I don't really know. For it to be that at this point I believe we would have to have continuous rain and snow from Atmospheric rivers that continued through April or May. This could melt ALL or most of the snow at once at some point and make the Sacramento River 20 miles or more wide like in 1862. IF this is what we are presently looking at (and this could be a 1/100 to 1 in 200 chance) at this point it would be a level of devastation we haven't seen before since maybe Hurricane Katrina or something like that. However, there could be much more loss of life if people stay at their homes too long and there are just too many thousands or millions of people to rescue all at once, especially in northern California along the Sacramento River from Redding to Red Bluff to Sacramento to Stockton etc. In 1862 it left Sacramento underwater for up to 6 months and the capitol had to be moved to San Francisco where there are too many hills to have flooding like this happen there and where runoff just goes directly into the ocean very quickly.
So, one of the best places to be is on a hill in California sort of like San Francisco if this is a repeat of the 1862 floods (unless the hills you are on start to erode from the flooding. But erosion is easier to deal with mostly than having your home underwater with water going by at 10 mph or more. Most houses and buildings just won't stand up to that.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862
The flooding drowned thousands of cattle and washed away fruit trees and vineyards that grew along the Los Angeles River.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/atmospheric-river...
Jan 1, 2013 ... Such floods are likely caused by atmospheric rivers: narrow bands of water vapor ... A January 15, 1862, report from the Nelson Point Correspondence ... Brewer describes a great sheet of brown rippling water extending from ...
No comments:
Post a Comment