This month's record-setting rain and snow across California also comes with terms many of us know but can't explain. Today, we do that.
This month’s record-setting rain and snow across California also comes with terms many of us know but can’t explain. Today, we do that with our Masters of Disasters. Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: L.A. Times earthquake reporter Ron Lin, L.A. Times Fast Break disasters reporter Hayley Smith, and L.A. Times water reporter Ian James
More reading:
California snowpack is far above average amid January storms, but a lot more is needed
Deadly results as dramatic climate whiplash causes California’s aging levees to fail
California storm death toll reaches 17 as more rain, winds arrive. Damage could top $1 billion
Gustavo: For the past few years, all we've heard about in California when it comes to rain is “drought.”
We're in the driest spell in 1,200 years. 1,200. The Aztec Empire wasn't even a thing back then, but then last week it began to rain. A lot.
AP Tape: California gets hit by another storm system, dumping more rain, causing flooding and bringing high winds, causing power outages from downed lines.
Gustavo: Emergency evacuations, widespread flooding, deaths, power outages.
And then there’s all this rain terminology that lurks in the California psyche: atmospheric rivers, Pineapple Express, bomb cyclones.
But since we’re in an epic drought, we usually don't give those much thought ... until it’s too late.
Gustavo: I'm Gustavo Arellano. You're listening to “The Times: Essential News from the L.A. Times.” It's Wednesday, January 11th, 2023.
Today: Rain 101 in California. We figure out what all these weather phenomena are that rule rain in the state and then ask the eternal question: Are they friend, foe or frenemy?
Gustavo: It's times like these that we turn to my colleagues of catastrophe, our mariners of madness, the beacons of light in a world of fright whose mite smites fights – or something like that.
Yep, it's time for Masters of Disasters.
Musica, maestro!
Gustavo: Sitting as always in the earthquake chair is Ron Lin. Ron, did you get anything disaster related for Christmas?
Ron: No, but I should have.
Gustavo: I know that's like the most obvious thing to get to you. Hopefully you got something better, though. Joining us in the water throne is Ian James. And Ian has an amazing series about the Colorado River. So I have to ask you, Ian, what is the best river song? “Moon River” by Andy Williams … “The River” by Bruce Springstein … or “Rio” by Duran Duran.
Ian: I go with “The River” by Bruce Springsteen.
Gustavo: Yeah, that's a deep one. Although “Rio,” come on … it's so cheery. But whatever. “Rio's” another thing. And finally, our master of breaking disasters: Hayley Smith. Hayley, breaking disasters: is that more of a metaphor, an oxymoron or a mantra?
Hayley: Hmm, probably all of the above in this, in this day and age.
Gustavo: As long as it’s not an enigma wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in a box, you know? Masters, welcome, and I hope ustedes have been staying dry this January, because it's been raining and snowing cats and dogs and rabbits and Olaf out there.
San Francisco just had its wettest 10-day period since 1871. California’s snowpack, which is how a lot of the state gets its water, is about 190% of average for this time of the year, and there's even more storms scheduled to arrive in Cali this month. Hayley, what in the good name of Grogu is going on?
Hayley: The series of storms that started toward the end of December definitely came as something of a shock to the system after one of California's driest years on record. I mean, we spent months writing about drained reservoirs and drying wells and arid soils. We also got a rare third year of La Niña, which typically means you're going to see drier than normal winter conditions, especially in Southern California. But as we now know, that didn't really come to pass. In fact, this week's storm was the third atmospheric river to hit California in the last two weeks, and it sounds like we may get one or two more in the coming days. These storms have totally inundated the state, especially Northern California, where we're seeing flooding, levee breaches, debris flow and, unfortunately, a few fatalities.
Gustavo: OK, you're already using these terms, and most Californians know them, like it's kind of in the background, like an In-N-Out off the 5 Freeway (by the way, In-N-Out’s overrated), but I don't think we know exactly what these terms are. So school us on some, please, por favor. What's an atmospheric river?
Hayley: Great question. I actually got an email from a reader yesterday saying that they were getting really sick of the phrase “atmospheric river.” And I get it, we've been writing about it a lot, but it is actually a meteorological term. It describes a flowing column of concentrated water vapor that makes its way through the atmosphere, basically a river in the sky. And when these things make landfall, they can dump huge amounts of rain and snow.
