The official weather thread

[bluegoose]

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[8BR]

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Yeah, man. Crazy. I'm in NorCal this weekend, so watching live in KRCA. Most exciting thing to happen to Butte, since Aaron Rodgers. Lol.

[Moliere]

Holy crap that's scary.

In other weather news, it was 91 degrees in Houston today.


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[8BR]

Yeah, man. Crazy. I'm in NorCal this weekend, so watching live in KRCA. Most exciting thing to happen to Butte, since Aaron Rodgers. Lol.

http://www.kcra.com/nowcas

You can watch people fleeing live, within the shadow in the spillway. Loco.

[bluegoose]

The freeways look like those images from the walking dead intro. Bumper to bumper one way, not a single car going the other direction, with cars starting to drive on the shoulder of the road. Nuts.


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[Uncle Ted]

They tried to warn them...

Oroville Dam: Feds and state officials ignored warnings 12 years ago

More than a decade ago, federal and state officials and some of California’s largest water agencies rejected concerns that the massive earthen spillway at Oroville Dam — at risk of collapse Sunday night and prompting the evacuation of 185,000 people — could erode during heavy winter rains and cause a catastrophe.

Three environmental groups — the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League — filed a motion with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dam’s relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside.
The groups filed the motion with FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They said that the dam, built and owned by the state of California, and finished in 1968, did not meet modern safety standards because in the event of extreme rain and flooding, fast-rising water would overwhelm the main concrete spillway, then flow down the emergency spillway, and that could cause heavy erosion that would create flooding for communities downstream, but also could cause a failure, known as “loss of crest control.”


“A loss of crest control could not only cause additional damage to project lands and facilities but also cause damages and threaten lives in the protected floodplain downstream,” the groups wrote.

FERC rejected that request, however, after the state Department of Water Resources, and the water agencies that would likely have had to pay the bill for the upgrades, said they were unnecessary. Those agencies included the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides water to 19 million people in Los Angeles, San Diego and other areas, along with the State Water Contractors, an association of 27 agencies that buy water from the state of California through the State Water Project. The association includes the Metropolitan Water District, Kern County Water Agency, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the Alameda County Water District.


Federal officials at the time said that the emergency spillway was designed to handle 350,000 cubic feet per second and the concerns were overblown.
[...]

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/1...-12-years-ago/

But California is getting a high speed train!

[Pelado]

Oroville dam situation has gone from bad to worse. The regular spillway is basically gone. Yesterday crews spent the day clearing much of the trees and debris below the emergency spillway to ease the impact downstream in the river area in anticipation of water clearing the emergency spillway.

Last night water started over the emergency spillway as expected. Just now they issued an emergency evacuation of all of the river area below the dam. Apparently the amounts of water coming over the emergency spillway have caused enough erosion to the earthen part of the dam that they are concerned about catastrophic failure of that part of the dam. Thousands of people were told they had less than an hour before it could go. That was at 4:34pm, about 45 minutes ago.


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Any new developments?

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[bluegoose]

Any new developments?

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As of early this morning, lake levels were about 3 feet below the level of the emergency spillway. So water was no longer spilling over the top. But the damaged portion of the spillway is about 20-30 feet down from the top, so it is still taking a tremendous amount of pressure. They are inspecting it this morning to see if it is stable or if the erosion from yesterday left it as a major threat.

188,000 people were evacuated last night from Oroville, Yuba City, and Marysville. Most headed north into Chico while others headed east up above the dam. One of the biggest Cougar twitter guys, @5lbtrout, was evacuated and was working in the emergency operations center.

Some looting of businesses last night in Oroville. The entire National Guard in California was called in to the area - the first time this has been done in one area in the state since the Rodney King riots in the early 90s.

The have the boulders prepped and ready to helicopter in to drop on to the damaged area, but apparently they are going to wait until this morning to decide what to do.

Flows are still super high out of the main spillway at 100,000 CFS. They say the Feather River below can handle up to 150,000 CFS, so that alone shouldn't cause too much flooding downstream. Shasta Dam is also letting out a ton of water into the Sacramento River, causing light local flooding up north. The two rivers converge downstream from Oroville in, I believe, Marysville. Could see some flooding in the agricultural area down there. Haven't seen the flows in the American River from the Tahoe Area, but I would imagine they are pretty high as well. The American and Sacramento rivers converge in Sacramento on their way to the Delta. Some risk for flooding down there in the flat lands.

Its been the perfect storm for a flooding disaster this season. A ton of rain in the region and a massive amount of snow in the mountains. Some very warm storms in the last week have not only dropped a bunch of rain, but have also melted quite a bit of the mountain snow, adding to the already swollen rivers and streams feeding the lakes. That, plus the damaged main spillway which caused them to essentially shut down the outflow for 3 days while they inspected it, brought the lake levels way up.

Rain totals are currently 21 inches higher than the previous year-to-date high totals for the 8-station recording region in the north state and are only about 20 inches behind the highest full-season total in recorded history back in 1981-82. With a modest amount of rain over the next 2 months we are expected to smash that record. It is dry here for the first part of this week, but a decent sized storm is forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, with possibly 2 more inches here in the valley and 4-6 inches in the foothills. They are trying to drop Oroville levels by 50 feet early this week and Shasta by 40 feet.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I remember my dad and his friends talking about the new Oroville dam and the Feather River project. This was 50+ years ago but I remember it was a subject of controversy. Had I'd known then what we know now I could have said something. I feel partly responsible.

[byu71]

Went water skiing in Lake Oroville with my sister and her family when they lived in Paradise. That area is beautiful. I hope they can avert a tragedy.

[SteelBlue]

Have a co-worker who is new to Redding and was visiting someone in Sacramento area on Sunday. She wasn't listening to the radio and managed to hear nothing about the evacuation and ended up driving home through Marysville and Yuba city. She said it was really confusing trying to figure out why the world seemed to be ending, with traffic backed up for miles. It took her 9 hours to get home instead of the normal 3 from that point.

[Pelado]

Been looking at some of the Oroville Dam coverage. Doesn't look great, especially with more rain in the forecast for this week.

[jay santos]

Went down to St George for kid's soccer tournament. Sat through games on Saturday 50 degrees, wind and freezing cold rain, felt like 30's. Drove back home, it's 54 and sunny.

[Uncle Ted]

What is going on in San Jose?

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local...414474823.html

I have to be there next week... I hope they will have this mess cleaned up before I get there.

[Jeff Lebowski]

What is going on in San Jose?

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local...414474823.html

I have to be there next week... I hope they will have this mess cleaned up before I get there.

Flooding in Northern Utah today also.