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You are here: Home / Strange Weather

Strange Weather

by @heymistermix.com|  June 2, 201110:11 am| 79 Comments

This post is in: We Are All Mayans Now

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This isn’t getting a lot of press attention, but for the first time in its 57-year life, Garrison Dam’s spillway is being opened during flood season in North Dakota. There will be unprecedented flooding downstream. Other dams on the Missouri (such as Oahe) are also releasing water because they are full of rain and snow runoff. Tens of thousands of people won’t be flooded, mainly because there isn’t that much housing in low-lying areas and because of heroic efforts shoring up flood dikes.

I grew up in this area. As a child, I was told that the reason we didn’t have floods was because of those huge dams (Garrison is the fifth largest earthen dam in the world). That’s not true anymore.

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Reader Interactions

79Comments

  1. 1.

    Tim F.

    June 2, 2011 at 10:17 am

    Mountain snow is melting all at once when it used to take all year. Watch for record droughts (or at least low water) in those same areas come late summer.

  2. 2.

    West of the Cascades

    June 2, 2011 at 10:19 am

    A hell of a lot of tribal land was flooded to build these dams, and they don’t even work as intended … what a great country.

  3. 3.

    theturtlemoves

    June 2, 2011 at 10:20 am

    It has been strange for me to read about, as well, since I used to work at a certain cow-spotted computer company based right across I-29 from Dakota Dunes in southeast South Dakota. That area is apparently expected to be (potentially) flooded for months. My student teaching was in that school district, so it definitely has a personal connection. Glad I moved, but sad for those who remained…

  4. 4.

    Han's Solo

    June 2, 2011 at 10:21 am

    Meanwhile in Austin we’ve had one day of partial rain in, what, six months? It was about two weeks ago. I knew it was raining when I heard my lawn orgasm.

  5. 5.

    mds

    June 2, 2011 at 10:24 am

    Yup. All this heavy weather is a clear sign that we’re living in the End Times or that God has withdrawn his favor from our secular humanist left-wing Israel-hating nation. It’s all right there in the Bible, as long as you look at it through a green filter and are an illiterate dumbshit. In either case, you should vote Republican.

  6. 6.

    Zifnab

    June 2, 2011 at 10:24 am

    @Han’s Solo: Governor Perry says you should pray harder.

  7. 7.

    RalfW

    June 2, 2011 at 10:27 am

    But of course we’ll keep whistling past the graveyard.

    Nope, no correlation between record floods, massive tornadoes and all that to global climate change. Can’t do it, that would be politicizing tragedy.

    And, of course, admitting that scientific predictions can in fact, um, predict!

  8. 8.

    Han's Solo

    June 2, 2011 at 10:28 am

    @Zifnab: Ah yes, Governor Perry… I find pundits talking about Perry getting in the race too funny. If you want to know why he won’t Google his name. Santorum is not the only rightwing moron with a Google problem.

  9. 9.

    nodakfarmboy

    June 2, 2011 at 10:31 am

    @Tim F.: A major part of the problem is that large swaths of Montana received a year’s worth of rain in about a weeks time. On top of this, he Corps of Engineers had drawn down the reservoirs over the winter to be prepared for the snowmelt, and then April saw record snowfalls in parts of the Rockies. It’s basically a worst case scenario. Bismarck, ND is in big trouble right now. They’ve been frantically throwing up levees to protect the southern third of the city from going under before the Corps opens up flows from the dam. Garrison is about a foot from reaching the top of the spillway, at which point they’ll have to open the flow.

    It’s going to be an “interesting” summer on the plains.

  10. 10.

    MAJeff

    June 2, 2011 at 10:34 am

    It’s a big flood year. Over here on the eastern side of ND, we had it earlier this month because the Red flows south to north. Here in GF, it was the third highest flood on record. Now, we’re welcoming folks from the Minot area as their south-flowing river floods. And, Amtrak had to shut down the Empire Builder route through North Dakota because Devil’s Lake keeps rising. Fun times.

