8 months of no rain!

[DNS]

Just took a vacation to visit my old stomping grounds in Los Angeles for the last couple of weeks. Drove down. My god, the state is getting baked. For literally hundreds of miles, the temperatures were over the 100s, typically from 103-106. On Tuesday evening, driving back to Oregon, I got to my hotel in Redding at 8pm. The temp was 102!

Actually, that's pretty normal, Redding is inland, about 100 miles from the coast. But it probably has increased a few degrees over the last 20 to 30 years.

The best weather in California is all along the coast. There's a joke that's mostly true that the weather is perfect right on the coast and then it goes up one degree per mile that you go inland, up until you reach 105. When I drive from Vegas to Southern California coast, I've seen the outside temperature drop as much as 40 degrees at times (110 to 70).

[anjali]

Actually, that's pretty normal, Redding is inland, about 100 miles from the coast. But it probably has increased a few degrees over the last 20 to 30 years.

The best weather in California is all along the coast. There's a joke that's mostly true that the weather is perfect right on the coast and then it goes up one degree per mile that you go inland, up until you reach 105. When I drive from Vegas to Southern California coast, I've seen the outside temperature drop as much as 40 degrees at times (110 to 70).

True about living on the coast vs inland.

I'm pretty familiar with the CA weather, living in southern CA for nearly 30 years, up until 2007. Northern/Central CA is in bad shape compared to 15 years ago, and even 5 years ago. I have friends that live in AZ, and they are all saying the water situation is deteriorating quickly there too.

Yet the one think I noticed in my visit (and I hear it's true in AZ as well), new housing construction continues unabated. I saw several substantial appartment complexes going up in the areas I frequented in LA (mostly Pasasena and surrounding communities, and some out in the Pacific Palisades and coastal areas). I can't figure out how any of it this is sustainable over the next 20-30 years. Guess time will tell.

[Kim O'Hara]

Actually, that's pretty normal, Redding is inland, about 100 miles from the coast. But it probably has increased a few degrees over the last 20 to 30 years.

The best weather in California is all along the coast. There's a joke that's mostly true that the weather is perfect right on the coast and then it goes up one degree per mile that you go inland, up until you reach 105. When I drive from Vegas to Southern California coast, I've seen the outside temperature drop as much as 40 degrees at times (110 to 70).

True about living on the coast vs inland.

I'm pretty familiar with the CA weather, living in southern CA for nearly 30 years, up until 2007. Northern/Central CA is in bad shape compared to 15 years ago, and even 5 years ago. I have friends that live in AZ, and they are all saying the water situation is deteriorating quickly there too.

Yet the one think I noticed in my visit (and I hear it's true in AZ as well), new housing construction continues unabated. I saw several substantial appartment complexes going up in the areas I frequented in LA (mostly Pasasena and surrounding communities, and some out in the Pacific Palisades and coastal areas). I can't figure out how any of it this is sustainable over the next 20-30 years. Guess time will tell.

Time will tell, but by then the developers will have moved on with their buckets of cash, leaving owners stuck with unliveable and unsaleable properties.
We have similar problems here but mainly to do with flood plains. Developers get approvals from local councils, often with the help of political donations (that's how you spell 'bribe', isn't it?) and people buy houses because 'the council wouldn't have approved them if they were going to be flooded, would they?' and then there's an extreme weather event with half a metre of rain, or more, in twenty-four hours (i.e. the 'new normal' comes along) and the houses are all flooded.
It has happened all down the east coast of Australia in the last ten years, with the worst flooding (so far) in the lastfive. It hasn't affected me personally because I've been where I am for long enough to listen to older locals who say 'it should never have been approved' and "I would never buy there', but it has affected people I know.


Kim

[KristenM]

Just took a vacation to visit my old stomping grounds in Los Angeles for the last couple of weeks. Drove down. My god, the state is getting baked. For literally hundreds of miles, the temperatures were over the 100s, typically from 103-106. On Tuesday evening, driving back to Oregon, I got to my hotel in Redding at 8pm. The temp was 102!

Actually, that's pretty normal, Redding is inland, about 100 miles from the coast. But it probably has increased a few degrees over the last 20 to 30 years.

The best weather in California is all along the coast. There's a joke that's mostly true that the weather is perfect right on the coast and then it goes up one degree per mile that you go inland, up until you reach 105. When I drive from Vegas to Southern California coast, I've seen the outside temperature drop as much as 40 degrees at times (110 to 70).