Gustavo: So what would be an atmospheric lagoon?
Hayley: I don't know. I'll have to get back to you on that one.
Gustavo: Another term that I wanna know about: Pineapple Express. Isn't that a Seth Rogan movie?
Hayley: Yes it is. It also refers to an atmospheric river that originates near the Hawaiian Islands, so those systems are warmer than the ones that are coming from up north, and so they might deliver more rain than snow or leave snow at higher elevations.
Gustavo: It's a little bit politically incorrect, but I guess we could do worse. One more term I want to hear about: bomb cyclone. Ron, go for it.
Ron: So a cyclone refers to a storm that rotates counterclockwise, and a bomb cyclone is when the cyclone rapidly strengthens over a 24-hour period, and low pressure rapidly drops, and it can create a vacuum-like effect that funnels a storm and causes it to create strong winds.
Gustavo: Has there been a movie made about one?
Ron: There should be.
Gustavo: I mean, there was one year where Hollywood made two movies about volcanoes, for crying out loud, both of them really bad, by the way. Someone do a bomb cyclone movie, star Ron in it. You'd be amazing.
Ian, we've been in drought season for seemingly forever now. Like I mentioned earlier, you have a whole series about it and the Colorado River right now, every Friday through February. So shouldn't we be happy with all these powerful storms? I mean, heaven knows we need the water.
Ian: That's right. I mean, these storms, even though they're dangerous and destructive, are also really helping the state's water situation. But the thing is that the deficit is deep. It's been three extremely dry years in California and as we look across the western U.S., for the Colorado River Basin, it's been 23 years of extreme drought made worse by higher temperatures. So that is a big deficit to need to dig out of. So even though California needs to be prepared for these really wet conditions right now, that water deficit remains and the drought remains.
Gustavo: So how is this deficit getting filled? In other words, are reservoirs rising? Are rivers back to their nice, beautiful state? What's happening?
Ian: Yes, rivers have been swollen and flowing at really high levels. Some stream flows in various parts of the state have been the highest on record. And the state's biggest reservoirs like Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville are still at below average levels. Lake Shasta is at 35% full, so to recover that lost storage from the past three years it’s going to take some time. But these storms are starting to help and some experts are talking about the possibility of a real switch to wetter conditions that could be a real drought buster. It's just time will tell; we're still relatively early in the season with a few months left to go that could really make or break whether California starts to emerge from those drought water problems.
Gustavo: Although Ron, I remember this time last year, we were getting a lot of precipitation and snowfall and we're like, “Oh, the drought's over,” and then it got super hot, everything melted, and we were still in drought.
Ron: That's right. I mean, it's crazy because it used to be the thing where they're like, oh, if it's an early wet year that spells a good thing for the rest of the year. But I don't know, just because a first date might work doesn't mean the rest of the dates will, will work after all. So that's the thing that they kind of warn about, that just because we've had a good thing, if that faucet shuts off, uh we're screwed.
Gustavo: Is there a disaster rom-com out there in Hollywood?
Ron: There should be.
Gustavo: We'll have more after the break.
Gustavo: Ian. OK, so maybe we don't want the destruction of a whole bunch of rain at once. You don't want those swollen rivers killing people or, you know, flooding homes or knocking them down, but we want that water. So these big storms, what do they mean for our historic drought? Is it over?
Ian: Not yet, and that's partly because even with all this rain and snow, the state's biggest reservoirs are still at pretty low levels. And also, you know, as we look to the total picture of water supplies, Southern California gets a large portion of water from the Colorado River. And there, as we've talked about, the reservoirs are about three-quarters empty after this more than two decades of just extreme dryness and warmer temperatures. So we're likely to see water cutbacks, more water restrictions because of that continuing shortage on the Colorado River. And groundwater, there's also the fact that groundwater levels have dropped in many areas because of years of over-pumping, and that's likely to take a lot longer to recover from if the state is able to recover from it. So if these storms keep coming through with more moisture, this could turn out to be a real drought buster of a year. Reservoirs might refill if it's wet enough over the next few months, but it's like a wait-and-see moment. It could be a wet year, it could be a dry year, and that is part of California's history.
Ron: And Ian, I'm just, I'm curious, it's just been impressive to see, basically, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam basically get to empty.
