I think if you had, the trademark lawyer for a motorcycle gang would have sued you.
Is that not a meteorological phenomenon one hears about elsewhere?
Good confirmation that I'm not subject to roof leaks in my new place, since I'm on the top floor.
The main people I'm worried about are those in more flood-prone areas. And apparently it could damage some PG&E equipment and start fires??
All the floors below you are more flood prone.
Downtown SF has been rainy all day. Feels like early winter.
I seem to remember PGE gear spontaneously combusting in response to flooding a long time ago. But then that seems to be what their equipment does in response to a distressing range of things.
I've heard of bomb cyclones but never of atmospheric rivers.
That time right before you went into that desert with that horse?
A creek cuts through town a few blocks up; it's deep enough I doubt our lower strata are in danger.
Bombogenesis has happened. (A favorite meteorology term previously discussed on this here very blog.)
Obviously, any river that is scenic enough can be an atmospheric river.
25-foot-ish juniper tree in front of our house just fell over. This is sort of our fault because last year we took out this hideous chain link fence which on analysis may have been holding the tree up, but also sort of not our fault because it's not like we put the tree or the fence there and no part of the tree is actually on our property? I don't know, I have to go to work tomorrow and lurid will have to do PR with the neighbors.
At least if it's knocked over, it will be easier to measure exactly how tall it was so you don't have to estimate.
12: crap!! I hope it didn't land on anything.
It didn't land on anything important! Just blocked the service driveway of the Lutheran church that they never use anyway. Moby's right that it would be easy to go measure the height if it wasn't bombogenerating out there right now.
Right. 15 is the kind of thing I should have said first.
We were mildly lucky that it didn't come down when Elke and I were removing debris from the storm drain right next to it; we missed the collapse by probably 20 minutes. However, while no one wants to have a tree fall on them or their school-aged children, the top 1/3rd or so was pretty spindly, it was already leaning over pretty far, and serious injury is unlikely. No damage except to the curb appeal of our house.
Maybe the debris was holding up the tree?
That's a load-bearing drain obstruction.
I was less familiar with "atmospheric river" as a technical meteorological term (thought it was just a colorful press descriptor) but apparently it is a thing. Coined in the '90s for the characteristic of being long and narrow (and full of water) in non-tropical areas (they generally originate from the tropics). Was more familiar with the term Pineapple Express for the ones that generally impact the US West Coast in the winter.
Here is an animation of the last 120 hours for "precipitable water" across the world on which you can see the one currently hitting California. They area apparently omnipresent over the oceans especially in winter. As you cans see there is generally more precipitable water over much of the tropics much of the time.
10: It's a geological term rather than a meterological term, but can't decide if "orogeny" is not as dirty as it sounds, or is exactly as dirty as it sounds.
no part of the tree is actually on our property?
Turns out this doesn't matter. When ours fell, it was on the border, possibly technically on the neighbors side of the property line, but on our side of the fence. Did damage to his fence that we weren't responsible for, and he wouldn't have been responsible for the damage to our house.
22: Changes in types of thrust fault structures are typical of external orogenic zones, and are inferred here to be related to thickness
we went to mendocino for the weekend, it was lovely and less rainy there which is odd but that's how this river rolled. an early and cautious drive back yesterday, crossing the gate was an experience with alllll that water coming down. skipping a swim today to let the tide flush out the bay.
23: Oh, interesting. Does this mean if the fallen tree isn't bothering any part of our land-holdings, we can't be compelled to do anything about it through any mechanism other than social shaming?
26: I'm probably missing something, but if the tree wasn't on your property when it was standing, and isn't on your property now, I can't even see where social shaming comes in.
Though if you are materially responsible for the thing falling (the chain link fence?) then I don't have an answer for you.
I'm curious: It sounds like the tree fell after the storm, not during, and that it cracked, as opposed to coming up from the roots. Do I have those right?
The only thing you need to do if 27.1 is correct is practice not saying "sucks to be you" aloud.
Dramatic video of a truck blowing over on the Richmond-San Raphael bridge yesterday: https://twitter.com/JustineWaldman/status/1452488798940504068
Fortunately, it looks like everyone was travelling slowly at the time.
I don't want to tell people their business, but if you put something heavy in the trailer, it will stay down more.
