Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

It actually rained a bit today. On that one hand it's odd to say actually because we're in the middle of what's supposed to be our rainy season here in California. On the other hand, it's been a ridiculously dry January. The tenth of an inch, a drizzle really, we got locally may be the first precipitation we've had all month.

We're in a La Niña weather pattern this winter. That means drier than average weather south of us and wetter than average to the north. What about here? We're kind of on the dividing line where it can shift either way. After a decent cumulative rainfall in November and December that had us about at average for the season to date we've now dropped to about half the normal-to-date average here in Central (yes, Central) California.

The northern third of the state is at average-plus, which is great for filling major reservoirs such as Shasta and Oroville, but Southern California is at a quarter or less of normal rainfall so far. You see one of the consequences of that dryness in the terrible fires that have burned in and around Los Angeles. Another consequence we might see in a few months is drought.

Meanwhile we're swinging back to wetter weather here in the SF Bay area. After the bit of rain today we'll have more tomorrow, then there's rain in the forecast on and off through the following weekend. It's kind of a bummer that I missed January's clear weather while staying inside the past few weeks. My mood was dreary even as the weather was not. Now the weather turns to dreary just as I'm hoping to snap out of it. Well, we need the rain. I'll take solace in that.

There's an upside to all the rainy, dreary weather we've been getting. After now 12 atmospheric rivers this season (again, normally 1-2 are enough to make news headlines for a few days) we're well past normal seasonal rainfalls in California. Reservoirs are filling up. A few are even discharging for the first time in a few years. We're gaining at least a one-year respite from drought.

I compiled a time series of charts from the U.S. Drought Monitor to show improvement in drought conditions over the past 6 months:



This is one of those cases where a picture is worth a thousand words. Just a few words I'll add in case you're not sure what you're seeing:

• California has gone from being 100% in drought conditions, with significant areas deemed at Extreme or Exceptional levels of drought, to more than half the state being out of drought.


• The major population centers on the coast are out of drought, as is the agricultural San Joaquin Valley.


• The agricultural Sacramento River Valley remains in moderate drought.

...And the rain season's not even over yet. The weather forecast shows another storm coming through mid-next week.

It's been rainy. ...Okay, it's more than just rainy, it's like a deluge the past week. Like, "Google reports an increase in searches for 'who is noah' and 'whats a cubit'" levels of rain.

I last mentioned weather several days ago, noting that on New Year's Eve we had to avoid flooded roads on our drive back from visiting friends in the afternoon. It turns out San Francisco got near-record rain that day, 5.46 inches. Flooding has been a problem in many places around the Bay Area. We're safe from flooding here because we're not in a) a low-lying area, b) near a creek, or c) near a steep hillside that could give way when totally water logged. Oh, and d) we get way less rain than SF proper or various other cities in the Bay Area.

But today we've already had over an inch in the past 24 hours, with more expected. And not just more expected today but nearly every day in the 10 day forecast:



Yikes!

On the one hand, sitting inside— and wondering how bad the roads will be when we go out— through days of rain is no fun. On the other hand, as I say almost every time I give the good/bad news on rain, we need the precipitation. California's in a multi-year drought. A few weeks of heavy rain will not fix how low our reservoirs and groundwater supplies have gotten. They absolutely help, but it'll take this plus a lot more to end the drought.

Numbers-wise, the rain so far puts us well ahead of our season-to-date average. We're at close to double what we usually get by this point. (Rainfall seasons are measured Jul 1 - Jun 30.)

We are not yet at normal rainfall for the full season. I mention that because there's a chance the rain dries up after the next 10 days or so. Something like that happened a year ago, when it rained a fair bit in December then dried up in January (2022), extending our drought for another year. By February we had 80-degree-plus weather. Patterns like that have happened in other years, too. So let's hope we get more rain in the next 10 days and for the following month or two. We need it!

And I'm content to trade off several weeks of dreariness right now for not having drought, water rationing, crop failures, and hydroelectric dam failures this summer.

We've gotten a bit of rain over the past 36 hours. That's both big news and not big news. It's big because we've had an awfully dry winter rain season, worsening the multi-year drought we're already in. As this San Francisco Chronicle article (4 Mar 2022) describes, the SF area got almost no rain in January and February this year. It broke dryness records dating back 170 years— as far back as scientific records have even been kept.

But the rain of the past 2 days is also not-big news because, well, the amount rainfall has been not-big. It started Wednesday night when I heard the gentle patter of rain falling on the roof. It lasted a few minutes at a time, on and off. By Thursday morning only enough had fallen to make the ground look damp. It rained a bit more heavily during the day and into the evening on Thursday, but still very lightly. As of this morning the rainfall accumulation from this storm has been only 0.2 inches in my town and about 0.5 inches in San Francisco. We need way, way more than that to catch up to average for the winter rain season. But this may well be the last rain of the season. 😰

I saw an alarming item in my newsfeed yesterday. "Western Megadrought is Worst in 1,200 Years" one particularly vivid headline read. But is it just clickbait or is there a "there", there? I caught up with the story via The Washington Post's article "Southwest drought is the most extreme in 1,200 years, study finds" (14 Feb 2022).