Gustavo: Impressive? More like scary AF!
Ron: Yeah, and so I'm just wondering, I mean, do you think that lake will ever refill in our lifetime, or is that something that people don't think will happen?
Ian: I don't know, I don't know. But I think that the way water is managed and used has to change pretty dramatically to reverse the current situation. That said, back in the ’80s, the reservoirs were full and almost overflowing, or to the point that there really was too much water at that point. So it can happen in the Colorado River system. It probably will happen again, I would think. But the fundamental problem with the Colorado River is also that it's been overallocated for so long with too much water taken out, so really hard to predict, but for the time being, it remains in this long-term deficit.
Gustavo: Yeah, it'll probably happen when we're all holograms one way or another on Jupiter. Uh, Hayley, you’re a master of all disasters trades. So what do these storms mean for other types of catastrophes that hit California like wildfires and mudslides – oh wait – debris flows?
Hayley: Yeah, so part of the reason that the most recent storm was so devastating was that it arrived right on the heels of two others. So everything was already really saturated. Rivers and creeks were already running high, so it just had this compounding effect. One expert told me if the same type of storm had come on its own and landed on really dry conditions, it wouldn't have been nearly so bad. But I think it's also important to note that some of the hazards that we're seeing with this storm and the ones before it were kind of years in the making. For example, areas that have been burned by wildfires are really susceptible to landslides or debris flow, because there's less vegetation to help anchor that soil. Really high-intensity fires can also burn through the top layer of soil. So what gets left behind is this kind of waxy moonscape that's actually water repellent. So when rain hits it, it just slides right off, and that's why we tend to see things like flash-flood warnings for residents who live near burn scars. Another long-term factor to consider is drought, which I know it seems weird to think about drought in the middle of a flood, but we've seen a lot of tree mortality in California in recent years. There was a study recently that said one third of the trees in the southern Sierra forest had been killed by drought and wildfire in the last decade. We also have more dead trees in urban areas like medians and backyards, and all of that can be really dangerous when there's high winds and storms. These sort of drought-dried, weakened trees can snap and break and bring down power lines or even kill people, as we saw happen this week, sadly.
Gustavo: Yeah, disasters compound other disasters. But Ron, I've asked you this before and I'm going to ask you again: Do these heavy rains drown earthquakes?
Ron: No, but economically they might, actually, you know, because people forget about the great flood of 1862 just because it happened such a long time ago. But there was an epic monthlong period of rain that turned large sections of California into lakes, and that would actually be catastrophically worse than a major quake in terms of the economy. And if you think about it, you know, everyone probably paid attention to, you know, the recent earthquake that happened up in Northern California before Christmas, and even the Napa earthquake. But the number of deaths that we've encountered since Christmas from just these, these three atmospheric rivers. There have been six people who have died including three deaths from people found in or near submerged cars in Sacramento County around Highway 99, where the levees of a river, uh, broke, and a toddler crushed by a falling tree in Sonoma County. So you can see how these weather events are actually more deadly than an earthquake.
Gustavo: Yeah, here in Southern California, when I think of just all the rain that's happening, I'm thinking of the Los Angeles and Santa Ana rivers, which throughout the entire year, it's always just concrete. It's concrete. Right now, they're raging and raging. And Ian, the water system across California is very intricate, with dams and levies and concrete gulches and flood channels, so what type of damage can things like atmospheric rivers and Pineapple Express cause to this infrastructure?
Ian: Well, the damage this time has been serious, but it certainly could be much worse, both with the levees and the flood-control systems. The thing is, you know, with climate change, the water cycle is intensifying. And so that means that the atmosphere can hold more water in these storms and they can come in with greater force and we've seen that just several years ago with the dams to overflowing levels. And so the types of damage that can occur can be catastrophic. And there's no question it could be much worse than what we've seen already with these heavy winds, toppling trees and these levees failing. No doubt it could be worse.
Gustavo: Levees breaking? Man, where’s Led Zeppelin when we need them?
Hayley: The rising waters, there's been at least 10, maybe even up to a dozen at this point, levee breaches in the Sacramento area, so that sends a ton of water pouring out and people have died. As Ron mentioned, there've been found people in submerged cars, near these levee breaches. So it's really putting that infrastructure to the test. It's certainly putting our stormwater capture infrastructure to the test, our storm drains. I mean it's really, you know, pushing everything to the brink here.