  11. 11.

    JGabriel

    June 2, 2011 at 10:35 am

    Jon Stewart Pizza Rant — Stewart goes ballistic on Trump for A) taking Palin for chain pizza, and B) eating pizza with a fork.

    Stewart’s compendium of good pizza joints in the city is actually pretty accurate, BTW. It’s missing a couple of big ones (Patsy’s in B’klyn and Harlem, Nick’s in Queens), but hits most of the places generally accepted as the best in the city. And, of course, every neighborhood has 2 or 3 places that are nearly as good — if you’re visiting friends in the city, check with them — but Stewart’s list is a good starting point if you’re coming here without any acquaintances to guide you.

    .

    .

  12. 12.

    JPL

    June 2, 2011 at 10:35 am

    @RalfW: Flooding can be tied to global warming but more study is needed before the scientists can state that the violent storms are related.
    At least that’s what I read. I guess when a few more hundred die from tornadoes this year they can affirm it.
    The temperatures in GA are about 10 to 12 degrees higher than average. I’ve been doing yard work in the early morning. It was 90 by noon yesterday.

  13. 13.

    kdaug

    June 2, 2011 at 10:36 am

    @Han’s Solo:

    Meanwhile in Austin we’ve had one day of partial rain in, what, six months?

    Desertification – we’re soaking in it. Thinking hard about xeriscaping the front yard.

    @Zifnab:

    Governor Perry says you should pray prey harder.

    Fixed for accuracy.

  14. 14.

    Luthe

    June 2, 2011 at 10:37 am

    @Tim F.: And here I had hoped that the record snow-pack would help *alleviate* the drought problems in the western states…

    (I would love to move to the Southwest, but cannot in good conscience do so because I don’t want to make the water problems there even worse.)

  15. 15.

    Southern Beale

    June 2, 2011 at 10:38 am

    Unrelated but I have a question: Is it just me or is Sitemeter basically useless on WordPress blogs? Almost all of my referring URLs come up as “unknown”.

  16. 16.

    WereBear

    June 2, 2011 at 10:41 am

    @Southern Beale: Switch to Statcounter. They have a plugin, too.

  17. 17.

    Violet

    June 2, 2011 at 10:41 am

    @Han’s Solo:
    And we’ve got a 20% chance of rain here on the weekend and it’s all the weather guys are talking about on TV. A few weeks ago when we had a chance of rain and thunderstorms they actually cut into programming to track the weather. This in area where strong thunderstorms usually only get a passing mention, it rains so much.

  18. 18.

    justawriter

    June 2, 2011 at 10:41 am

    To be fair, the nation’s premier news source was right on top of the story from the beginning.
    I now live about 25 miles from the dam. Lake Sakakawea was about 40 or so feet lower just three years ago because of a series of dry winters in the Rocky Mtns. Common knowledge of the time said it would take 10 years of normal runoff to refill the dam. Resorts along the lake had to extend their boat ramps up to a half mile to reach the water. Last year the lake shot up about 35 feet and as mistermix said, hit an all time high this year.
    Actually this is part of a pattern that has been going on since 1993. This is where I used to live. I also lived in Grand Forks, home of the famous flood of 1997 and Minot, which is experiencing flooding for the first time since flood control projects were completed in the 1960s. If North Dakota is a laboratory for climate change, being the lab rat isn’t much fun.

  19. 19.

    Carnacki

    June 2, 2011 at 10:49 am

    NOAA report shows CO2 levels at highest level ever and it’s looking bad

  20. 20.

    WereBear

    June 2, 2011 at 10:51 am

    It’s not just propaganda and greedy oil companies; a lot of it is people who just don’t want to believe it.

  21. 21.