I don't live up there, but this is good news (Lake Oroville rose 16ft in the last week):
https://twitter.com/RandolWhite/status/1452698124120510465
The creepy part is that the water level didn't get sixteen feet higher. There's now 16 feet of air at the bottom.
The tree fell during the storm, and I think it was a mixture of wind, preexisting instability because of the fence removal (it really was leaning about 45 degrees by the end), and possibly soil perturbation because of the heavy rain -- it's at the bottom of a hill and a lot of water was rushing past. It didn't even quite get uprooted, just kind of bent way over and hung sadly a few feet off the ground, held up by its branches and the neighbor's totally unharmed fence. It certainly looked more obviously like our problem than anyone else's -- I don't think it occurred to us that anyone else would be materially affected if we took down the fugly chain-link. It's in one of these ill-defined zones where it's technically part of the unincorporated county, thus no private owner (?), but when I called the sheriff they said they couldn't do anything if it wasn't blocking a road. Moreover a) no other neighbors are going to unilaterally deal with it, no way no how, and b) we are conducting a sensitive business transaction with the neighbor who was probably responsible for planting the tree, and I am willing to pay the tree service's emergency removal fee in order to remind this neighbor that we are super-virtuous super-neighbors and they ATA for doubling their price at the last minute.
Still, it sucks.
Sounds like you're dealing with it as you need to in terms of neighborly diplomacy. But if it makes you feel better, I'd think you really are going above and beyond -- if it's anyone's problem, it's the problem of the neighbor whose fence it's fallen on.
It's in one of these ill-defined zones where it's technically part of the unincorporated county, thus no private owner (?), but when I called the sheriff they said they couldn't do anything
I don't know what county you're in, but they might have a public works department that focuses on UI land?
Awwww, is the atmospheric river already over? I see the forecast in the Bay Area is for sunny skies for the next 10 days. Grrrr. We got a shit-ton of rain, but only by recent standards: I remember when I moved here in '07, people would talk about "six weeks of rain every day, every day, every day". And a couple of decades before that, I heard about people keeping chickens to eat all the snails and slugs from the rain. It's nothing like that, this time.
If you look at the animation linked in 21 you see that the "river" has weakened and shifted south (raining in LA area right now) and is not extending as far inland.
I am willing to pay the tree service's emergency removal fee
This is when it's nice to have a chainsaw in the garage. You still have to deal with getting rid of the debris, but bucking the thing up into manageable chunks and piling them out of the way is one of those satisfying jobs where you can actually see accomplishment quickly. Plus, power tools.
If it's land nobody really owns, can't you just drag the tree off to the side and let it decompose? That's what I do.
I seriously considered buying a chainsaw, honestly. My family looked terrified and my daughter said she'd disavow all acquaintance with me. Unfortunately I'm borderline phobic around power tools; I can barely even bring myself to use a power screwdriver. I realize it's insane, and yet...
Also, in suburban California, I assume you need to take a 2-year proficiency course and licensing exam to operate a chainsaw and also get a permit anytime you need to use it.
I guess that explains why Leatherface was in Texas and California had the Night Stalker.
JP: Oh, that's so much better! Why did I think the "river" was over? I went to wunderground's live map of precip, and zoomed-out repeatedly. After a few clicks, I stopped and just concluded "it's over, feh". If I'd clicked just *once* further, I'd have seen that LA was gettin' drenched, and that there was a buncha precip over NV, ID, etc. Thank you for the correction! It makes me feel a little less guilty about the lovely weather here.
Electric pole saws are a heck of a lot safer for the user, but if you don't like power screwdrivers, still a step pretty far.
I got this saw for camping and I tested on a fallen branch from a storm earlier this summer. It was too big to throw back into the woods until I cut it up.
41, 42: Yeah, it probably helps that I grew up with them. And at least they're not as obnoxious as gas-powered leaf blowers.
The rain didn't reach central CA until last night; we got several hours of steady rain, but it cleared up around noon. So good water for us, but nothing amazing. Hopefully it did better than that in snow nearby.
great timelapse: https://twitter.com/NOAASatellites/status/1452998502439694342?t=Ah_eGo2MH3wVf584n8vzyg&s=19
that is beautiful! especially near the end, you can see where the mountain ridges are from how the atmospheric water 'catches' on them, yesno?
yes! they posted a great before-after of the snow pack - https://twitter.com/NWSBayArea/status/1453031694529826816?t=NGHvnVnZnStMVB9iJiKm1Q&s=19