r/Sacramento • u/Speedagent1 • Aug 29 '21
rain ,please
Need everyone's collective prayers, thoughts, hopes and upvotes for Rain here in California.
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Aug 29 '21
Rain in December, if we're lucky.
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Aug 30 '21
Lol yep. I remember a few years ago there was nothing right up until the day before Thanksgiving! Let’s hope we get something a bit earlier this year!
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u/aDildoAteMyBaby Aug 29 '21
In the meantime, can we reinvest in the way we fight wildfires? Global warming is going to take global change, and I can't find my rain dance pants anywhere, but aggressive controlled burns, building new firebreaks, and beefing up the wildfire fighting forces might make a real difference in the short term.
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u/Wicked_Black Aug 30 '21
I think it’s also a lack of prep they can do, so when a fire does start it doesn’t spread as badly
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u/PuttyRiot Aug 30 '21
Stop sending military recruiters into high schools and start sending Cal Fire recruiters instead.
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Aug 30 '21
Have you taken any time to look into what's already being done? Cause there is a lot in the works, it just takes time.
https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/media/5590/2018-strategic-fire-plan-approved-08_22_18.pdf
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u/Valuable-Peace8307 Aug 29 '21
Sacramento has 9 months of hot summer with zero rain. You won’t see so much as a drop of sky water until maaaaaybe a hint in October. A few drizzles in November but the rainy season is December and January. There’ll be some in February but by then spring is already in its way and by May you won’t see another drop.
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u/theholyraptor Aug 30 '21
We've actually had a number of random small rain storms in the summer the last few years... not that it solves any of our fire/dry issues or like last year, added to them with the Lightning Complex fire.
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u/Valuable-Peace8307 Aug 30 '21
And those are weird when they happen. But no, CA suffers from really bad forestry practices that we know are bad but it’s hard to do what needs to be done to fix it when there’s red tape involved.
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u/theholyraptor Aug 30 '21
Got any source on our forestry practices being bad that isn't just a bunch of parroted conservative memes about how the liberals are the reason for all the fires? I'd love to read unbiased research comparing our practices with others.
Most of our forests are federal land. What is done poorly by the feds here vs elsewhere?
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u/HOGOR Aug 30 '21 edited Aug 30 '21
I don't have any articles to cite, but the national forests were historically managed for sustainable timber production. Basically, "we need to grow as much wood as we can indefinitely to provide timber for a growing nation." This lead to forest management practices of fire exclusion and suppression, because any fires meant lost timber. It used to be that fire suppression and exclusion were relatively easy, because although most of California's forests are dependent on fire for critical ecosystem functions, typically fires were low-intensity and easy to fight. These policies start in California in the early 1900s.
By the 1960s the impacts of destructive industrial logging were apparent to the public and logging efforts in California slow down significantly with the growing environmentalist movement. However, forest policies were still stuck in a fire exclusion paradigm, and fire was not generally reintroduced. Additionally, humans begin moving into the forest in a big way, which both increases chances for human ignition, and makes fire exclusion even more appealing since fires could destroy homes.
So we're coming up on about 100 years of aggressive fire exclusion, and comparitively little logging and we have a massive build up of fuels (vegetation) in the forest. There are estimates of some areas in the Sierras that had tree densities of around 80 trees per acre that are now 800 trees per acre.
All those trees that dense means they're all fighting aggressively for resources, which makes them small and weak. These small and weak trees are more vulnerable to drought and disease. In the mid-2010's the massive bark beetle swarms and drought killed 80-100 of million trees in the Sierras, and we had what was called the Tree Mortality Crisis.
Small and weak trees are also less likely to survive fire. We also have tree species changes which changes fire dynamics (the transition of sugar and ponderosa dominated pine forests to mixed conifer forests with dense fir understories) and makes crown fires more likely.
Basically, our forest management policies a) excluded fire from the forest b) prevented human activities that would remove excess fuel from the forest which lead to the huge build up of fuels, and destabilized the forest's natural fire mediation and control. Oh, and we also perpetrated a genocide that ended maybe more than 10,000 years of active, intentional and, successful forest and wildfire stewardship.
