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Good News on the California Drought
- LeoPanthera 10y agoLiving in California, I can tell that the drought situation is improving because people have started complaining about the rain again.
- ntaylor 10y agoI've only been living in SoCal for 6 years. This is the first year I've seen any greenery since I got here.
- tradersam 10y agoWhere in SoCal? It's always green during the spring/summers here in Orange County.
- enraged_camel 10y agoIf you think that, you probably haven't lived anywhere that's actually green. Source: I lived in Seattle for 7 years, followed by an 8 year period in SoCal. SoCal is basically a desert with some green plants.
- tradersam 10y agoI lived in Texas and other states for quite a few years, I do know what I'm discussing so I'd refrain from making assumptions like that in the future.
- enraged_camel 10y agoWait, you think Texas is green? Hahaha. Good one.
- tradersam 10y agoYou've obviously never been.
- jldugger 10y agoIt's not, compared to the pacific northwest. I recall taking photos on my first visit to an Oregon university because they _obviously_ were watering their lawn in the winter to keep it that green instead of letting it go dormant.
- soundwave106 10y agoA large sliver of the PNW is temperate rainforest, so yes. When you have areas that get 100-170 inches of rain a year (e.g. Olympic peninsula area), it's probably going to be very green at that point.
- enraged_camel 10y agoI live in Austin. I do know what I'm discussing so if I were you I'd refrain from making assumptions like that in the future.
- usefulcat 10y agoOther than during the spring, most of TX is not particularly green (to put it charitably), even by the coast where it rains more. Source: have lived there for a long time
- btilly 10y agoTexas is a large state, with many different climates. The Eastern part of it is classified as humid subtropical. It is indeed very green. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Texas#Piney_Woods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Texas#Piney_Woods for verification and https://www.pinterest.com/CollyBlackSheep/east-texas-piney-woods/ https://www.pinterest.com/CollyBlackSheep/east-texas-piney-w... for plenty of acceptably green pictures.
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- PhilWright 10y agoTry visiting Ireland for a holiday. Your eyes will bleed green.
- tradersam 10y agoIt's on the list for next year, trust me.
- Filligree 10y agoI live in Ireland. It's not that green; there's lots of thorny, hardy plants that honestly look more brown/yellowish. Lots of greenery, yes. :) Visit Norway sometime, and you'll know what a truly green country looks like. (Can we get another few links on this chain, I wonder?)
- Swizec 10y agoSince we're dick measuring: come to Slovenia some time. 60% of the country covered in forests. NatGeo just voted us the most sustainable country in the world. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/features/2017-best-in-sustainable-tourism/sustainable-slovenia/ http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/features/2017-best-... /micdrop
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoYou should see my cousin's green. But anyway, come to Tasmania in June through August, go for a hike in the temperate rainforests and see some of the tallest flowering trees in the solar system. Also we do artisan coffee (or just coffee if you're not in to that wank) out of a trailer we hand-built from the ground up.
- Swizec 10y agoBucketlisted.
- stevekemp 10y agoCome to Finland! Forests cover 75 percent of Finland's land area. For every Finn, there is around 4,2 hectares of forest. In Finland, land area is classified according to its use. 86 percent of land area is forestry land. It is very green, unless it is winter in which case it is either white (due to snow) or bleak and miserable due to darkness.
- btilly 10y agoI grew up in Victoria, which is pretty much like Seattle. I currently live in Orange County. I've also lived in New Hampshire, New York, and a few other places with varying levels of lushness. When I go for hikes these days in the hills of OC, it really is green. Shockingly so. The flat areas remind me of your description still, but tradersam is not crazy here.
- supercanuck 10y agoDitto in Ventura County
- cjslep 10y agoAgree. Lived in NC for 20+ years, now live in OC too. It was a bit of a culture shock moving here, seeing all the desert and dust everywhere. Happy to see quite a bit of green again!
- oxide 10y agoI had a similar, yet opposite experience moving from AZ to CA.(Northern) Going from a lifetime of desert living with miserable weather and the greenest sight being olianders, to a sea of green trees with more normal weather. Night and day difference.
- scruple 10y agoAnd to think, we didn't get nearly as much rain as other parts of the state.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- WillPostForFood 10y agoThe grass isn't greener in seattle or ireland than SoCal. It's just that the grass in socal turns brown in the summer, and sometimes for a few years at a time. But right now after a several months of rain, and spring arriving, the hill I look out my window at is 100% green. It can't be any greener, because it is entirely covered in green. SoCal is literally a desert, that turns green when it rains.