    Chris

    June 2, 2011 at 10:52 am

    @mds:

    Yup. All this heavy weather is a clear sign that we’re living in the End Times or that God has withdrawn his favor from our secular humanist left-wing Israel-hating nation. It’s all right there in the Bible, as long as you look at it through a green filter and are an illiterate dumbshit. In either case, you should vote Republican.

    Think you’re onto something. Whether it’s global warming or, back in the day, the prospect of nuclear holocaust… there are people out there who aren’t particularly inclined to take care of the world when they believe that 1) it could be destroyed on a whim at any moment anyway, and 2) if it does, their free tickets to heaven kick in.

  22. 22.

    nodakfarmboy

    June 2, 2011 at 10:54 am

    @MAJeff: Ahem… Devils Lake, not Devil’s Lake. As a native of the town, I feel compelled to point this out. :)

  23. 23.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    June 2, 2011 at 10:55 am

    Dude, all that snow run-off collecting and everything just means that global warming is a lie. After all, if it was REALLY warming so bad, there wouldn’t have been that much snow in the first place, amirite?

  24. 24.

    Martin

    June 2, 2011 at 10:56 am

    @Zifnab: Perry says that humans can’t affect climate, but to pray for rain. Figure that one out.

  25. 25.

    Southern Beale

    June 2, 2011 at 11:01 am

    @WereBear:

    Thanks, will do …

  26. 26.

    negative 1

    June 2, 2011 at 11:03 am

    Well my family gauge for the right-wing winds has moved from saying that there is no global warming, to now that there is global warming but that it is not man-made and there is nothing we can do about it.
    So, you know, progress.

  27. 27.

    PeakVT

    June 2, 2011 at 11:06 am

    @Luthe: The SW has water problems, but they’re exacerbated by our own stupidity, just like most of our other problems. One of the biggest mistakes was not installing water meters in places like Sacramento and Fresno. Another was basing the allocation of the Colorado on the flows of the 1920s, which turned out to be a very wet decade. The whole Colorado compact has needed renegotiation since the 1960s, and it still really hasn’t been done. And so on. If you plan to xeriscape, I wouldn’t feel guilty about moving to the SW. There is enough water for reasonable household use. Ag sucks up far more.

  28. 28.

    RalfW

    June 2, 2011 at 11:08 am

    @JPL: I get that individual weather events cannot be tied to climate change. But the predicted patterns of intensifying weather extremes does seem to be coming to fruition. And not just here. Australia has had record drought but also record rains. Lots of other weather anomalies globally.

    I’m just incredibly frustrated that we have a theocracy in place in the U.S. that is nearly as anti-science as the Papacy in the time of Galileo. (Yes, hyperbole. So sue me.)

  29. 29.

    WereBear

    June 2, 2011 at 11:10 am

    @RalfW: I’m just incredibly frustrated that we have a theocracy in place in the U.S. that is nearly as anti-science as the Papacy in the time of Galileo.

    Sadly, I don’t find this to be hyperbole.

    They aren’t burning anyone at the stake… yet.

  30. 30.

    Violet

    June 2, 2011 at 11:11 am

    I really wish that global climate change hadn’t been branded as “global warming.” It just leads idiots to say “It was cold here this winter. See! No global warming!” But if it was unusually cold, then that would fit right into the climate change discussion. “See! It was extra cold! The climate really is changing and doing unusual things!”

    Whoever was in charge of branding this issue really bungled it.

  31. 31.

    Anoniminous

    June 2, 2011 at 11:13 am

    @JPL:

    As of yet, everything that is happening is “normal.” Places that get tornadoes, like Massachusetts, are getting tornadoes; places like Texas that get droughts are getting droughts. There’s no smoking gun.

    What can be said is the increase in severe global weather over the past 2 years was predicted, based on the Global Warming Theory, and the predictions has been more accurate than those not based of GWT.

    Which is really a major success for GWT … but try explaining that to Conservatives, TeaBaggers, and the Corporate Shills in the media.