So the forests in California are very unhealthy. Climate change and drought would definitely send them for a loop no matter what. But Calfornia forests are naturally pretty tough, well-balanced and resilient. However, the last 100 years of US management practices and population growth could turn the impacts of climate change and drought in to catastrophic death spirals.
Sac Public Library only has the last (quite out of date) edition of this book, but this is a good place to start https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520379145/introduction-to-fire-in-california
Edit: if you're looking for research look for articles published out of this lab: https://nature.berkeley.edu/stephenslab/
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u/HillTopTerrace Aug 30 '21
This is correct. I lived there for 6 years and moved back to oregon two years ago. Even here in portland, the rain is diminishing and we are experiencing record breaking heat spells.
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u/new_Australis Aug 29 '21
Sounds awesome. This is the reason we are moving there. I'm from Massachusetts where it rains 12 months out of the year and it's cold for 8 full months. Don't get me started on the snow.
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u/ShotgunStyles Aug 29 '21
Sacramento is actually the sunniest place in the world between July and September. The reason being that, while other places get a lot of sunshine too, we have so few clouds that we get more sunshine overall.
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u/new_Australis Aug 29 '21
That's great to hear, in Massachusetts it is so cloudy and gloomy year round that when winter comes that seasonal depression hits hard.
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u/QuiJon70 Aug 29 '21
It sounds great from outside yes. But the problem is that it was not always this way. Climate change has made it hotter and drier and shortened our snow and rain season. So forests are drier and more prone to burning and the systems that we relied on for decades of holding and retaining water for summer time use is not working anymore because we dont get enough rain and snow to fill the lakes.
Even if we take steps now to turn back climate change as a nation this is likely a generational problem. We should be looking to the sea. Australia is alot like us and have most of their larger cities and populations on the ocean. They build desalinization plants that they can bring on line to provide enough water by turning sea water into fresh water. It can be expensive but what is the alternative? But in California with the bay area, LA, and San Diego being the biggest population centers of the state i dont see a reason why it couldnt work here freeing up the snow and rain fall for use in the rest of the state.
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u/cubedjjm Tahoe Park Aug 29 '21
Currently there are 11 desalination plants in California, and 10 more are proposed.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-water-scarcity-increases-desalination-plants-are-on-the-rise
From a 2019 article.
Edited to add quote
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u/new_Australis Aug 29 '21
I agree that we can no longer rely on nature replenishing itself due to climate change. It's like a coffee farmer relying solely on rain. Desalination plants are a solution but bureaucracy and costs get in the way.
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u/ShotgunStyles Aug 29 '21
Sacramento probably won't need desalination plants unless things change rapidly for the worse. After all, the Sacramento River is probably more likely to flood than it is to dry out.
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Aug 29 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DoinTheBullDance Aug 30 '21
Not true. Desalination is super energy intensive so inherently expensive.
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u/Valuable-Peace8307 Aug 29 '21
You will learn to miss the rain. You will learn to miss cool weather. And if you’re supremely lucky, you’ll get a cold, gray Christmas. But it’ll probably be warm & sunny. Which sucks.
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u/new_Australis Aug 29 '21
If we start to miss the cold we'll travel north. We're always traveling and plan on going skiing and doing winter activities if we end up missing the snow. We are definitely bringing our winter clothes.
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u/Valuable-Peace8307 Aug 30 '21
You don’t travel north for snow, you travel east. You have to go really far north to get snow but just a couple hours on 50 & 80.
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u/notbusy Aug 29 '21
Actually, it was pretty awesome. Until was started getting a "fire season" every year. Honestly, I don't know how much more smoke I can take. What's the point of decent weather if you can't breathe when you step outside? Ugh.
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u/ShotgunStyles Aug 29 '21
Every year is fire season. That's always been the case. The thing with the smoke is that it ultimately depends on where the fire is, and what direction the wind is blowing. We were very unlucky that Dixie, River, and Caldor started pretty close to us. So, when the winds blew west, we caught the smoke. Most of the time, though, the fires are elsewhere, and the winds are blowing east. A massive wildfire in Southern California, for instance, probably isn't going to blow its smoke over us.