Gustavo: Oy vey. Ian, we've been talking nonstop rain, so give a shout out to snow. Outside of the immediate damage it can cause — people being snowed in and all that — can too much snow be bad? Because as I said earlier, snow was usually the bank account, if you will, for California's water system. So you want more snow, no?
Ian: Yes, more snow is good and it's a big piece of California's water supply. But you're right that too much snow or snow combined with rain in ways that may become more frequent can be hazardous. A rain-on-snow event, where a warm storm comes in and dumps a bunch of rain on heavy snow, could lead to really serious major flooding. Now, fortunately, this time, the most recent storms that have come in have been colder ones, and so they've allowed the snow to accumulate. But early on there were some rains that came in and mixed with the snow, so some parts even high in the Sierra Nevada, we're seeing a mix of rain and snow. As the atmosphere continues to get warmer into the future, that will be a growing hazard for the state to deal with. What happens when there is more rain falling at high elevations and sometimes washing out that snow and creating floods?
Gustavo: Oh, man, rain-snow sounds like some, like, third-rate Marvel villain here. What can defeat rain-snow then?
Hayley: That's the sequel to the bomb cyclone movie.
Gustavo: Yeah! Hey, why are we doing a podcast? Let's get into Hollywood. No, of course, no, we're going to stay in the podcast forever. But to everyone then: Is there an upside to all of these storms? Uh, let's start with Hailey.
Hayley: Yeah, definitely. The latest U.S. drought monitor update actually shows 0% of the state under exceptional drought, which is the worst category. It's the first time that's happened in a long time. Even a week ago we had 7% of the state in that category. So certainly the damage and the devastation are not welcome, but the moisture definitely is.
Ian: Super welcome. It's uh, such a change from a month ago when we were looking at possibly another year of the same just relentless dryness
Gustavo: So instead of being an exceptional drought, we're just in super drought then.
Hayley: I think the category is severe, actually, I think that's the next category
Ian: Extreme.
Hayley: Oh, extreme.
Ian: Twenty-seven percent of the state is in extreme drought now, and that's likely to ease a bit, but that dryness deficit is still there.
Ron: And the thing is this is the only way we get out of these droughts. You saw everything that happened in 2017. We got basically an end to the drought emergency back then, but it almost caused the failure of a retaining wall at Oroville Dam, which if it happened, could have washed away a lot of people. And, there were evacuations, it was madness. And unfortunately, this is what we can expect in a climate-changed global warming future, where our droughts are going to be very intense and our wet periods are going to be very intense too. So you know what we're seeing now, amplify that by like a couple, by a lot. And that's our future.
Gustavo: So what can people do then to prepare? We've talked about flood kits in our flood episode in November, and of course we always talk about earthquake kits. But Ron, what would a storm kit look like?
Ron: I think, like a lot of us up here in Northern California, that's even changed just after a lot of us were shocked by the New Year's Eve floods. A lot of places in San Francisco, throughout the Bay Area, whole restaurants, whole homes were really flooded, and, you know, a lot of food was destroyed. So, you know, the new thing that people are looking at is that if your home or your business has had a history of flooding, it's time to get those sandbags ready, especially in a major event. And then just other things that you can think about. You know if you have extended power outages, what are you going to do during those extended power outages? And then be able to be ready to evacuate at a moment's notice. And in fact, what's scary and it'll be important to know for the rest of this season is that a lot of people are suddenly realizing that they live really close to a river or a creek, and you should all be aware of that. And it's super important, you know, get those cellphone and email alerts to your local county and city so that you can really know when floodwaters might be happening. It's super important just to be aware of what's going on.
Gustavo: Well, the only time the county ever hits me up is for taxes, so I don't know about that.
Ian: Oh, and that's right. And the state also has a lot to do to become more resilient in these big floods. That means more investment in infrastructure and looking at restoring river floodplains so that the water can spread out when there are these big floods to reduce the threats. It's really a big task to make the state better prepared for big floods.
Ron: And up here, what they're also suggesting is that be a good neighbor. If you see a bunch of leaves clogging up your neighborhood storm drain, go clear that out. That's going to help everyone not get flooded in the next rainstorm.
Gustavo: Haley, what should be in a good storm kit?
