Friday, November 23, 2012

Rains

This Friday topic is brought to the Consortium by Ramana.  I'm sad to say that I don't know what time the monsoons hit India, but I suspect I will find out today!

In the San Francisco Bay Area, we have a Mediterranean climate which I believe exists in only five places in the world.  Water is very important to us, since that finite potable resource is competed for by the fishing industry, home owners, Central Valley farmers, the Delta, etc.  Our Mediterranean climate in part means that we get that water during our winter months, not the warm months.  The main storehouse is snow in the Sierra Mountain Range and we are just entering what we hope to be a wet winter with lots of snow to melt in the spring and summer, filling our reservoirs.

What controls the difference between wet and dry years?  To a large degree, the Pacific Ocean.  Even more specifically, conditions of the Pacific water warmth called La Niña and El Niño.

Our economy relies on it, our politics rely on it, we all rely on it.  We need rain.  Last year was dry!

12 comments:

  1. We have rain a plenty, only wish I could ship it over to you. Mind you, 100 hundred miles down the road they have had bans on washing cars and watering gardens with spray hoses, for the past few years.

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    1. It sounds like you have microclimates very similar to what we have. The Bay Area has over 100 microclimates with surprising variations in temperature and rainfall.

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  2. In all my years (63) and on all my travels I have NEVER tasted better water than the hetch hetchy supplies the Bay Area - if it were a single malt it'd be Johnny Walker Blue at minimum. The water here sucks.

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    1. @shackman

      I'm totally in agreement! San Francisco has started bottling and selling it straight from the tap. It's every bit as good as you are saying and Hayward is incredibly lucky to have it as our water.

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  3. Gotta tell ya, Fossil, as a Florida girl it's a wonder for me to read that you rely on snow to melt and fill the reservoirs. Do you ever get too much snow, have a flood?
    Blessings to you ~ Maxi

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    1. We can get more than our capacity can handle, but they have various different ways to divert the excess. It is diverted to the rivers from the dams and it is hard to get the Pacific to overflow. However, during times of excessive rainfall itself, not the snow melt runoff, it can and does flood area.

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  4. Don't forget to mention that southern California also vies for our water! :)

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    1. Absolutely, D. It is a huge population vying for a limited resource!

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  5. TOF one of the very real possibilities that our generation may face is water wars! http://www.amazon.com/Water-Wars-Cameron-Stracher/dp/1402267592 and https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/30-9

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    1. That is quite true and I can see that as exacerbated by both climate change and a burgeoning population, both of which being part of the same package.

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  6. So that's the backstory to Chinatown.
    I went to San Francisco once and I liked it.

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  7. @blackwatertown

    Yes. It is a nice place to visit, but we also like living here.

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