- killjoywashere 10y agoI live in SoCal and have lived in or worked in most other parts of the country, including Seattle. You are only seeing SoCal from the ground level: looking straight across the earth, yes, it looks green right now. I did a trail run this afternoon, I definitely agree it's green. But it's still a light green. Some of the palms are still yellow. Get in a plane and look down. You have no idea how brown it still is. You fly that plane to Seattle, there's three layers of green canopy, held up by trunks covered with green moss, rising indistinguishably from the ground which is also dripping with green.
- WillPostForFood 10y agohttps://twitter.com/tinashakour/status/845730376660103168 https://twitter.com/tinashakour/status/845730376660103168
- legohead 10y agoI imagine he's talking about the mountains. When I moved here 5 years ago, all the mountains were just dead, brown, and ugly. I didn't understand how anyone called the mountains beautiful. This is the first year I've seen them green, and looking alive.
- freshyill 10y agoIve been flying out to SF from the east coast three to four times a year for the last three years. Every time, I've been struck by how brown everything is. Well, I'm in San Diego right now (a little different, I know), and now I'm struck by how green everything is. Glad it's finally let up.
- codecamper 10y agoThanks for your CO2 contributions. Happy to hear you are enjoying the scenery.
- shaftway 10y agoIt'll go brown again by June. It's not called The Golden State because there was gold, it's because of the characteristically gold color of the hills in the summer. https://www.google.com/search?q=california+hills+summer&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=california+hills+summer&tbm=...
- freshyill 10y agoIve been flying out to SF from the east coast three to four times a year for the last three years. Every time, I've been struck by how brown everything is. Well, I'm in San Diego right now (a little different, I know), and now I'm struck by how green everything is. Glad it's finally let up.
- beatpanda 10y agoOne good year does not erase the structural problems facing California in the coming years due to climate change and poor water management. I really hope that we don't take our eye off the ball because of this.
- beatpanda 10y agoI would like to see some journalism on how much groundwater has been replenished from this year's rainfall. Reveal did excellent work during the drought on this subject. https://www.revealnews.org/article/9-sobering-facts-about-californias-groundwater-problem/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/9-sobering-facts-about-ca...
- wapz 10y agoAs do I. Droughts are still going to be a problem in the future if nothing changes and the next time one hits it might be much worse. Having good rainfall for a year or two unfortunately just lets people brush off the problems we may face.
- stouset 10y agoPeople think that one year with twice as much rain somehow undoes years and years of virtually no rainfall. It's frustrating.
- nickjarboe 10y agoWell, most reservoirs have gone from almost empty to near capacity[1] in just this year and the snow pack is well above average. It would be great to recharge some of the ground water used during the drought, but by any reasonable measure the drought is over. [1] http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.act...
- acchow 10y agoAlso, California has always had periodic droughts. Geological records show sometimes they last longer than a century...
- birken 10y ago> allowing crops to be irrigated and drinking glasses to be filled. Ugh. Drinking glasses are going to be filled regardless of how much rain we get. I don't want to diminish the importance of agriculture, it's important and I'm excited that we had a very wet winter to keep things going, but residential water supplies have never been at risk throughout this whole drought.
- beatpanda 10y agoNot true. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/20/east-porterville-california-drought-bottled-water-showers-toilets https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/20/east-porterv...
- jacobolus 10y agoYou’re talking about a place that gets its drinking water from wells, rather than from state reservoirs. Notably, there wasn’t (and still isn’t, but it’s been improved a tiny bit) sufficient regulation about water pulled from the ground, so residential wells in small rural towns are in direct competition with neighboring farms which can pretty much pull as much water as they want, even if it makes nearby residents go thirsty. This is not a problem for the general CA water supply.
- birken 10y agoTouche. I should have stated that in areas where agriculture have raided groundwater supplies, which take much longer to refresh than reservoirs, residential water supplies may be at risk. Even still, people can generally afford whatever it costs for water to supply their towns. I doubt any towns will collapse because they don't have access to cheap water, whereas there are a lot of crops that do depend on that.
- spydum 10y agoYou sure? I seem to recall hearing a number of shallower wells going dry nearby the heavy agricultural areas?
- sulam 10y ago
- BadassFractal 10y agoLovely shots!
- hkmurakami 10y agoCountdown to the next drought, since we are woefully short of water storage facilities (dams are letting out excess water in many dams in Northern California, and the snowpack melt hasn't started yet).
- ilaksh 10y agoAre the aquifers/groundwater sources filled up/filling? Seems like they have been kind of overtapped for awhile in many areas. If they ever get back up to high levels then maybe we should celebrate.
- stouset 10y agoGroundwater takes decades to replenish, and that's a huge source of water we've been tapping.
