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Post by erik on Dec 12, 2014 9:56:37 GMT -5
I think Dianna can attest to this, since she lives in Oregon and has probably seen some of the effects of this.
Folks, the entire West Coast is being nailed by what is probably the Storm of the Century--a combination of a polar air mass colliding with the Pineapple Express on top of us, causing enormous amount of rain to fall in short periods of time. Down here in Southern California, all of the mountain and foothill areas that have been scorched by brushfires over the last few years are under flash flood warnings (meaning that the flooding and mudslides are in progress); and we are getting rain falling at the rate of 1.25 inches per hour, combined with high winds, thunderstorms, and even the possibility of tornadic rotation in some of the more vigorous storm cells (yes, we do have small-scale twisters and waterspouts that can occur in severe winter weather events like this).
In case anybody asks if this huge weather event puts a dent in our drought--well, I think the answer is Yes, but only somewhat. Climate experts say that it would take probably five or six storms of this size between now and April to really call the drought over. And to have this much rain coming down at the rate it, it's kind of a Catch-22. We need a lot of rain, but not necessarily all at once.
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Post by sliderocker on Dec 13, 2014 11:27:31 GMT -5
I just caught a story on CNN about a tornado that hit south of the Los Angeles area. Weird weather! Any rain is good for California because of the severe to extreme drought, but it's a pity the weather the state has had caused flooding and mudslides. From what I heard, more rain is due Monday and that's not going to help things, as far as the flooding and mudslides go, but it will help put a dent in the drought. Maybe California can dry out but get a few more rain-producing storms afterwards to end the drought, but not to the extreme that the rain causes flooding and mudslides. And the rare tornado.
What's left of the Pineapple Express is supposed to pass through the south central part of the US tonight and tomorrow, but the storm has lost much of its punch. In Oklahoma and Texas, the rainfall expectation is half an inch or less in most parts, although some areas could see an inch of rain. There's also a possibility of hail and damaging winds up to 65 mph. The wind will be helpful as the past week we haven't had much wind at all but a lot of superthick fog. The visibility was so bad at times one could see a tenth of a mile, and maybe not even that. So the wind will clear out the fog and the rain will help ease our dryness. We were in the same state of drought last year as California and received enough rain to end the drought. But, this year, we're about six inches under our normal precipitation and they're already talking about another possible drought if we don't get more rain and snow.
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Post by erik on Dec 13, 2014 12:46:24 GMT -5
Weather experts who inspected the damage from the storm said that, indeed, it was a twister of the low-level F-1 variety that touched down for about half a minute yesterday in southwest Los Angeles, causing the damage. Twisters. while rare for Southern California, are not unprecedented; indeed, back during a vigorous El Nino winter in 1983, we did have a twister carve a 7-mile pattern of damage paralleling I-110 from south Los Angeles into Downtown L.A. itself, and it tore off part of the roof of the Los Angeles Convention Center. Damage was estimated at $25 million.
The storm woke me right out of bed yesterday just before 4 AM, when I could hear the rain and wind pounding on the window and the roof in a way that was almost deafening. It was likely a squall line that went right through L.A. at the time.
The folks who live in the burn areas, many of them lost just about everything because of the barren hillsides being turned into mud; some of the homes, especially in Ventura County, were buried up to the roofs. It was truly a gargantuan storm, one, I think, for the record books.
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Post by Dianna on Dec 14, 2014 18:08:14 GMT -5
ive heard from friends and relatives that you guys are getting pounded.. You do need it.. hopefully as you said in dosages here and there. You'll have a beautiful spring. Surprisingly it hasn't been too bad in the pacific northwest, at least where we're at.. I usually put the mower away in october. however, the weather has been warm and dry enough I'm still out there. mowing.. I'm not complaining The only the . it does get windy up here, and has known to be hurricane like in strength but they aren't technically hurricanes.. I don't like wind.. it scares me.
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Post by erik on Dec 14, 2014 19:44:41 GMT -5
I have to say, if there's one thing we panic about here in SoCal, it is severe weather events like this past storm Where I live, in Pasadena, it only amounted to minor street flooding and some downed tree branches.
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Post by sliderocker on Dec 14, 2014 20:37:07 GMT -5
The storm made its way through central Oklahoma a couple of hours ago and it was a little more potent than they thought. It spawned a couple of very small tornadoes, the funnels of which went all the way to the ground. Some tornadoes don't have a funnel cloud that stretch all the way to the ground. Funnel-less tornadoes are as dangerous (if not more) as the ones that do have the funnel cloud. You have to be on your guard when tornadic storms are in the area. Luckily, the tornadoes dissipated as fast as they developed. The storms are headed towards eastern Oklahoma and then on into the states east of us. That's worrisome because those states tend to get hit by tornadoes in the middle of the night and more people are killed as a result. Those states also have more fuel - more access to the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico which feed into the storms. All things considered, we were lucky. It could've been much worse.
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