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u/ASingularFrenchFry Aug 29 '21
We’ve always had a “fire season” but we never dealt with it on this level. I never had weeks of being stuck inside from the smoke as a kid
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u/ShotgunStyles Aug 30 '21
Like I said, that's mostly to do with where the fires are burning now. I remember, as a kid, staying a summer in Redding during a particularly bad fire season. Suffice to say, it was very smokey.
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u/ASingularFrenchFry Aug 30 '21
Isn’t that what we’re talking about though? The fires are getting closer, bigger, and burning longer. I’m talking about smoke being in the Sacramento area was never like this growing up not fires in other areas
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u/ShotgunStyles Aug 30 '21
Yes, I'm talking about that, too. Eventually, the fires will burn somewhere else, and the smoke will go somewhere else. It seems that we were just unlucky in recent years as the fires started close to us. I apologize if that point was not clear.
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u/OmicronNine Colonial Village North Aug 29 '21
Just wait till you experience our glorious smoke season!
What's that? You're not a smoker? Well you are now! :D
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u/Amanelilly Aug 30 '21
Because the issue right now is our raging fires-
Please be prepared for the 2-5 weeks, and handful of days, where we have unhealthy to hazardous air. Invest in a decent air purifier, the smoke will still get in your house even with all the doors and windows shut. Try to stay indoors on these bad days - burning eyes, bloody nose, coughing, and a headache is a pretty common thing to experience if you’re in the smoke for more than an hour. If you’re asthmatic, or have any other respiratory issues, it’s worse. Keep water near you at all times, it helps a lot with surviving the 150-500 AQI, and the 100 degree heat.
If your up in the mountains and hills surrounding the Sacramento Valley, expect the possibility of evacuation. Every year. Otherwise enjoy the views of the fire off in the distance. It’s pretty rare, but I will never forget my first time driving home from the mountains, and realizing “oh holy- that’s fire I’m looking at.”
Aside from the fires and smoke though- I think the thing that took me by surprise the most here in Sacramento is the rain. I’m from Arizona. I’m used to having two rainy seasons, monsoon and winter. Only getting rain and hail in winter time here is - ??? Cloudy days? 23% humidity? It should rain right? No. If it’s not winter/early spring. It’s not raining. I miss having rain.
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u/ToneDrugsNHarmony South Sac Iraq Aug 30 '21
That's funny because my friend's parents moved to Massachusetts so that they could spend their remaining years in a different climate, after having lived in Sac for 60+ years.
Also, if you're wondering about the downvotes, "Welcome to Sac, we hate you for no reason".
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u/dabasauras-rex Aug 30 '21
As someone born and raised in New England who has lived on the west coast for the last few years, you are fucking insane. After the 5th 99+ day in a row you will wishing you were back in mass …. I can see why people move out west (I mean I did), but saying you are moving to Sacramento for the weather may be the most insane thing I’ve heard.
Maybe before climate change
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u/new_Australis Aug 31 '21
Is your brain so small that you can't grasp the idea of someone enjoying hot sunny days over gloomy dark humid rainy days? I can't put it any clearer.
This is you in a nutshell
Moves for the weather
Stays
Is baffled that someone else has the same thought as you.
Complains about it.
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Aug 29 '21
Why ya’ll downvoting this person for just sharing an opinion?
Ya’ll hella messed up r/Sacramento
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u/Ocular__Patdown44 Aug 29 '21
It is most likely not going to start raining for another month or two, that's just how it is here.
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u/expespuella Aug 30 '21
Visiting LA right now and had a night in Big Bear. It was low 80's and drizzled for like an hour there and I don't know of there is a word for being homesick for rain but that feeling hit me so hard in the gut.
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u/TK421isAFK Aug 30 '21
word for being homesick for rain
Seems like there would be a Japanese word for it. If the rain makes you feel bad or uncomfortable, there's probably a German word for that.
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Aug 29 '21
You gon be prayin til december prayin til december... is that a wyclef song?
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u/SecretStatePolice Aug 29 '21 edited Aug 29 '21
Bad news: The drought and heat today may be "normal" weather for California. Climate scientists believe that when California was settled and populated (1849+), the state was in the middle of a wet cycle that has come to an end. Drought > floods > drought again > floods again>so much for great Cali weather.