The picture used in the article is actually from last year, Oct. 2021, but it's a sight that has become familiar in coverage of the multiyear drought in California. It shows houseboats squeezed together in what's left of Lake Oroville, one of the state's biggest reservoirs. Before the drought the lake was deep enough to cover all the brown hillsides!

The answer to my question about clickbait is No, there really is a "there" there. These articles point to a recent study published in Nature which found that the period of 2000-2021 is the driest period in the American West since 800 CE.

At the start of 2022 I was optimistic this would be a year we stave off the drought. We'd just come out of an exceptionally rainy December, after a fairly rainy November. The article reflects that, noting that at 12/31 California was at 160% of normal season-to-date rainfall. Now, after 6 weeks of clear skies and warm weather, we're at just 73% of normal for the season to date.

Figures like "73%" don't sound alarming. Comparisons like "deepest drought in 1,200 years" do. We could be looking at a widespread disaster like the Dust Bowl unfolding. As I remarked when I wrote about the downside of warm & sunny days in winter a few weeks ago, if I were a religious person I'd pray for rain.

Two different things here but thematically linked. One, it's raining. After our great last-minute hike on Saturday it started raining overnight. We knew the rain was coming. And it's still here & likely to continue through Wednesday. We knew that, too. It's another "atmospheric river" storm. Fortunately it's not as big of a river as some we've had in the past, which caused hazardous flooding. The rain's falling gently enough on this one that the ground should be able to absorb it as it comes. That's great because we really need the rain. We need it to refill our reservoirs and ground water aquifers after years of drought. One storm alone, even an atmospheric river storm, won't replenish what years of drought have depleted; but it's an important step toward recovery.

So, lightning... Atmospheric lightning is rare out here. The SF Bay Area (indeed most of coastal California) doesn't get those kind of storms. But I think of lightning when I use my new work computer— the one I unboxed Thursday night. It is lightning fast. The thing is, I haven't even thrown heavy workloads at it yet. It's crazy fast at little things I wouldn't have believed the 4-year-old computer it replaced was slow at. Simple little things I do all the time, like open new browser tabs and run command line commands, are noticeably faster. It's like I've been walking with a limp for years and suddenly I'm jogging again. Man, this makes doing work almost fun. 🤣

Gold Lakes Basin, Calif - Saturday, 25 Sep 2021. 4:30pm.

One of the challenges with appreciating nature's beauty is that nature has its own timetable. Come at the wrong time and it may be too hot, too cold, cloudy, smoky, snowed under, or dried out. Thus it was when we visited Frazier Falls in the Gold Lakes Basin today, after already doing a twofer of short hikes atop Sierra Buttes and at Upper Sardine Lake. Frazier Falls is a favorite spot for repeat visits when we're in this area. A short trail, about 3/4 mile each way, leads to a waterfall about 200' tall. Except today the waterfall is dry.




The fact Frazier Falls is dry right now both is and isn't surprising. It isn't, because this is late in the season when many California waterfalls slow to a trickle. And this year is a drought year. Waterfalls that run low flow in normal years could be no-flow right now. OTOH this is a bit surprising because we've come here late in the season before and still found water. In fact it was on a trip to this falls many years ago that Hawk and I got engaged, and Frazier Falls was beautiful then. That's why we're here this weekend, celebrating our anniversary.

On the plus side, we had the area totally to ourselves. After sharing other sites today with numerous other groups there was absolutely no one else on this trail.

Eldorado National Forest, California
Friday, 16 Jul 2021. 2pm.

This morning we checked out from our hotel in Folsom, California (previous blog) and drove up US 50 into the Sierra Nevada mountains. Along the way we stopped for gas, groceries, and a ranger station— the latter two to prepare for camping tonight— but our first real stop was our main event for the day: hiking to Bassi Falls in the Crystal Basin of Eldorado National Forest.

The trail to Bassi Falls starts with a dirt surface deep in forest. A person could be forgiven for wondering why the area is called Crystal Basin. Are there crystals in the dirt? Haha, no, the name refers to the granite ridges and peaks in the area.

After about 1/2 mile the trail breaks out from under tree cover to cross a series of huge granite slabs descending toward Bassi Creek. When the trail crosses bare rock it is marked by cairns— those little piles of rocks you see along such areas. They're not art... and they're also not toys. Don't move them; hikers could get lost if you do!