- theandrewbailey 10y agoAdd in the fact that the ground sinks when enough water goes out of it, I'm not sure that it will ever come back until civilization leaves.
- hkmurakami 10y agoI heard reports that they are filling. Doubtful that they are filled up though.
- icantdrive55 10y agoThey have something called underground water banks. This billionaire named Resnick owns a large percentage of Kern water bank. He also owns a huge almond farm. Almond take something like a gallon of water to grow 1 almond. He uses huge amounts of water. Other entities pay him for water. The federal government pays him for water--I don't know why. It's all rather confusing, but private individuals shouldn't be hording/profiting off underground aquifers? The laws around these water banks are confusing. This billionaire has taken so much water for his Fiji Bottled Water; the islanders are supposedly having to buy water? It just doesn't seem right. He ran the wells dry by serving us fancy overpriced water? There always been a big push-pull between farmers, and Northern California. The movie Chinatown, with Nickolsan, and Dunnaway made a fictional movie about the corruption in water rights. This Resnick is not doing anything illegil. I just don't know how a private citizen can have so much power over a natural resource. As to the fill rate of the aquifers; I don't have a clue. They seem to want to keep it quiet. It's seems like it would be easy to measure? I all for water conservation. I'm not for rich guys doing what they want with all of our water. http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec/19/local/me-kern19 http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec/19/local/me-kern19
- bonniemuffin 10y agoAll that snow made for some good skiing this winter, too.
- nether 10y agoNo kidding. I've still got 5 bring a friend tickets for Mammoth, if anyone on HN is interested.
- azinman2 10y agoA really great talk to watch from 2015 is Felicia Marcus, head of the water board, who goes over the altering wet/dry climate of CA and it's unique challenges: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rShYQVZvX-k https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rShYQVZvX-k
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rectangletangle 10y agoThis is the most rain I've seen since I was a child (in the 90s). It's really nice to see wildlife, and frogs again. It was getting kinda scary when the grass went from it's typical golden hue, to grey, and then to dirt...
- dmode 10y agoGreat pictures in the article. Eastern Sierra is probably my favorite place in CA and possibly in the entire country. Driving down 395, with snowcapped mountains on your right and Nevada desert on your left is magical.
- aplomb 10y agoComes in cycles, always has - certainly more severe due to nature and more people on this last go-around. I remember in elementary school being taught how to properly brush our teeth and conserve because the drought at the time - decades ago.
- scruple 10y agoAnd who can forget my personal favorite: "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down."
- mturmon 10y agoThe drought plays a major role in the skateboard culture movie Dogtown and Z-Boys. The drought of the 70s caused people around Venice to leave their swimming pools empty, and these pools turned out to be a great practice area.
- konceptz 10y agoDoes anyone know which crops would particularly be bolstered? It would be interesting to see what lagging effect this has on produce. Edit: not the point of the article.
- LeicaLatte 10y agoBeautiful photos! The only reason I still click on big media links is the photography. It is the only thing 10-100x better.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- _ph_ 10y agoThis is great news for all people in the region. This should supply water for the next 2 to 3 years. But I really hope, that these years are used to repair the aging infrastructure (see the Oroville dam) and build more dams, to be able to manage larger amounts of water, both in the absence as in long droughts, as in presence as in storing more the snow now present.
- mateo411 10y agoI also hope that they fix the existing dams. We don't really build dams anymore in the US. They alter the surrounding environment too much and wreak havoc on fish species. It's hard for fish to swim up a river when there a dam there. It's too bad that's the case, because it could improve CA's water situation and we could generate more hydropower which does not produce greenhouse gases.
- _ph_ 10y agoI think that mostly depends on the design of the dams. New dams that would be built where currently a river exists, should be built with a small bypass river, which is just large enough to allow the fish and other species to travel upriver still. And of course, locations have to be carefully selected. But any kind of human settlement or building alters the nature, be it by farming or building roads or houses. I think of all the possibilities, setting up a dam is so beneficial overall, that it is worth the tradeoffs. It should also be considered, that while altering the environment, it has a lot of local benefits too, as it creates a huge habitat for water-living species, full of clean and un-polluted water.
- toolslive 10y agovisiting CA from Europe, I'm always surprised: extensive periods of drought, but - nobody has a dual flush toilet - everybody has sprinklers
- thinkmassive 10y agoI just visited Cali for a few months, and it seemed like most residential toilets were dual flush and all recent commercial installations are water-saving of some sort. The amount of sprinklers (and artificial turf, hah) surprised me at first too. It does seem like most large systems use recycled water though. My hunch is it's the best use possible for that water.
- joelthelion 10y agoUnfortunately this will probably make people forget about global warming. People need concrete signs right before their eyes to take action.