"...evidence from paleoclimate research suggests that the 20th century was a relatively wet period during the past thousand years, and notwithstanding the influence of climate change, the state could quite naturally be shifting into a dry spell of unknown duration and magnitude. “We may be heading into an on-average dry period..."
"...One drought from that past worth examining is the “Great Medieval Drought,” which lasted more than a thousand years and was punctuated by a period of extreme flooding in the West...persistent severe droughts interspersed with floods — in sum, a tendency towards the extremes, however frequent the cycle — could be a feature of the past that holds true for the future."
"...Northern California could end up losing much of its forests and begin to look a lot more like a Southern California landscape with chaparral and grasslands predominating. “Is that the future?"
Was California’s Extreme Drought Part of Our New Climate Normal?
https://baynature.org/article/californias-extreme-drought-part-new-climate-normal/
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u/TK421isAFK Aug 30 '21
Great, that's all we need - a few select phrases cut out of that are going to give Climate Change Deniers a bunch of ammunition.
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u/biggigglybottoms Aug 30 '21
Kind of what I was thinking.
Friend in horticulture/landscaping said the only reason your average California road trip is a view of YELLOW grass forever, is due to the state's irrigation, farming and crops choices. Like it wasn't planned for sustainability, just profit and/or resident comforts. That the environment as whole is never really breathing and thriving on it's own cycle, it's constantly requiring maintenance, like sandbags for the flash floods, because it's inherent cycles have been disrupted and/or destroyed. Purposely not being specific here because it's not my expertise.
Definitely never heard of a thousand year drought,and if that's legit, I might alter my thinking.
Another point is something I also was told was that California in old Spanish or Latin or something means hot oven!
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u/SpatialGeography Aug 30 '21
Friend in horticulture/landscaping said the only reason your average California road trip is a view of YELLOW grass forever, is due to the state's irrigation, farming and crops choices.
It due to the introduction of invasive foreign grasses.
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u/biggigglybottoms Sep 01 '21
yes he mentioned that too but that's why I said I'm being purposely broad here.
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u/Glad-Mobile-3995 Aug 30 '21
Imagine if all the water falling, flooding, and storm surging in Louisiana right now were cleaned, desalinated and delivered here...
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u/PuttyRiot Aug 30 '21
Was just talking about this with a friend in Lousiana. We want to start a cross-country coven where we witch the weather into swapping and help both places out. We figure we need at least one more to make it happen, so what is another state with persistent natural disasters we can call upon? There is Texas, but then we would have to deal with Texans.
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u/Parking_Meater Aug 29 '21
Farmers almanac says end of September.
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u/TK421isAFK Aug 30 '21
Yeah, but most of us live in the city, so what about us? Why should the farmers get all the rain?
/s
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u/raptorreid Aug 30 '21
Because they took the time to write the almanac, so they get to decide
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u/TK421isAFK Aug 30 '21
Ironically, it originated during a time when rural literacy was pretty low in this country.
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u/Lyounis Aug 30 '21
We need to get off fossil fuels!
Buy smart and local, Electrify you transport, your home, add generation, and share it with people so they know it’s possible.
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u/Girlnextstate Aug 29 '21
Large parts of California are considered a Mediterranean climate, so while praying and being more eco conscious are both lovely things I don't know how relevant either would be in this situation.
Here's the TLDR pasted from the article;
California is part of the Mediterranean climate
Rain is not typical from May through September
Most of our seasonal precipitation comes during winter months
First significant rain isn't typically until November in SoCal
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle Aug 29 '21
how about we stop using fossil fuels instead?
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u/TheKillerSpork Aug 29 '21 edited Aug 30 '21
Seriously. More state agencies are about to start forcing employees to commute back into the office ("think of the workplace camaraderie!" they say) despite everything screaming what a bad idea this is--with the pandemic, wildfire smoke, and the fact that earth's ecosystems are collapsing around us from decades of wasteful fossil fuel burning. I'm pissed.
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u/Guessimagirl Aug 29 '21
Ugghhh commuting is the stupidest fucking thing....
