esrosedotblog

WEATHER OBSESSED

This morning on the local weather.

A synchronized, almost 1968-1969 weather pattern has set up. Very cold, huge, intense upper low spinning like a top NW of
Washington State, and storms still training in from W-SW in a long pineapple express extending from all the way from Hawaii.
Models still intensify these mid latitude storm systems, as they are going to pound the southland with heavy rain next 4 days,
finally letting up around Thursday AM. Heavy rain shown for the San Bernardino & San Jacinto Mtns. Possible mud & debris
flows for the east side of the mountains by tomorrow, and again on Tuesday & Wednesday. North end of valley where the
White water area feeds into the drainage channel very vulnerable for a surge of mud & debris flowing down into the center
of the valley.

It is not nasty now but raw and rainy. We took a short version of the Sunday threesome walk.

When weather gets this intense, there are worries about flooding and runoff rapids that can carry a lot of stuff away from where it is sitting right now.

That stuff, big rocks and mud, tend to muck things up in the water management channels that are dug from the bottom of the mountains out into the valley where the surge dissipates.

We have been here for one bad one, maybe 2001.

We are safe enough where we are. In fact, no one builds in the flood plain. Some are close.

It is mostly wash away problems like roads, golf courses and the like.

Of course, that is because, up to now, no one has wanted to build on or around the aluvial fans that lie at the bottom of the mountains.

The fan is, incidentally, the result of ages of flooding! Here from the "Friends of the Mountains".

Although the threat of flood may seem preposterous in a desert environment currently suffering from extended drought, the potential for flooding and the resulting debris flows is very real. As recently as 1985, 3/4 of a mile of the Tram Road wash washed away in a flash flood. Stranded Tram passengers, whose cars were buried in mud in the Tram parking lot, were airlifted to safety. Flooding of the Whitewater River in 1938 left Palm Springs stranded for a week, with multiple fatalities. In 1965, Cottonwood Creek overran Interstate 10 and washed out sections of Highway 111, also with fatalities. In fact, flooding poses such a grave danger that California Governor Arnold Schwartzeneger has convened an alluvial fan taskforce to protect against deaths and damage caused by building in alluvial floodplains like Chino Canyon.

Pictured is the Tramway flood.

Labels: desert, weather