California superstorm

Hooter23

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/38/20110118/tsc-scientists-warn-of-superstorm-headin-98fda55.html

Sponge Bob

Why can't we be as elegaic as this about our dear Atlantic ??:D

an atmospheric river system - a huge hose-like flow of Pacific Ocean moisture

Seemingly the last one was in 1861 and 1862 , 35 Inches in LA alone

TheInquisitor

Hoax baby.

The 40 feet of rain should have given it away!!

http://www.theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-1_17_2011_super_storm.html

Iancar29

... * YAWWWWWN *.... FAKE

waterways

Here you find the hoax and the fake ...

http://urbanearth.gps.caltech.edu/winter-storm/

CarMuppet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah%27s_Ark ??

M.T. Cranium

This is a step forward in the carbon tax campaign, here in British Columbia where we are paying the highest carbon taxes on earth, the provincial government never misses an opportunity to link any instance of flooding with global warming and climate change. Never mind that the topography of our province is evidently the result of massive flows of water on a regular basis, now that we have added a bit of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we must take the blame every time it rains.

This is quite a burden of guilt in a place where trees grow 200 feet tall and ten feet around even without human beings around.

I guess in California, where they are basically bankrupt and looking for any reason to tax, this hysteria is welcome in Sacramento (the state capital) which would be ground zero for the massive floods. Of course it will happen eventually, if there was already a natural cycle, why wouldn't it continue?

My feeling is that we are taking on situations and problems that are of a far different scale and magnitude than our politicians have been led to believe, and that it all amounts to tilting at (or with) windmills. The problem out here on the left coast is that people just built wherever the views or the climate were fabulous, then found out later that the climate was not always as benign as the year when they first thought of doing so, but by then it was too late, so the concept grew in peoples' minds that nature was "unpredictable" and needed to be "tamed" as if that were even possible.

My guess is that people like that in Irish pre-history came and went without leaving a trace but their unfortunate experiences informed a later generation so you don't necessarily try to build where nature says don't even think about it.

But the population pressures on the west coast are enormous -- from California up to southwest B.C. we now have well over 40 million people, almost the population of a large European country, squeezed onto about ten per cent of the land mass when you consider how much of that population lives between the coastal ranges and the shoreline (a very narrow strip that averages 20 miles wide). Considering we have probably just come through a relatively benign century of weather, and factoring in that there are at least four active volcanoes very close to major urban areas, I must be a raving lunatic to stay here. :cool:

waterways

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

here in British Columbia where we are paying the highest carbon taxes on earth

Aren't it Russia and China? Or Hongkong and Singapore?
Seriously spoken isn't it Sweden or Finland? I don't think that British Columbia has the highest carbon tax in the world, maybe the highest carbon tax on fuel but not per ton.

Nabber

Any weather pattern is global warming.

The bible needs to be re-written, that God said to Noah

'I will flood the atmosphere with CO2 for 40 years, you got me Noah'

'Got you God, carbon takes'

'For fook sake Noah, build an ark. Draw some sketchy charts that represent nothing, show them ice then show them no ice and ask 'where is it gone' who could possible question that?'

waterways

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

My guess is that people like that in Irish pre-history came and went without leaving a trace but their unfortunate experiences informed a later generation so you don't necessarily try to build where nature says don't even think about it.

MT, you should visit Ireland.
Come and see for yourself how much has been built in flood plains and other places, where nature says don't even think about it, and how many people have trusted more "leaking" banks and corrupt politicians than their ancestors.

Sponge Bob

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

This is a step forward in the carbon tax campaign, here in British Columbia where we are paying the highest carbon taxes on earth, the provincial government never misses an opportunity to link any instance of flooding with global warming and climate change.

You have obviously never come across our Minister Eamon Ryan, aka the Green Goblin

You might seeing as he is supposed to get the Foreign Ministers job according to rumours I heard of a meeting held earlier today.

amacachi

waterways wrote: »

MT, you should visit Ireland.
Come and see for yourself how much has been built in flood plains and other places, where nature says don't even think about it, and how many people have trusted more "leaking" banks and corrupt politicians than their ancestors.

Not just built in flood plains but encouraged and worse. An acquaintance of my dad was building a house near the coast which as far as I can guess would've been underwater for most of the year a couple of hundred years ago. Pretty stupid I thought but he wanted to have it raised a metre or two above the ground level so any saturation or lying water in future wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately the council said that the house would then be too tall and wouldn't grant planning permission. Yeah, in America towns have rules that the bottom of the front door of a house has to be a certain height above the crown of the road, over here we're not allowed to build a couple of metres up.
Half of Dundalk is built on what was pretty recently (couple of hundred years ago) marshland and even a modest rise in sea levels will cause problems underground even if the land itself doesn't "flood".
But hey, why be sensible?

Duiske

amacachi wrote: »

Not just built in flood plains but encouraged and worse.

A friend took this picture outside Carlow just after the Nov 2009 deluge. Say's all that needs to be said about planning in Ireland.

M.T. Cranium

I guess I was thinking more of the coastal areas where landforms are unstable, our west coast is rather infamous for having many homes (some of them mansions really) on slopes that can give way in prolonged heavy rains. The period 1930 to 1970 was rather dry and lulled some builders and planners into a false sense of security, then wetter periods followed and there were many instances of severe landslides and mudflows destroying whole neighbourhoods (often with little loss of life because the problems were slowly becoming obvious before the worst hit).

As to our carbon taxes, that was an offhand remark, if someone is paying more I pity them ... we have about a 12% direct carbon tax on petrol here and all sorts of hidden environmental fees. But perhaps we aren't ahead of the pack, just seems that way -- certainly the highest in North America.

I'm going to maintain my very high opinion of Ireland to the bitter end, after all, where else am I going to ask to be deported? :cool: