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97220
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Hilary grows into major hurricane in Pacific off Mexico
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Hilary grows into major hurricane in Pacific off Mexico and could bring heavy rain to US Southwest Updated Aug 17, 2023 11:22 p.m. This satellite image taken at 10:50am EDT on Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023, and provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Hilary off the Pacific coast of Mexico. (NOAA via AP) MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Hilary strengthened into a major storm Thursday evening off Mexico’s Pacific coast, and it could bring heavy rain to the southwestern U.S. by the weekend. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Hilary's maximum sustained winds had risen to 120 mph (195 kph), making it a Category 3 hurricane. The storm was expected to grow into a Category 4 hurricane Friday while on a projected path that threatened landfall on the central Baja California peninsula by Sunday or possibly keep just offshore while heading for Southern California. Hilary was centered about 445 miles (715 kilometers) south of Los Cabos on the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. It was moving west-northwest at 14 mph (22 kph), but was expected to take a more northward heading in the coming days. The hurricane center said that as Hilary moves onto or brushes the Baja pensinsula, it could possibly survive briefly as a tropical storm or tropical depression and cross the U.S. border. No tropical storm has made landfall in Southern California since Sept. 25, 1939, according to the National Weather Service. “Rainfall impacts from Hilary within the Southwestern United States are expected to peak this weekend into Monday,” the hurricane center said. “Flash, urban, and arroyo flooding is possible with the potential for significant impacts.” The area potentially affected by heavy rainfall could stretch from Bakersfield, California, to Yuma, Arizona, as well as some parts of southern Nevada. SpaceX announced Thursday that the hurricane caused a delay in the launch of a satellite-carrying rocket from a base on California's central coast until at least Monday. The company said conditions in the Pacific could make it difficult for a ship to recover the rocket booster. In Southern California, an outlook for excessive rainfall stretched from Sunday to Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles weather office. While the odds are against Hilary making landfall in California as a tropical storm, there is a high chance of major rain and flooding, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said in an online briefing Wednesday. The Mexican government said a weakened Hilary might hit the coast Sunday night between the cities of Playas de Rosarito and Ensenada, in Baja California state. Meanwhile, the city of Yuma was preparing Thursday by providing residents with a self-serve sandbag filling station. The sandbag station will be stocked with sand and empty bags for self-filling while supplies last. Residents were allowed five sandbags per vehicle. |
97223
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Hilary grows into major hurricane in Pacific off Mexico
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up to 10" of rain expected in cali... Satelite photo of Hurricane Hilary Aug. 18, 2023 taken at 5:50am NOAA Widespread heavy rainfall is expected across Southern California, Saturday into Monday with the the most intense rainfall forecast Sunday night. Rainfall is expected to subisde Monday. Zack Taylor, a meteorologist, said it's highly unusual for the agency to issue a high risk warning for excessive rainfall for this part of California. "In fact going back through our climatology, I think this may be the first time our office has issued a high risk for that part of the country," he said. "The rainfall is expected to be quite significant with rainfall totals of 3 to 6 inches. Some of the totals locally could be up to 10 inches, which for that part of the country, is very unusual and could lead to significant, rare and dangerous impacts." The prediction center issued a moderate risk for excessive rainfall in Southern California's urban areas, including San Diego and the area east of Los Angeles, and the southern Sierra Nevada on Sunday. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Hilary had sustained winds near 145 mph at 6 a.m. Friday and was expected to continue its rapid intensification through Friday before starting to weaken. It will nevertheless still be a hurricane when it approaches Mexico's Baja California peninsula on Saturday night, and will approach Southern California on Sunday as a tropical storm. Early Friday, Hilary was centered about 400 miles south of Los Cabos on the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. It was moving west-northwest at 13 mph, but was expected to turn gradually toward the north through Saturday. "The key is to not focus on the exact track," Taylor said. "The rainfall is likely to occur ahead of the storm. There’s very anomalous moisture associated with this system. We’re looking at very intense rainfall rates that could lead to flash floods." |
97224
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Hilary grows into major hurricane in Pacific off Mexico
URL: https://www.sfgate.com/weather/article/map-shows-hurricane-hilary-probable-storm-track-18301569.php
| projected storm path... |
97225
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Hilary grows into major hurricane in Pacific off Mexico
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Oh Joy...guess we'll be battoning hatches tomorrow. Looks like we're about to have an adventure. |
97226
From: chaskuchar@stcharlesmo, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Hilary grows into major hurricane in Pacific off Mexico
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will the rain incrase the size of the new lake in California? |
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[97227]
97227
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Hilary grows into major hurricane in Pacific off Mexico
URL: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-28/phantom-tulare-lake-returns-with-a-vengeance