    ETA: @Violet:

    Do you REALLY want scientific and technical communication to be based on sales and marketing?

    My personal opinion: AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

  32. 32.

    Chris

    June 2, 2011 at 11:13 am

    @negative 1:

    Well my family gauge for the right-wing winds has moved from saying that there is no global warming, to now that there is global warming but that it is not man-made and there is nothing we can do about it.

    That’s going to be their default (already has been for a while). No matter what happens, even if it’s blindingly obvious that global warming is happening, they can always fall back on “but it’s not man-made.”

    Which in turn gives their preachers leave to either talk about how it’s the Apocalypse coming, or how God’s punishing us for being too faggy and feminist. And their pundits will talk about how if the DamLibruls hadn’t cut NASA funding to pay for “these people,” we could just escape to Mars, but it’s their fault that we’re all going to die. And even if anyone ever gets serious about fixing things, their politicians will bitch that the government shouldn’t do it cause it’s inefficient, they should just shovel money to Wall Street so the fix-all private sector can do it…

  33. 33.

    Chris

    June 2, 2011 at 11:15 am

    @Violet:

    I really wish that global climate change hadn’t been branded as “global warming.” It just leads idiots to say “It was cold here this winter. See! No global warming!” But if it was unusually cold, then that would fit right into the climate change discussion. “See! It was extra cold! The climate really is changing and doing unusual things!”

    Liberals: “There’s global climate change going on.”
    Conservatives: “But there’s always climate change going on! It was pouring when I to grab a hot dog for lunch, but by the time I stepped outside, the sun was shining again!”

  34. 34.

    WereBear

    June 2, 2011 at 11:20 am

    @Violet: Another case of “You can’t fix stupid.”

  35. 35.

    mistermix

    June 2, 2011 at 11:20 am

    @nodakfarmboy: Also, too: the Red and Devils Lake flooding is pretty common. Floods in Bismarck and Minot are really rare. 1969 was the last one in Minot. You tell me if you remember a big flood in Bismarck – I don’t remember one since the 60’s.

  36. 36.

    Mudge

    June 2, 2011 at 11:20 am

    If the Garrison diversion had been built, we could flood Canada instead. Not much dam foresight.

  37. 37.

    Violet

    June 2, 2011 at 11:21 am

    @Chris:
    Yeah, but the “no, that’s the weather changing, not the climate” retort is pithy and easy to say and explain. “It was extra cold here this winter because global warming changes weather patterns and means a change in the gulf stream and an increase of arctic air coming further south” is much harder to say and people’s eyes glaze over before you’re halfway through.

  38. 38.

    daveNYC

    June 2, 2011 at 11:21 am

    @JGabriel: Eh? Patsy’s is a chain now. Don’t you mean Grimaldi’s? (assuming you mean the joint down under the Brooklyn bridge)

  39. 39.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    June 2, 2011 at 11:21 am

    In what, a week or two, that wall o’ water will hit us here in Central Misery. Even then, our media overlords won’t report on it since it occurs in Flyover Country.

    It’s been the wettest spring here since the 500 Year flood of 1993 and the 100 Year Flood of 1995.

    Of course it’s possible that the floods up there will simply spill out into bottom land and it won’t impact, much, down here. That’s what used to happen here until the Corps diked the shit out of the lower Missouri system.

    OTOH, if we do get pounded, it’ll be interesting to see what sprawling burbs like Chesterfield in STL do when faced with epic flooding into areas that in 1993 weren’t developed.

  40. 40.

    Davis X. Machina

    June 2, 2011 at 11:23 am

    @efgoldman: The deadliest pre-Joplin tornado in US history was the 1953 Worcester twister. So it does happen…

  41. 41.

    Montysano

    June 2, 2011 at 11:23 am

    Since flooding is the subject, let me highly recommend John Barry’s “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America”. It’s history written as a page-turner.

  42. 42.