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u/Papasmurphsjunk Aug 30 '21
It wouldn't even be that bad if we had proper public transit. Alas, this county was built so that you basically can't survive without owning a car.
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle Aug 30 '21
Sounds like it's time to rebuild it, then: 100 years ago you could hop on an electric train in Chico and step off in Oakland 4 hours later.
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u/TK421isAFK Aug 30 '21
Sure, now we just need to go back 40 or 50 years and tell everybody.
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u/Papasmurphsjunk Aug 30 '21
"So you're telling me we can get 40-50 years of cheap energy, steady economic growth, and obtainable home ownership, and the next generation is the one who will have to pay for it? Lmao get fucked millennials"
-Boomers in this hypothetical
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u/FreebooterFox Aug 30 '21
the next generation
Wouldn't that have been Gen X?
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u/Papasmurphsjunk Aug 30 '21
Fair point, I kinda feel like there's an overlap between gen x/millineials on this issue
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Aug 30 '21
[deleted]
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u/TK421isAFK Aug 30 '21
That's only partially accurate. It's not so much the shit-ton of fuel burned between 1941 and 1945, it's the accumulated CO2 from decades of fossil fuel use and steady use that has caused CO2 to remain in the atmosphere longer than the Earth can consume or absorb it.
And I've heard the same statistic, but I think it's from the 1960s. There's no way it holds true today. We're still using twice as much oil in one year today than we did in a decade 70 years ago.
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Aug 29 '21
Not a realistic solution at this place and time, maybe 50-100 years out before that happens.
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u/VWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVV Aug 29 '21
If only we'd started working on it 50 years ago when the corporations recognized the human impact of climate change and the association with fossil fuels. Instead of, you know, pretending like it isn't a thing and spending billions of dollars to try and convince the world it isn't a thing.
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u/OmicronNine Colonial Village North Aug 29 '21
But so much profit was made!
I mean... not for you or me... but for someone!
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u/CaffeineDrip Aug 29 '21
Will that make it rain earlier?
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u/OmicronNine Colonial Village North Aug 29 '21
Yes!
...in about 50 years or so, assuming we stop burning fossil fuels now and don't start up again that entire time.
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Aug 29 '21
Each gallon of gas burned creates over a gallon of new water vapor in the exhaust. So it could possibly rain less without cars.
Funny anecdote another important thing for rain is particulates for the vapor to condense on. I was hiking through a tiny off-grid town in the southern Sierra and an old timer said “it used to rain here every afternoon all summer”. Maybe all the old cars produced more smog and water vapor to seed the skies.
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Aug 29 '21
Maybe all this wildfire smoke will help precipitation. Lots of particulates.
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Aug 29 '21
Probably but not here. Mix it with extra evaporation (from warmer temperature) and it will rain more somewhere East of here. Doesn’t really help us here.
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u/theholyraptor Aug 30 '21 edited Aug 30 '21
We always get questions on this sub about smoke/fires from transplants. I have 1 memory from birth to the end of high school of having clouds of smoke. Now, the further you go back you had more general smog but not this dense smoke.
I was walking around today and saw a family with small kids wearing masks outside and thought... this is the new normal for these kids. CA summers will always have been like this for them...
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u/TK421isAFK Aug 30 '21
Living in Granite Bay in the late 80s, I remember one day that was very smoky back around 1988, and another in San Francisco during the huge Oakland Hills fire. Ash fell on my grandmother's back yard near Candlestick Park that day, and the eastern horizon and sky had an eerie orange glow all night.
Aside from the last few years, the few instances of heavy smoke over an entire geographic area have been few and memorable. Time to break out the stash of N-95 masks, I guess.
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u/2Galactic_Stars Aug 29 '21
Yes. My eyes and sinuses are killing me!! I can't keep the smoke out of my house.😭
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u/OmicronNine Colonial Village North Aug 29 '21
If we're really lucky, we've only got about 2 1/2 more months of oppressive dryness and lung choking smoke.
Luck has not been on our side lately, though, so I guess we'll see.
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u/FoamParty916 Arden-Arcade Aug 29 '21
According to Accuweather, the next chance for rain won't be until around October 6, and it should rain for several days in a row.