On this particular trail getting lost isn't too much of a risk. For one, it's a short trail. For another, Bassi Falls is obvious from 1/2 miles away... or at least it is normally. This year isn't normal!

California has experienced record-setting drought this year. High mountains that normally receive meters of snow in a given year recorded just inches this winter. Reservoirs across the state are running dangerously low because the rivers that feed them with water from snow melt are not flowing at usual fullness. Farther upstream the same fact that leaves those reservoirs bottoming out makes normally powerful falls such as Bassi Falls virtually disappear. For an idea of what roaring Bassi Falls looks like in a heavy-snow year, check out the pictures from my visit in June 2017.

Normally Bassi Falls is obvious from the edge of the forest 1/2 mile away. This year you wouldn't know it's there until you're next to it. Indeed, people we passed on the trail asked us, "Is this the right way to the falls?"

We we sure of where to go because we've been a few times before. We were also sure there'd be water there. After all, Bassi Creek flows so powerfully. But when we saw the falls from 1/2 mile away looking so dry our sureness disappeared. Was there any water there??


Thankfully, yes, there is water in Bassi Falls. It's very little, but at least there is some. (At least for now. In another month— who knows. 😨)

For photography it's hard to say whether falls are better at high flow or low flow. It's more than they're different than strictly better or worse. With Bassi Creek running so low this summer I was able to step over the stream in places where it'd normally run swift and wide. I climbed over boulders that I'd normally get swept trying to approach. And after climbing up several such boulders I found a picturesque small cascade of the once-mighty Bassi Falls.

Keep reading in Part 2: More waterfalls and how I photograph them

I've written twice in the past month about how it's been a dry winter so far in California. In my late December entry I explained why rain is seasonal and why winter rain is important. Well, I asked for rain... and now we're getting it. ...And not just rain but a figurative river in the sky, an "Atmospheric River", as CBS News Bay Area reported (28 Jan 2021).

Rain poured on Sunday, then again on Tuesday, and then again overnight and into this morning. We've tallied probably a few inches around my home in the past several days. What's falling as rain here is snow up in the Sierras. At high elevations they've gotten several feet already this week, with estimates up to 10 feet (3 meters) by Friday. Back down here in the valley the rain hasn't reached a point of deluge... yet. Localized flooding could come.

Over in the Santa Cruz Mountains, southwest of here between us and the Pacific Ocean, flooding and mudslides already are a real risk. That's especially true in areas burned in lightning-strike fires last August/September. Fire kills vegetation; when it rains heavily after that there's less to hold the ground together so mudslides become a danger. Moreover, fire scorches bare earth so that even if is less able to absorb rain, further raising the risks of flooding and mudslides.

Does this mean no drought, at least? Haha, no. We still need more rain to catch up to normal for the year, let alone to catch up to normal for last year & this one averaged together. We just need gradual rain!

It's been a fairly dry December here in the Bay Area and, more broadly, in California. I was thinking about that today as I recalled how we've only had a few, light rain showers in the past month. Indeed, the numbers bear out my anecdotal observation: figures compiled by Golden Gate Weather Services (retrieved 28 Dec 2020) show San Jose has gotten 1" of rain so far this season compared to an average of 5" by this time. Most areas in the state are under 1/3 season-to-date averages and some, particularly in Southern California, are below 10% of normal.

Why it Matters: Mediterranean Climate

California has beautiful, dry summers. The flip side of this is that we have wet winters. Pretty much all our rainfall comes in a period between November and March.

California is not unique in this regard. It's part of a weather pattern called Mediterranean Climate (Wikipedia link) or dry summer climate. This map from Wikipedia shows where in the world it occurs:



Obviously the name comes from this being the climate pattern around the edges of the Mediterranean Sea. It also holds for most of the west coast of the US— including the metro areas of Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle— and a variety of other regions around the world. As I said, pretty much all our rainfall comes in a period between November and March. Thus when it's late December and there's barely been any rain the past two months it's time to be concerned... about drought.

Is it time to press the panic button about drought? Not really. ...Well, not yet, anyway. Just because the rain season has gotten off to a slow start doesn't mean we won't catch up later. Years of living in California have shown me that "normal" is a statistical average, not a month-by-month plan one can count on. For example, the first winter I lived in California there was a deluge of rain in December and January, then practically nothing the rest of the season. Other years we've had a dry month in the middle of winter and then rain into the Spring.

All that said, getting off to a dry start this winter is concerning news. It increases the chance of this being another not-enough-rain season. As we've gotten less than average annual rainfall I think, what, 6 of the last 8 years? Drought isn't just a threat, it's already a reality. We need more rain to push the danger away.

UPDATE: The 2020-2021 rain season turned out to be another dry one, not just in California but across much of the American West. Rivers and reservoirs are drying up. Consider the panic button pushed.