    Paul in KY

    June 2, 2011 at 11:25 am

    @JGabriel: Someone said he chose the place because of the big windows that made it easy for the paparazzi to film. That sounds about right for him/her.

  43. 43.

    Roger Moore

    June 2, 2011 at 11:26 am

    As a child, I was told that the reason we didn’t have floods was because of those huge dams (Garrison is the fifth largest earthen dam in the world).

    Some of the problem is that the reservoirs behind those huge dams have collected enough sediment to substantially reduce their capacity. A huge dam loses its value if you don’t dredge regularly enough to keep up with sedimentation. IIRC, the Egyptians are having a similar problem with the Aswan dam and Lake Nasser.

  44. 44.

    Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory

    June 2, 2011 at 11:27 am

    It’s a tribal thing. I have co-workers who KNOW that we are undergoing global climate change, KNOW that it is caused by human activity…but they won’t say so publicly. They get an agonized look on their faces, like they’ve been asked to say that the Pope diddles kids.

    Which is probably exactly the dynamic at work. This isn’t about science, which they are too stupid to understand anyway. It’s about faith and tribal identification, and they know which tribe they belong to, and it’s not the one lead by the black guy.

  45. 45.

    Tom Hilton

    June 2, 2011 at 11:28 am

    @Han’s Solo: And in California, the snowpack was at 180% of normal and there’s a storm system coming in this weekend that’ll dump another 2″ or rain on the Bay Area (2′ of snow in the mountains). Weird weather indeed.

  46. 46.

    jimbob

    June 2, 2011 at 11:29 am

    Omaha (River City) represents. We’re at near-record flood stage and waiting for the Muddy Mo to rise another 10 feet. This is supposed to last through the fall.

    I’m heading out to my Republican buddy’s farm north of town (up-river) to help him evacuate stuff. He’s lost his crop but has crop insurance. Oh, and he’s waiting for further evidence of climate change . . . .

  47. 47.

    Chris

    June 2, 2011 at 11:30 am

    @Violet:

    My point was that they’ll always find something.

    If you look at the polls, the drop in people who believe in man-made global warming in the last few years is almost entirely driven by conservatives. Those guys will believe anything that NewsCorp spends enough time and energy supporting – easy and pithy comebacks would have no more effect on them than facts. So I don’t think it would matter what you called it, things would be the same.

  48. 48.

    Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory

    June 2, 2011 at 11:31 am

    Do you REALLY want scientific and technical communication to be based on sales and marketing?

    @Anoniminous: Yes, very much so, because the people that you need buy-in from, and the people that you need to change their lifestyles – probably in a fairly dramatic fashion – certainly are not capable of understanding the actual science.

    So yeah, you need to sell it to them.

  49. 49.

    Linda Featheringill

    June 2, 2011 at 11:33 am

    The Missouri eventually empties into the Mississippi, which hasn’t gone down to normal levels yet. So more flooding all the way down to the Gulf, I should think.

  50. 50.

    Linda Featheringill

    June 2, 2011 at 11:35 am

    The mountain snow is melting all at once? What the hey? What’s going on?

    And yes, that could lead to some extremely dry areas this summer and fall.

  51. 51.

    chopper

    June 2, 2011 at 11:35 am

    @JGabriel:

    whenever people visit me in brooklyn and ask for a good pie i mention lucali, then go ‘oh shit, the owner is probably still in the hospital after getting stabbed by some mafia goon in broad daylight’ and watch their eyes get all wide and scary.

  52. 52.

    Perfect Tommy

    June 2, 2011 at 11:35 am

    @JGabriel: I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and the strangest way of eating a slice I ever saw was a done by a neighbor’s young nephew from Newfoundland. The boy rolled the slice into a tube starting from the point and then held it like a hot dog.

  53. 53.

    chopper

    June 2, 2011 at 11:38 am

    @RalfW:

    you’re the adolf hitler of hyperbole.

  54. 54.

