[HN Gopher] A 'megaflood' in California could drop 100 inches of...
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       A 'megaflood' in California could drop 100 inches of rain,
       scientists warn
        
       Author : joshe
       Score  : 15 points
       Date   : 2022-08-12 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
        
       | ls612 wrote:
       | Seems like that would go a long way towards refilling all the
       | reservoirs if it happened.
        
         | aaaaaaaaata wrote:
         | ...are they ready?
        
       | blinded wrote:
       | time to setup some rain collection
        
         | mrtweetyhack wrote:
        
       | hodgesrm wrote:
       | The megaflood is not very hard to imagine. If I recall correctly
       | the town of Ross in Marin County California got 29 inches of rain
       | in the month of January 1993. The Sierra Nevada got much more in
       | places. Highway 88 up to Carson Pass was like a canyon in places
       | with 15 foot walls of snow on either side.
       | 
       | California does not normally get a huge amount of rain even in
       | the winter, but when it does the storms are massive.
        
       | user00012-ab wrote:
       | gpt3 give me speculation on weather in California, make it sound
       | scary:
       | 
       | The weather in California is getting increasingly unpredictable
       | and dangerous. The state is experiencing more extreme weather
       | patterns, with more droughts and more intense storms. This is
       | causing major problems for Californians, who are struggling to
       | adapt to the changing conditions.
        
       | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/E1iA7
        
       | carvking wrote:
        
       | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
       | Takeaways
       | 
       | Article: "It already has happened in 1862, and it probably has
       | happened about five times per millennium before that. On human
       | time scales, 100 or 200 years sounds like a long time. But these
       | are fairly regular occurrences."
       | 
       | Wikipedia on 1862 flood: "The event dumped an equivalent of 10
       | feet (3.0 m) of rainfall in California, in the form of rain and
       | snow, over a period of 43 days."
       | 
       | I'm surprised I haven't heard of it before.
        
       | dendrite9 wrote:
       | Two possibly better links: https://weatherwest.com/archives/16626
       | https://www.usgs.gov/programs/science-application-for-risk-r...
       | 
       | From a previous discussion on here, there were major floods in
       | the Central valley in 1950. There is a USGS report here including
       | some impressive pictures of the flooding despite the poor image
       | quality. https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/wsp1137F
       | 
       | The flood was caused by a series of wet, warm storms without
       | enough time for the watersheds to absorb the rain like the
       | scenario described in the original link.
        
         | Lammy wrote:
         | And in 1964:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_flood_of_1964
        
       | tedunangst wrote:
       | Does the probability of a megaflood increase each year it's
       | overdue or is that a fallacy?
        
       | Victerius wrote:
       | 254 cm. Enough to completely cover any human, and a lot of
       | single-story houses.
        
       | x-shadowban wrote:
       | Many reports of drought in europe, I had wondered where that
       | water went (it doesn't just evaporate into space...right?)
        
         | meltyness wrote:
         | I got curious, and apparently -- yes!
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape#Earth
        
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       (page generated 2022-08-12 23:02 UTC)