Violent Storms around California
Feb. 5th, 2024 07:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerThe news yesterday and this morning has been full of stories about violent weather around California. California's a big place, though. What happens hundreds of miles away may be totally different here. Heck, with the state's extreme differences in geography and weather patterns, what happens even 10 miles away may be totally different here. That's certainly the case with Sunday's violent weather. It was relatively calm here in my town and in my neighborhood.
Yes, we got a lot of rain. Earlier in the week we had an "atmospheric river" storm, and this weekend we had another one even bigger. From what I can tell Southern California got even more rain than Northern California did. That's kind of typical in this El Niño winter. The niño pattern means wetter weather than normal in the south, drier in the north. Southern California is definitely on the wetter side of that pattern; Northern California is around where the dividing line falls (it depends on the jet stream) so our weather may bring bits of each.
Flooding? Not here. A bit factor in flooding is how well the local runoff systems can handle it. We don't live near a river or creek prone to flooding, so there's been no flooding near our house. We don't live in a canyon or near a hillside, so there's been no mudslide here. Also no floods or washouts of the kind that can form in these areas.
We also don't live in an area prone to high wind, so we've been spared the brunt of winds elsewhere that have knocked trees and other things causing damage. We do have a few small branches down in our neighborhood. The gardeners can clean those up this week. Our biggest damage locally is a 30' long or so section of wood fence that the winds blew down. We'll have to get someone out to clean up the debris then, when things dry out, replace the section of fence. Our property management company will help coordinate that.
Update: followup blog with pictures of downed fence and a downed tree.
Yes, we got a lot of rain. Earlier in the week we had an "atmospheric river" storm, and this weekend we had another one even bigger. From what I can tell Southern California got even more rain than Northern California did. That's kind of typical in this El Niño winter. The niño pattern means wetter weather than normal in the south, drier in the north. Southern California is definitely on the wetter side of that pattern; Northern California is around where the dividing line falls (it depends on the jet stream) so our weather may bring bits of each.
Flooding? Not here. A bit factor in flooding is how well the local runoff systems can handle it. We don't live near a river or creek prone to flooding, so there's been no flooding near our house. We don't live in a canyon or near a hillside, so there's been no mudslide here. Also no floods or washouts of the kind that can form in these areas.
We also don't live in an area prone to high wind, so we've been spared the brunt of winds elsewhere that have knocked trees and other things causing damage. We do have a few small branches down in our neighborhood. The gardeners can clean those up this week. Our biggest damage locally is a 30' long or so section of wood fence that the winds blew down. We'll have to get someone out to clean up the debris then, when things dry out, replace the section of fence. Our property management company will help coordinate that.
Update: followup blog with pictures of downed fence and a downed tree.