    Anoniminous

    June 2, 2011 at 11:40 am

    @Chris:

    Right Wing Authoritarians:

    Right-wing authoritarianism is a personality and ideological variable studied in political, social, and personality psychology. It is defined by three attitudinal and behavioral clusters which correlate together:

    1. Authoritarian submission — a high degree of submissiveness to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.
    2. Authoritarian aggression — a general aggressiveness directed against deviants, outgroups, and other people that are perceived to be targets according to established authorities.
    3. Conventionalism — a high degree of adherence to the traditions and social norms that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities, and a belief that others in one’s society should also be required to adhere to these norms.

    These clusters create dysfunction in RWAs when new knowledge necessitates a change in their actions. Without getting too far into it, the upshot is they would rather do nothing than make drastic changes to the norms they have accepted.

  55. 55.

    Catsy

    June 2, 2011 at 11:41 am

    @Violet: Saved me the trouble of making this point. Even among liberal friends I’ve been trying to make an effort to use “climate change” instead of “global warming”.

    Relatedly, the weather in the Pacific Northwest has been downright fucking bizarre this last year. It’s June and it’s supposed to get up to a high of 59 today–almost ten degrees cooler than the historical average. It’s been unusually cold since last winter, and rainy even for the PNW.

  56. 56.

    chopper

    June 2, 2011 at 11:42 am

    @Davis X. Machina:

    naw, the deadliest pre-joplin twister was the tri-state. tho the worcester tornado was a right bastard.

  57. 57.

    evinfuilt

    June 2, 2011 at 11:47 am

    @mds:

    Look, do you want to take responsibility and make sacrifices and change your lifestyle… (ie climate change and intervene in our destruction)

    or

    Do you want to blame “those” people, you know who they are… (ie God did it to punish us)

    It’s either our fault or their fault, and half the country says its their fault.

  58. 58.

    Origuy

    June 2, 2011 at 11:51 am

    @Tom Hilton: Let’s hope it comes down as snow in the mountains. I remember one year where the Sierra had a huge snowpack and got warm torrential rains. That was the year Sacramento and Marysville got flooded.

  59. 59.

    Violet

    June 2, 2011 at 11:54 am

    @Chris:

    My point was that they’ll always find something.

    Yeah, I know, but I guess I meant the mistake was ten, twenty, however many years ago when it was being branded. Had it started out initially as “global climate change” then when all these weird weather things happen, it doesn’t seem quite so outside the realm of possibility that they’re related. It’s a mental thing. Climate change = weird weather. But global warming \= weird weather, not if the weird weather is tornadoes or massive hurricanes or too much snow.

  60. 60.

    Citizen_X

    June 2, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    Well, apparently, Palin’s bus was within minutes of running into the Springfield tornado (warning: Politico link).

    So imagine: Sarah Palin gets taken up into the air by a tornado, in Massachusetts! A miraculous ending to the Palin saga (whether you love her or hate her)!

  61. 61.

    Jager

    June 2, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    My brother (who lives in Bismarck) is getting tongue kisses from his wife for talking her out of wanting to build a big new house on the Missouri bottomlands south of of the city. He said the prediction for Bismarck is floodwaters could reach the Kirkwood Mall on the south side. My relatives say in many parts of ND a wheel hasn’t turned in the fields so far this year.

  62. 62.

    BerkeleyMom

    June 2, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    My 80 year old father has been working filling sandbags for the past week. It is dire.

  63. 63.

    Albert Mond

    June 2, 2011 at 12:13 pm

    But just to put things into proper perspective and context … Al Gore is fat …

  64. 64.

    Citizen_X

    June 2, 2011 at 12:14 pm

    @Violet: Oh, for fuck’s sake. Scientists don’t do “branding.” They don’t give a shit about “marketing.” Do the terms global warming and climate change accurately describe the phenomena? Yes, and that’s what matters most. They’re both acceptable.