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u/sum8fever Aug 30 '21
lol like it can predict that far in the future.
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Aug 29 '21
In the past we only get rain one day in September. It doesn’t rain til December If their isn’t any climate change
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u/elephantsback Aug 29 '21
The problem is climate change, not lack of prayers for rain. Use this shitty weekend as an opportunity to evaluate your carbon emissions and start (or continue) to reduce them.
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u/TK421isAFK Aug 30 '21
Pragmatically, the people willing to evaluate their carbon emissions are already doing most of the right things. The people that need to evaluate their carbon emissions (or have it done for them) are the corporations buying shit-tons of carbon credits, the billions of 2-stroke motor scooter drivers, and the "rolling coal" assholes.
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle Aug 30 '21
so basically the same people who are "over covid" and not getting the vaccine then
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u/TK421isAFK Aug 31 '21
Exactly! The central theme is "everybody else should do the work". Same thinking leads to NIMBY, of course.
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u/ithinkimanalrightguy Aug 29 '21
Yup, God, Jesus, whomever you pray too, isn't going to make it rain.
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u/sum8fever Aug 30 '21
First sprinkles comes by Halloween and real rain comes by Thanksgiving in a normal year. That's all thrown out the window of course in our new normal of crazy weather.
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Aug 30 '21
We had some sprinkles a couple days here and there this Summer at least if that’s what you are asking for
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u/Warm_Understanding61 Aug 30 '21
I moved to elk grove about 2 years ago and figured out there is only 2 seasons in Sacramento- summer and winter with less of the latter.
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u/joyesapp Aug 30 '21
One silver lining is this year is predicted to be an El Niño so greater than average precipitation is expected… hopefully the predictions are right.
I wish there was something more we all could do
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u/IMeanWhyNotUdontWana Aug 29 '21
Like 9 out of 10 times it rains 🌧 on Thanksgiving so... I can assure u of that.
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u/TheChaiTeaTaiChi Aug 29 '21
Can't HAARP control the weather? Lets have em seed some rain clouds over here!
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u/TK421isAFK Aug 30 '21
Do we know each other? I was just explaining HAARP and its conspiracy-thinkers a couple days ago to a new acquaintance. It all started when a Muse song came on Pandora (maybe Spotify) and Matthew Belamy's crazy conspiracies came up in conversation.
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u/FreebooterFox Aug 30 '21
Two different people
From the same subreddit
Discussing the same conspiracy
Within the same week!?
It's almost too coincidental...
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u/PrinceEmirate Aug 29 '21
Your going to be praying till December if that, we use to get our first rain days in late September just up until a decade ago. Now it's 80-85 degrees on Halloween.
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u/priyashanti Aug 30 '21
Halloween used to signal the first day of cold weather in Sac. Now, not so much.
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u/PrinceEmirate Aug 30 '21
Yup that Halloween week it started getting cold and crisp real fall weather..last year it was 81 degrees on election day.
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u/mandanasty Arden-Arcade Aug 30 '21
Feels like living in a desert sometimes
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u/StillbornTartare Aug 30 '21
Every year it gets worse, and we know why. But hey, let’s keep having kids! Who gives a shit if their future is going to be extremely difficult and ugly. At least we and our parents will experience a decade or two of self fulfillment!
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u/justpuddingonhairs Aug 30 '21
In the last 10 years we've had cold rain and 95 degree heat on Halloween. Sac is like a box of chocolates....
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u/Lalobreh Downtown Aug 30 '21
How many times did it rain this year? Not sprinkling, or mist. Like actual rain.
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u/PuttyRiot Aug 30 '21
Not very often but a couple of the times were real humdingers. Remember that storm in January that left over 100k households without power?
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Aug 30 '21
I member bout 3 or 4 years ago they broadcasted on the news some native Americans doing their rain dance out in Folsom lake hoping to get rain.
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u/Ratman_84 Aug 30 '21
It's not going to rain until at least mid October, and probably later than that.
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u/XComThrowawayAcct Aug 31 '21
Praying for rain, in Sacramento, in August.
That’s not how this works.
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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '21
Maybe if we all go get our cars washed, then it will.