That’s what I was going to say. Weather in California is pretty varied. Personally, I find the Bay Area actually too chilly in the summer. Where I am in the Valley the temperature drops daily 30 or more degrees during the summer. We open our windows at night and have chilly mornings. It’s actually been cooler this summer than in the past, which is weird. Maybe it’s a microclimate thing.

[zerwe]

Bad weather will be the norm throughout the U.S. and the world. The East gets plenty of rain -- too much sometimes to the point of flooding, plus hurricanes along the coast, and blizzards.

The best weather in the U.S. is in the Southwestern states from about West Texas to San Diego. Picture a region of the Southwest with the easternmost part around El Paso, Texas all the way West to San Diego. I'm okay with excluding Las Vegas from that due to the water / rain shortages. But the Southern and middle portions of New Mexico, Arizona, Southern California (south of Los Angeles) all have the best weather.

*No tornadoes
*No hurricanes
*Virtually no flooding
*Mild winters, no snow
*Mild summers, except for Arizona
*Almost no earthquakes or when it does happen, it's so small you can't even feel it.

Yes, SoCal is arguably the most desirable weather in the US. However, it is of course referred to as being similar to a Mediterranean climate. Look at what is happening there. And, yes Cali has always had dangerous fire seasons even more so now. Fire + Santa Ana winds= .......

Shaun

[Miorita]

Las Vegas broke it's own record for the longest dry streak of no measurable rain.

240 days of no rain, until today when it finally rained. I believe this is the longest dry streak of no rain for any large city in the U.S., since they started keeping records.

https://www.weather.gov/vef/2020DryStreak

Nobody taught me in school or otherwise that there is a North American monsoon season in Las Vegas and it brings more than half of the year's rain and that through a daily cyclic weather.
So the Pacific Ocean from the south and to a lesser extent, the Gulf of Mexico, bring together the rains. The Natve Americans must have known something. Dave put me to work off season when I could just sit in my chair and watch the rain coming from the oceans.
Green horses on thw wall, thanks so much for wasting my resources on asking for things that have no chance of happening off season!

[Kim O'Hara]

Las Vegas broke it's own record for the longest dry streak of no measurable rain.

240 days of no rain, until today when it finally rained. I believe this is the longest dry streak of no rain for any large city in the U.S., since they started keeping records.

https://www.weather.gov/vef/2020DryStreak

Nobody taught me in school or otherwise that there is a North American monsoon season in Las Vegas and it brings more than half of the year's rain and that through a daily cyclic weather.
So the Pacific Ocean from the south and to a lesser extent, the Gulf of Mexico, bring together the rains. The Natve Americans must have known something. Dave put me to work off season when I could just sit in my chair and watch the rain coming from the oceans.
Green horses on thw wall, thanks so much for wasting my resources on asking for things that have no chance of happening off season!

One consequnce of global warming is that the monsoons are more variable and (I think) are extending further from the equator. It's complicated and most of the attention is focused on the much bigger Asian monsoon, but you might find this interesting. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/b ... an-monsoon.


Kim

[Malcolm]

When it rains, it pours.

[Kim O'Hara]

When it rains, it pours.

That's truer now than when it was coined.


Kim

[Miorita]

Thank you for the link with the text and the Fine Art image contained within, Kim O'Hara!
It gives a complete perspective on N American monsoons.


Miorita

[Tao]

All the reservoirs I passed were way down. I don't know when people are going to wake up, but the US southwest is headed for a catastrophy.

The whole world. Wake up, please.

[DNS]

Federal government, now imposing water cuts to Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico from Lake Mead.

https://news3lv.com/features/breaking-d ... strictions

No cuts in water distribution to California yet. California needs the water for their agriculture, which feeds much of America.

Due to huge conservation efforts in Nevada and Arizona, both states are expected to do fine for at least the next couple of years even with the water cuts. Most landscaping in Las Vegas is already desert landscaping and they are now requiring all lawn grass for homes to be removed by January 1, 2027. They can be replaced with artificial grass or desert (drought resistant) plants.

[DNS]

Here is an even more gloomy report, if the reservoir continued to get depleted:

[Johnny Dangerous]

Federal government, now imposing water cuts to Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico from Lake Mead.

https://news3lv.com/features/breaking-d ... strictions

No cuts in water distribution to California yet. California needs the water for their agriculture, which feeds much of America.

Due to huge conservation efforts in Nevada and Arizona, both states are expected to do fine for at least the next couple of years even with the water cuts. Most landscaping in Las Vegas is already desert landscaping and they are now requiring all lawn grass for homes to be removed by January 1, 2027. They can be replaced with artificial grass or desert (drought resistant) plants.