Hayley: It's probably the same for most types of disaster. I guess with a flood kit, maybe you want some like rain boots or something like that. But otherwise think, you know, batteries, flashlights, radios, things that you could use in a power outage. Some extra money is a good thing, cash ‘cause sometimes credit cards aren't working when power is out.
Gustavo: How about crypto?
Hayley: Crypto is great. Yeah, I think you should really invest in that right now.
Ron: Yeah, that'll be really helpful.
Hayley: Yeah. All that kind of stuff. Keep gas in your car. Just the usual stay-prepared mind-set.
Gustavo: We have already forgotten what our master of masters, Louis Sahagun, advised us last time — a boat. We all need a boat.
Ron: Kayak.
Ian: Right.
Gustavo: Oh, dinghy, maybe?
Hayley: Can we get a L.A. Times ark
Gustavo: Yes. Oh, my God. The L.A. Times ark will rise above all. We'll have more after the break.
Gustavo: And now comes our traditional ending to Masters of Disasters, where we ask our masters what's bringing them joy during these terrible, difficult, wet and yet dry times. Ron, let's start with you. What's bringing you joy this month?
Ron: Uh, persimmons. We're working through our stash of the bumper crop of persimmons that we have and making them into persimmon bread. Perfect.
Gustavo: I hate to say this actually. No, I say this proudly. I pronounce them persimmions.
Ron: Ah!
Gustavo: Just like I pronounce. Valentine's Day “Valentime's Day” and library “liberry.”
Ron: We should do a whole thing on, like, local pronunciation. Like artichoke, in parts of, like, Northern California, is pronounced “artie-choke,” and it's like a thing.
Gustavo: Artie-choke? OK, that is silly. More silly than persimmions, but what do I know? Ian, what's bringing you joy?
Ian: Well, the other day the clouds parted for a bit and I took a walk on the Central Coast and it was just beautiful out there — wildflowers and green — and a, uh, nice respite from the rain.
Gustavo: Let's hope we get more of that, both the rain and the beautiful moments. And Hayley, what's bringing you joy this month?
Hayley: I'm actually getting ready to move to a new house, so I'm really excited for new beginnings and the chance to get to know a new neighborhood and take a break from disaster reporting and pick out some paint colors and furniture and all that kind of stuff.
Ian: Nice
Gustavo: What's a good paint color to go with disasters?
Hayley: Uh, persimmion.
Gustavo: Boom, mic drop right there. Masters as always, thank you much for this conversation. Ron Lin, Hayley Smith and Ian James. Gracias.
Hayley: Thanks.
Ian: Thank you.
Gustavo: Before we end today's episode, we want to share some sad news from the L.A. Times family. On January 4th, fast break reporter Gregory Yee died from complications from a respiratory issue.
Gregory had been with the Times since the summer of 2021 and quickly made a mark at the paper with his warm heart, his wonderful laugh, his wizardry of covering breaking news in a way that nevertheless brought out the humanity of the subjects that he covered.
I've known Gregory since he was the editor of the UC Irvine student newspaper. So it was wonderful to see his career just go so far from UCI to Farmington, New Mexico, to the Long Beach Press Ttelegram to the Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina, and finally to the L.A. Times.
Gregory was just 33 when he passed away.
And then a couple of days later, on January 7th, Randy Hagihara died from esophageal cancer.
Randy was an Air Force veteran who spent 21 years at The Times, starting at the Orange County bureau as a deputy city editor, the city editor and then night city editor. I never worked with Randy, but I've heard many stories from my colleagues about his genius at making the stories of reporters really shine. He was really good at giving folks pep talks when they needed them.
But perhaps Randy's most lasting legacy is going to be the hundreds of reporters that he recruited to work at The Times as our senior editor for recruitment and then the head of Metpro, a program that sought to diversify our staff. Randy was 72.
Gustavo: And that's it for this episode of “The Times: Essential News From the L.A. Times.” Ashley Brown and David Toledo were the jefas on this episode, and Mark Nieto mixed and mastered it.
Our show is produced by Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian, David Toledo and Ashlea Brown. Our intern is Helen Li. Our editorial assistants are Roberto Reyes and Nicolas Perez. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera, Shani Hilton and Heba Elorbany. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen. I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back Wednesday with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.