  65. 65.

    evinfuilt

    June 2, 2011 at 12:16 pm

    @Anoniminous:

    What I love about #3 on that list is how quick they can make something new conventional, and start believing its always been that way.

  66. 66.

    Linda Featheringill

    June 2, 2011 at 12:17 pm

    @Jager:

    My relatives say in many parts of ND a wheel hasn’t turned in the fields so far this year.

    Not good. I would assume that they have a short growing season up there anyway. Pretty soon it might be too late to plant because the crop would never mature.

  67. 67.

    trollhattan

    June 2, 2011 at 12:20 pm

    @nodakfarmboy:

    So, instead of just one devil you have several? You folks must have heaved a collective sign of relief on May 22.

    Also, too, weird weather–it’s all over. Our weather is alway predictably boring this time of year. Or not.

    So far this year, Cline said, eight or nine tornadoes have occurred in the Sacramento region. They range from a weak one Feb. 25 near Mather Field in Sacramento County to three destructive tornadoes that twisted through Butte and Glenn counties May 25.
    __
    Kathryn Hoxie, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento, reported that one of the May 25 tornadoes had a wind speed of 120 mph. It caused significant damage to a ranch near Table Mountain Road and Highway 70, 10 miles north of Oroville in Butte County.
    __
    Three-quarter-inch hail was reported in the Davis area Wednesday along with a couple of lightning strikes.
    __
    Heavy rain was reported along the Highway 50 corridor in the Folsom and El Dorado Hills areas and east into the mountains. Rain totals for the six-hour period ending at 8 p.m. included more than a half-inch in Folsom and Orangevale.
    __
    In the Sierra on Wednesday, heavy snow was reported during the late afternoon in the Lake Tahoe area. Chains were required on Highway 50 from Twin Bridges to Meyers, and on Interstate 80 from Kingvale to Truckee.
    __
    Temperatures are expected to remain unseasonably cool for the coming week, with partly cloudy skies and a chance of rain in the Sacramento Valley and foothills for the next several days.

  68. 68.

    kdaug

    June 2, 2011 at 12:46 pm

    @chopper: +1

  69. 69.

    Anoniminous

    June 2, 2011 at 12:59 pm

    @evinfuilt:

    Orwell nailed it:

    Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

  70. 70.

    chopper

    June 2, 2011 at 1:09 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    So imagine: Sarah Palin gets taken up into the air by a tornado

    it’d be cooler if she was riding a bike.

  71. 71.

    Nutella

    June 2, 2011 at 1:12 pm

    @comrade scott’s agenda of rage:

    it’ll be interesting to see what sprawling burbs like Chesterfield in STL do when faced with epic flooding into areas that in 1993 weren’t developed

    I can tell you what those somewhat-less-sprawling burbs in Chesterfield did in 1993. They had built suburbs on low-lying farmland. Residents were paying a separate tax levy for the old agricultural levee by the river. When the ’93 floods came they were all shocked, shocked to find that their houses were in a flood zone.

    They and their asshole repub congressman Jim Talent demanded that the federal government save them from the consequences of their decisions to move away from the city (and the city people, IYKWIM)at no cost to themselves.

    They also had the gall to complain that it wasn’t fair that Earth City MO had not had that kind of flooding. Earth City had spent millions of its own money to build levees but it just wasn’t fair that the people in Chesterfield who had not should get flooded when Earth City didn’t.

    They will be just as stupid this year.

  72. 72.

    Nutella

    June 2, 2011 at 1:27 pm

    And speaking of people who are bound and determined to ignore the consequences of their own behavior:

    The desert southwest has the highest domestic water usage in the country. An apples-to-apples comparison of domestic per capita water use shows that Arizona uses 140 gal/day, Navada 206, Illinois 90, Massachusetts 82, Kentucky 50 and national average 98. Note that this is residential use only.