Honestly, xeriscaping lawns should have been a requirement when I was a kid in NM if not before. The amount of water wasted so that people can have green lawns they do nothing with is just ridiculous.

[KristenM]

Here is an even more gloomy report, if the reservoir continued to get depleted:

What’s especially gloomy to me is all the people putting their heads in the literal sand by saying that it’s just a temporary phase and calling it a government conspiracy to get people to buy EV’s, turn people into Democrats etc. But spreading false hope gets votes.

[kirtu]

The US Southwest (and northern-central Mexico) will have to build artificial aquifers (actually a network of aquifers), judiciously harvest rain (meaning storing it and moving it from where it rains now to where it is needed), massive ice pyramid's in order to keep water flowing and massive desalination. Otherwise water will run out, completely. Since we are so late into climate change with next to no previous response (esp. in the US which basically denied climate change - and these catastrophic changes are occurring at still only 1.2 C) it is not clear how much mitigation is possible. But a series of massive engineering projects to keep several parts of the world habitable are immediately necessary.

Oh yeah, and eliminate fossil fuel use completely (something that really should have been completed 20 years ago to avoid inevitable obvious negative climate change impacts). Humanity was warned (Hansen, 1988 and he wasn't the first either).

Unfortunately Lovelock was correct when he said that humans are too stupid to react appropriately to climate change.

From a Vajrayana POV we have to do lots of specific kinds of naga practice (Dilgo Khentsye was doing this before he died in 1991). Several friends here can fill us in on the details. I have no idea at all if there are Mahayana or Theravada practice solutions beyond general sutras for merit creation.

[KristenM]

Federal government, now imposing water cuts to Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico from Lake Mead.

https://news3lv.com/features/breaking-d ... strictions

No cuts in water distribution to California yet. California needs the water for their agriculture, which feeds much of America.

Due to huge conservation efforts in Nevada and Arizona, both states are expected to do fine for at least the next couple of years even with the water cuts. Most landscaping in Las Vegas is already desert landscaping and they are now requiring all lawn grass for homes to be removed by January 1, 2027. They can be replaced with artificial grass or desert (drought resistant) plants.

Honestly, xeriscaping lawns should have been a requirement when I was a kid in NM if not before. The amount of water wasted so that people can have green lawns they do nothing with is just ridiculous.

Xeriscaping is beautiful, too. We have rock, decomposed granite, native plants etc in our yard. I don't think the onus of drought management will be solely on individuals and their lawns. If only it was as simple as that we merely didn't water our lawns. There's going to be real changes that take place on a massive scale. I'm partly scared and partly excited for a sustainable future.

Edit: Not that you are saying that. I was only thinking about how people wish it was that easy.

[Kim O'Hara]

... I don't think the onus of drought management will be solely on individuals and their lawns. If only it was as simple as that we merely didn't water our lawns. There's going to be real changes that take place on a massive scale. I'm partly scared and partly excited for a sustainable future. ...

Yes. Industrial-scale mono-cropping agriculture is environmentally poor practice anyway but it's also very thirsty. Pushing the responsibility on to individual householders is a way of diverting attention from the real big water consumers.

But as for fossil fuels ... we must leave all the rest in the ground. Any other strategy is wishful thinking, greenwash, or worse.

roast.jpg (50.29 KiB) Viewed 658 times

The cartoon is ten years old, by the way - almost to the day. I do wish it wasn't still relevant.


Kim

[DNS]

Xeriscaping is beautiful, too. We have rock, decomposed granite, native plants etc in our yard. I don't think the onus of drought management will be solely on individuals and their lawns. If only it was as simple as that we merely didn't water our lawns. There's going to be real changes that take place on a massive scale. I'm partly scared and partly excited for a sustainable future.

Yes, I agree. We were one of the first to transition to all desert landscaping at our properties 23 years ago. We have desert plants and artificial grass and no lawn grass at all.

And I'm a little more optimistic now too for the sustainable future. As the local news report shows, Nevada doesn't even use all of their allotted acre-feet of water from the reservoir, even though Nevada gets the least amount of water, compared to California, Arizona, Mexico and the rest.

Las Vegas has been recycling water for at least 25 years (not sure of the exact date it began). And now Governor Newsom (Calif.) is working to get recycled water systems going for Southern California. I heard they are hiring some water experts from Nevada to show them how to recycle. It basically takes all the water that goes into the drains, treats it through several steps and then goes back to the reservoir and eventually back to the tap.

[PadmaVonSamba]

I was just imagining today how Las Vegas will look as a completely empty ghost town.