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A ‘megaflood’ in California could drop 100 inches of rain, scientists warn (washingtonpost.com)
23 points by joshe on Aug 12, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 16 comments


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.



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.


Does the probability of a megaflood increase each year it's overdue or is that a fallacy?


Does the probability of rolling snake eyes increase each time you roll something else?

You're describing the Gambler's Fallacy.


Not necessarily. A roll of the dice is considered independent variables, however, a weather system year over year probably isnt an independent variable



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.


Many reports of drought in europe, I had wondered where that water went (it doesn't just evaporate into space...right?)


I got curious, and apparently -- yes!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape#Earth


254 cm. Enough to completely cover any human, and a lot of single-story houses.


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.



Seems like that would go a long way towards refilling all the reservoirs if it happened.


...are they ready?


time to setup some rain collection




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