any intermission, the rain continued to fall very gently in San Francisco, but in heavy showers in the interior. According to the statement of a Grass Valley paper, nine inches of rain fell there in thirty-six hours on the 7th and 8th inst. Whether, it is possible that so much rain could fall in thirty-six hours I will not decide; but it is certain that, the amount was great, for the next day the river-beds were full almost to the hilltops. The North Fork of the American River at Auburn rose thirty-five feet, and in many other mountain streams the rise was almost as great. On the 9th the flood reached the low land of the Sacramento Valley."[7]


The city of Sacramento suffered the worst damage due to its levee, which lay in a wide and flat valley at the junction of the American and Sacramento Rivers. When the floodwaters entered from the higher ground on the East, the levee acted as a dam to keep the water in the city rather than let it flow out. Soon the water level was 10 feet (3.0 m) higher inside than the level of the Sacramento River on the outside. Dozens of wood houses, some two stories high, were simply lifted up and carried off by the flood, as was "all the firewood, most of the fences and sheds, all the poultry, cats, rats and many of the cows and horses". A chain gang was sent to break open the levee, which, when it finally broke, allowed the waters to rush out of the city center and lowered the level of the flooding by 5–6 feet (1.5–1.8 m). Eventually the waters fell to a level on a par with the lowest part of the city.[7] From 1861 to 1862, the state capital was moved from flooded Sacramento to San Francisco.

The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in their planning for Southern California could not have made use of palaeoclimatic and archaeological evidence recently published in the Journal Holocene. Here Dr. Arndt Schimmelmann, senior scientist of the Department of Geological Sciences at Indiana University along with his colleagues found evidence for cyclic simultaneous flooding not only in Southern California, but also in Mesoamerica and South America.

These findings, published in 2003, were based on sediment cores taken in the Santa Barbara Basin. These cores contain tell tale sedimentary deposits, called varves, and they date back 2000 years. Measuring the thickness of the varve gives an index of associated erosion during that particular year. These have occurred in approximate 200 year intervals centering during the following years: 212, 440, 603, 1029, 1418, and 1605. It is observed that bicentennial flooding in the Santa Barbara area was ‘skipped’ only three times and never twice in a row. The quasi-periodicity of approximately 200 years for Southern California floods matches the approximate 200 year periodicities found in a variety of high-resolution palaeoclimatic archives, and more importantly a 208 year cycle of solar activity and inferred associated changes in atmospheric circulation. The last skip was in the early 1800s leading the authors to conclude: “we foresee the possibility for a historically unprecedented flooding in southern California during the first half of the century.” (Schimmelmann, 2003 p.770)

Flooding strands motorists, shuts down Interstate 5 north of SCV

HURRICANE PATRICIA DISCUSSION NUMBER 15
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL EP202015
1000 AM CDT FRI OCT 23 2015

There has been little change in the satellite appearance of Patricia
since the earlier Hurricane Hunter aircraft left the hurricane.
Based on this, the initial intensity remains 175 kt (200mph). Some
fluctuations in strength are possible before landfall, but it is
expected that Patricia will make landfall as a Category 5 hurricane
in southwestern Mexico in less than 12 hours. After landfall, a
combination of the mountainous terrain of Mexico and increasing
shear should cause the cyclone to rapidly weaken, with the system
likely to dissipate completely after 36 hours.

The hurricane has turned northward since the previous advisory
and the initial motion is now 005/9. Patricia is about to
recurve into the westerlies between a mid-level anticyclone to its
east and a deep-layer trough over northwestern Mexico and the
southwestern U. S. These features should steer the cyclone
generally north-northeastward across western and northern Mexico
until dissipation occurs. The new forecast track is an update of
the previous track.

The global models continue to depict the development of a cyclone
near the Texas coast over the weekend. This system should be
non-tropical in nature. However, this cyclone is expected to draw
significant amounts of moisture from Patricia's remnants, and could
result in locally heavy rainfall over portions of the northwestern
Gulf of Mexico coastal area within the next few days. Refer to
statements from local National Weather Service forecast offices for
details.


KEY MESSAGES:

1. Confidence is high that Patricia will make landfall in the
hurricane warning area along the coast of Mexico as an extremely
dangerous category 5 hurricane this afternoon or evening.
Preparations to protect life and property in the hurricane warning
area should have been completed, or rushed to completion, as
tropical storm conditions are spreading across the area. Residents
in low-lying areas near the coast in the hurricane warning area
should evacuate immediately, since the storm surge could be
catastrophic near and to the east of where the center makes
landfall.

2. In addition to the coastal impacts, very heavy rainfall is
likely to cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides in the
Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan and Guerrero continuing
into Saturday.

3. At this time, the Category 5 winds are occurring over a very
small area near the center - about 15 miles across. A NOAA
Hurricane Hunter aircraft is scheduled to investigate Patricia
before landfall to see what changes in intensity and structure have
occurred.


FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INIT 23/1500Z 17.6N 105.5W 175 KT 200 MPH
12H 24/0000Z 19.8N 105.1W 130 KT 150 MPH...INLAND
24H 24/1200Z 22.9N 103.6W 60 KT 70 MPH...INLAND
36H 25/0000Z 25.7N 101.6W 20 KT 25 MPH...POST-TROP/REMNT LOW
48H 25/1200Z...DISSIPATED

Mark my words... the SIERRA will have 20-40% above avg AVG snowfall this season.

Aw f*#k, flying into Mexico on Sunday.

BTW, did y'all note that northern England has been hit with a '100 year flood'

We're still below average for the year on rainfall.

El Nino is a BUST.

organizations use different methods to determine what is an El Nino year. For NOAA generally its any year where average temps at certain southern ocean buoys are .9 degrees greater than average. Of the 23 El Nino years in the last 6 decades, 1/3 bring less than average rain, 1/3 average, and 1/3 greater than average.

When folks are saying El Niño is a bust, I think they are referring to all the table pounding and "95% chance of floods" commentary.