https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/03/08/its-going-to-be-bit-of-a-mess-again-new-atmospheric-river-storm-barrels-toward-bay-area-signaling-yet-another-wet-weekend/
An old farmer once told me that "weather has a way of averaging things out." First, drought. So now atmospheric river storms.
Yup... we're bracing. It's projected to drop 4-6" of water equivalent up here. I'm hoping it is 90% water at our elevation. Anything more than another foot of snow is going to be a problem.
We all have 4-5 foot snow sponge on our roofs, so when that rain falls, the snowpack on the roof is going to get very heavy. I've been running worst-case calcs to see how worried I am. Answer... a little worried. Worst case-scenarios are 25% past the design load of our roof. Best-case scenarios are 30% below the design load.
I'm just grateful this one is forecast to come as rain. 1000 feet higher than us at 7000 (which is not much here - the top of our neighborhood is 6000, go 4 miles in one way and you are at 2000 feet and, in the other direction just shy of 8000) there's going to be big snow. Above 9000 they are saying another 6-8 feet. If we got that here on top of what we have, all systems would collapse.
And then there's the question of saturated ground and weakening root systems... but let's not go there.
>> averaging things out
But you know the problem with averages, right?
>the problem with averages
Yeah, but they're like Rules Of Thumb, or stereotypes ...if they keep giving me the right answer, what do I care?
This one is happening just on time for our floor repair to start.
And.... here comes another one.
Another atmospheric river will thrash storm-ravaged California, threatening more flooding and hurricane-force wind gusts
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/20/weather/california-atmospheric-river-monday/index.html
It sounds like SF might not get hit too hard. I think this one is going to mostly pass to the south and hit SoCal hardest. Still, we're looking at 1-3 feet in this one according to NOAA. I will not be sad if it comes in at the low end of that range.
It's a whole lot easier to put up with than, say, a kidney transplant. But damn, this is getting pretty tiresome, not to mention a fair bit of lost rental income.
https://engaging-data.com/california-snowpack-levels/
So much for missing SF. Here is the zoom.earth radar + wind layers via https://zoom.earth/maps/radar/#view=35.283,-119.164,7z/overlays=wind,coverage:off
Mesmerizing to look at with the animations running.
I hope there's no flooding at your house LM.
So far we've gotten off easy. About 3-4" of snow instead of the 9-13" forecast for the day here. Just a couple degrees warmer than forecast meant a fair bit fell as rain. So it looks like we'll get out of this one with 12-15" if the forecasts hold. Maybe less if they continue to be wrong.