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possibly, if it gets up that far... California’s ‘phantom lake’ returns with a vengeance, unearthing an ugly history of water A winter of epic snow and rain had brought California’s “phantom lake” back to life — and threatened towns and farms in the process. Once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, Tulare Lake was largely drained in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the rivers that fed it were dammed and diverted for agriculture. This month, after powerful storms, rivers that dwindled during the drought are swollen with runoff from heavy rains and snow, and are flowing full from the Sierra Nevada into the valley, spilling from canals and broken levees into fields. Advertisement Here is a history of Tulare Lake from the pages of The Times. Approximate boundaries of Tulare Lake, between Interstate 5 and Highway 99 in the southern San Joaquin Valley. (Paul Duginski / Los Angeles Times) What is the history? This is not the first time Tulare Lake has reemerged. It also happened in 1997, another epic rain year. But officials say it was 1983 when the lake last reached a high point, amid heavy rain and snow runoff that submerged about 82,000 acres. “Every 15 years or so, in the wake of a record winter storm or heavy spring snowmelt, the dams and ditches cannot contain the rivers. When that happens, the great inland sea, at least a hint of it anyway, rouses from its slumber,” Mark Arax wrote in The Times that year. LEMOORE, CALIF. - MAR. 21, 2023. A mailbox stands in the floodwaters that have innundated farms near the community of Stratford. Recent heavy rains and snowmelt from surrounding mountains have swollen the rivers that flow into the vast and fertile San Joaquin Valley. Tulare Lake, a ghost lake that was drained more than 100 years ago, is slowly filling up and more flooding is expected with greater spring snowmelt. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) Climate & Environment Worry and suspicion reign as once-dry Tulare Lake drowns California farmland March 24, 2023 Arax described the history this way: Halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, this basin has a strange, slightly menacing feel, wet or dry. While it qualifies as desert, averaging less than 10 inches of rain a year, it also happens to sit at the foot of one of the nation’s most generous watersheds, the Sierra Nevada snowpack. Advertisement Before agriculture subdued the mountain rivers, much of the southern San Joaquin Valley was transformed each spring into marsh teeming with tule elk and antelope, honkers, and gray and Canada geese. No land sat lower than this basin, the terminus of the Tule, Kaweah, Kings and Kern rivers. World & Nation ‘Phantom’ Tulare Lake Comes Back to Life Feb. 13, 1997 The shallow lake that sprang from their waters — dubbed La Laguna de los Tulares by Spanish explorers — covered more than 1,200 square miles, bigger than the Great Salt Lake. On rafts and canoes made from the thick tule reeds, Yokut hunters fished for salmon, perch and sturgeon while the women waded far into the waters to dig for clams and mussels. A truck drives through a flooded field with a lot of trees. A truck navigates through a flooded pistaschio grove near Cororan, Calif., on March 21, 2023. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) So bountiful was the harvest that white settlers named the area Mussel Slough, and commercial fishermen in the 1870s plied the lake in schooners and steamers and caught terrapin turtles served as delicacies in San Francisco restaurants. Visitors never forgot the roar of the big birds alighting. “An immense body of wild geese whose wings and cries as they moved from place to place caused this kind of roaring noise,” wrote Charles Nordhoff, a New York journalist who penned one of the first travel books about California in 1873. “A noise like the rush of a distant railroad train.” In 1880, in the name of reclamation, the state Legislature allowed newcomers to buy marshland for $2.50 an acre, $2 of which would be refunded if they helped construct a levee system. This touched off a decades-long stampede of “sandlappers,” the derisive name given farmers who cultivated swampland. Tulare Lake may have continued to turn up blue on most maps but it was pretty much a mirage. A flooded area with a few buildings and trees in the background. Floodwaters from a break in levees in the vast and fertile San Joaquin Valley engulf structures of a farming operation near Corcoran, Calif. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) Arax wrote more about Tulare Lake. What is happening now? As The Times’ Ian James and Susanne Rust reported, Tulare Lake’s sudden reemergence has fueled conflict in one of California’s richest agricultural centers, as the spreading waters swallow fields and orchards and encroach on low-lying towns. In a region where the major agricultural landowners have a history of water disputes, the floods streaming into Tulare Lake Basin have reignited some long-standing tensions and brought accusations of foul play and mismanagement. Allensworth, CA, Saturday, March 18, 2023 - Allensworth residents walk past a levy they worked to fortify instead of waiting for government agencies to prevent floodwaters from inundating their community. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) California ‘We need to stop the water’: A California town’s frantic fight to save itself March 18, 2023 Residents in rural towns such as Alpaugh and Allensworth fear their homes won’t be prioritized for protection from the rising waters. And as the water has overwhelmed canals, tensions have flared over where the floods should be directed, and which farmland should go under first. The view of native Californians In satellite images of the San Joaquin Valley, the footprint of the old lake bed stands out as a darker, grayish area in the patches of farmland. In the days before the damming of rivers, the lake could stretch for 790 square miles, four times the size of Lake Tahoe, with depths of 30 feet. Snow-dusted mountain peaks and clouds loom over a valley. Storm clouds leave a dusting of snow on the mountains at the edge of the vast and fertile San Joaquin Valley. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) Before white settlers arrived in the Central Valley in the 1800s, Tulare Lake was the center of life for the Native Yokut people who lived by its shores and along the rivers. Then farmers began diverting water and claiming land in the lake bottom. More than a century later, members of the Santa Rosa Rancheria of the Tachi Yokut Tribe live near what was once the lake’s north shore. The tribe’s leaders have agreed to diversions that will channel some of the floodwaters onto their lands, easing pressure on the system while helping to recharge groundwater. ALLENSWORTH, CA FEBRUARY 11, 2023 - Dennis Hutson has a 60-acre farm in Allensworth.The Friends of Allensworth and California State Parks celebrated the history of Allensworth with self-guided tours, food, poetry, music and dance. Allensworth, the first town in California established exclusively by African Americans, was founded in 1908 by a group of men led by Colonel Allen Allensworth. Born a slave in Louisville, Kentucky in 1842, Allensworth became the highest ranking black officer in the U.S. Army when he retired in 1906. California Allensworth, a onetime Black utopia, could rise again from the Central Valley dust Feb. 20, 2023 The lake’s rise is “just a very small reminder of what was once here,” said Leo Sisco, the tribe’s chairman. The phantom lake, which the tribe calls Pa’ashi, remains central to its spiritual beliefs. Its traditional songs include passages that say when the water rises, “that’s the lake telling us, ‘OK, it’s time for you guys to get out of here now,’ ” said Robert Jeff, the tribe’s vice chairman. “So that’s when our people would pack up,” Jeff said, “and we’d head to the mountains, to our other villages, until the water receded.” “It’s time to move to higher ground,” he said. |
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