    When I was in Phoenix some years ago I was shocked to see how many back-yard swimming pools there were in the desert. I was even more shocked to see that they frequently attempt to air condition the outside: Water sprays in restaurant patios, air conditioned tents for special events (with sides rolled up!). And green lawns in the desert FFS. Are all these still common there? Probably, since my per capita figures are from 2005.

    See page 26 of this USGS document for 2005 data.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    June 2, 2011 at 1:37 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    So imagine: Sarah Palin gets taken up into the air by a tornado,

    I’d rather imagine her being crushed under a falling house.

  74. 74.

    Anoniminous

    June 2, 2011 at 2:00 pm

    Jeff Masters ‘splains It All for YOU!:

    The [Massachusetts] tornadoes were spawned by a large low pressure system centered over Canada that trailed a cold front southwards over New England. Record heat pushed northwards ahead of the cold front, with Newark, Washington D.C., Burlington, and Montpelier all recording record highs for the date. The contrast between the cold, dry air flowing south from Canada and the record warm, moist air ahead of the cold front created an extremely unstable atmosphere, helping fire off unusually intense thunderstorms over New England. And as we’ve seen so often this year, the jet stream over the thunderstorm region was unusually strong and had plenty of wind shear–a sharp change in wind speed and direction with height. This wind shear created shearing forces on the air over New England that helped get it spinning, creating rotating supercell thunderstorms capable of producing strong tornadoes.

    This establishing and functional pattern has been constantly repeated east of the short grass prairie line this year. Until this patterning modifies by temperatures in Canada/arctic increasing, lowering the potential energy of weather systems, we’re going to continue to get “abnormally severe weather.”

    Need to understand, the global weather we’re been seeing: reduced snow cap, supercell tornadoes in New England, abnormal heat in the western Russian plains, drought in France, & etc. etc. etc. is happening under a ~0.7C global temperature increase.

    Just wait until it gets to ~2C! Ya’all ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

  75. 75.

    Roger Moore

    June 2, 2011 at 2:16 pm

    @Nutella:
    Sure the desert areas have the highest water usage. It’s a desert, so we don’t get much free water in the form of rain and snow. People in high precipitation areas can maintain nice yards without watering them year round. Maybe- probably- people in desert areas should take the hint and not try to maintain beautiful green lawns where God clearly didn’t intend them to be, but until they do they’ll have higher water consumption.

  76. 76.

    Nutella

    June 2, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    A nice green lawn being the birthright of every American citizen, even the ones in the desert.

    A New Englander friend got into a dispute with some southwesterners once. They were all agreeing that the federal government must spend whatever is necessary to provide them with the water they want to use. After all, water is required for life so the government should provide it free. He pointed out that heating oil was required for life in his neighborhood but he did not get it or expect to get it free from the government. They disagreed vehemently. Their green lawns in the desert must be subsidized but his heated apartment must not.

  77. 77.

    Stefan

    June 2, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    A New Englander friend got into a dispute with some southwesterners once. They were all agreeing that the federal government must spend whatever is necessary to provide them with the water they want to use. After all, water is required for life so the government should provide it free.

    I’m assuming they also agreed that since medical care is required for life that the government should also provide that for free…?

  78. 78.

    Cermet

    June 2, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    @Roger Moore: Don’t forget swamp coolers (use water to cool the air in a house – rather effiecent compared to pure electric but does use water) and all those damn trees! Trees along with grass are the really stupid part of how people waste water in the amerika SW.

  79. 79.

    Tom Hilton

    June 2, 2011 at 6:07 pm

    @Origuy: 1986, was it? Something like that? Yeah, I remember. My younger brother was living in a second-floor apartment in Sacto that year, just across from a levee; when he went out on the levee at one point he realized the water level was pretty much at eye level for someone in his apartment.

    But it’s pretty durn cold these days, so I’m fairly confident it’ll be snow in the Sierra. Extended warm spell later on could be problematic, of course…

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