The Miscellaneous Thought Thread

[Californian Elitist]

No, the experts told us four months ago that this winter would be drier and warmer than normal for Disneyland and California.

The exact opposite happened. Consistently, from November through March.

The experts weren't just a little wrong, they were entirely wrong and massively inaccurate. Which makes them worthy of ribbing and mockery because they still pretend to be "experts". Expert at what, being completely wrong and still claiming competence?

Here was their Expert Winter Outlook for this winter.

View attachment 705488
View attachment 705489

This last one is my favorite of their Expert Predictions from a few months ago, and we will discuss this drought topic more tomorrow and next Thursday as almost all of California and much of the West is officially removed from Drought status.

The experts actually predicted the three year old drought would actually get worse this winter in California! .....

View attachment 705490

They didn’t, but k.

 

[CaptinEO]

No, the experts told us four months ago that this winter would be drier and warmer than normal for Disneyland and California.

The exact opposite happened. Consistently, from November through March.

The experts weren't just a little wrong, they were entirely wrong and massively inaccurate. Which makes them worthy of ribbing and mockery because they still pretend to be "experts". Expert at what, being completely wrong and still claiming competence?

Here was their Expert Winter Outlook for this winter.

View attachment 705488
View attachment 705489

This last one is my favorite of their Expert Predictions from a few months ago, and we will discuss this drought topic more tomorrow and next Thursday as almost all of California and much of the West is officially removed from Drought status.

The experts actually predicted the three year old drought would actually get worse this winter in California! .....

View attachment 705490

Some people just like to play devil's advocate on this board. The experts said to expect a drought lasting until potentially 2030 last I checked. The experts couldn't have imagined this turn around. Seems weather is unpredictable and the experts aren't experts after all.

 

[PiratesMansion]

Some people just like to play devil's advocate on this board. The experts said to expect a drought lasting until potentially 2030 last I checked. The experts couldn't have imagined this turn around. Seems weather is unpredictable and the experts aren't experts after all.

I still think it's a little optimistic to assume that one year of surplus rain is enough to reverse decades of insufficient precipitation.

Even if it does make a dent, the precipitation next year (and following years) would need to elevated over the last several years in order to sustain a turnaround.

 

[SuddenStorm]

The good news for all this winter weather is that the California drought for the entire state is over and done with, and the drought further east in the Western Great Basin is also ending soon too.

Tomorrow morning the US Drought Monitor updates it's Drought Map, but because the info is delayed by three full days, all of the rain that has fallen all over California the past two days won't be counted in the Drought Map update tomorrow.

But even then, the rain that fell last week will push the vast majority of California out of drought status as of tomorrow morning. It's looking like there will be pockets of drought left only in the Mojave Desert, Death Valley, and the far northern Sierras and Siskiyou mountains (where most of the water is still locked up in snow and won't melt until May).

Orange County will be removed from Drought status entirely with the next map update. This is great news for Disneyland's mature landscaping. Any gardener in the West knows you can water a lawn easily, but to keep an old, mature tree looking its best there's no replacement for a winters worth of drenching rains from Mother Nature! Especially on the northern/western edges of the park where the trees are many decades old with deep root systems and large branch canopies. Sprinkler systems can't make those monsters thrive like natural, long-term rain can.

BRING BACK THE GRASS!

 

[PiratesMansion]

BRING BACK THE GRASS!

They're not going to bring the grass back because of one season of heavy precipitation. Not when the water troubles in the area go back years.

Maybe if the rain comes back at a larger, more predictable, more sustainable rate over an extended period of time, but no matter how impressive one year of rain is, it's meaningless if no or minimal preciptation comes next year and beyond.

 

[SuddenStorm]

They're not going to bring the grass back because of one season of heavy precipitation. Not when the water troubles in the area go back years.

Maybe if the rain comes back at a larger, more predictable, more sustainable rate over an extended period of time, but no matter how impressive one year of rain is, it's meaningless if no or minimal preciptation comes next year and beyond.

Well, duh! I have no faith that real grass is ever coming back to Disneyland.

That's not gonna stop me from being an advocate that they should bring it back, and that the minor water savings (and labor savings) are not worth the damage to Disneyland's aesthetic the astroturf has done.

 

[PiratesMansion]

Well, duh! I have no faith that real grass is ever coming back to Disneyland.

That's not gonna stop me from being an advocate that they should bring it back, and that the minor water savings (and labor savings) are not worth the damage to Disneyland's aesthetic the astroturf has done.

Well duh! Of course in an ideal universe Disneyland would have real grass. In an ideal universe California wouldn't have water issues.

But it does, and it definitely seems like there are at least a few people who posted in the last couple of pages who seem to be like SEE! The Water Problem Is Fixed/Solved/NOT AS BAD AS THE EXPERTS SAID!!!! AND MAYBE WE'LL GET GRASS BACK NOW!!!!1111

And it just...I get wanting the grass back. What I don't get is other people appearing to genuinely believe that one year of heavy rain is by itself enough to make any meaningful long-term difference.

 

[TP2000]

Some people just like to play devil's advocate on this board. The experts said to expect a drought lasting until potentially 2030 last I checked. The experts couldn't have imagined this turn around. Seems weather is unpredictable and the experts aren't experts after all.

Technology has made great strides in the last 50 years. Weather forecasting is one of those areas that has greatly improved. But even today, with supercomputers and TV Doppler Radar Girls in tight sweaters, you can only really predict general trends a maximum of 10 days out.

Forecasts a week out, and you're still just dealing with basic trends. Only when you get about 3 days out can you start to nail down actual weather forecasts that are fairly predictable. That's still a big improvement from the late 20th century, when it was mainly just a day to maybe two days out where a forecast could be fairly solid.

This past winter is proof that the "experts" have absolutely no idea what the weather will be two weeks from now, let alone 3 months from now. Or a decade from now.

Widespread drought expected to persist across the West this winter

According to NOAA's newly released winter forecast for the U.S., no end to the extreme drought is in sight.

www.nbcnews.com

I still think it's a little optimistic to assume that one year of surplus rain is enough to reverse decades of insufficient precipitation.

But it already happened. As of the end of February, 64% of California is now drought free. The drought is over.

Tomorrow the federal Drought Monitor releases an update, but it won't include the rain that fell the last few days. All of Southern California is expected to be entirely drought free with tomorrow's update. And then the next Thursday's update goes even bigger across the West.

But all of the rain that has continued to fall since mid March is just gravy on that drought-free status. In a state like California that receives only a few inches of rain, to only a few tenths of an inch of rain, in the month of March that will be hugely beneficial to an already drought-free state.

Even if it does make a dent, the precipitation next year (and following years) would need to elevated over the last several years in order to sustain a turnaround.

The one thing that will take awhile to recover is the water levels in underground aquifers. But the water takes months and even a year or more to reach those lower underground areas, so it's just a waiting game for all the water to slowly seep and drip-drip-drip underground for the next year or so.

They're not going to bring the grass back because of one season of heavy precipitation. Not when the water troubles in the area go back years.

I'm of the strong opinion that the growing use of AstroTurf in park areas is simply a labor savings cost cut. They don't have to pay gardeners every week to care for it and mow it and maintain it.

This is, after all, a company that still atomizes thousands of gallons of water per night into thin air during World of Color and Fantasmic! shows. The water usage at Disneyland is HUGE, and not something they appear to want to stop. Saving money by cutting labor usage for the gardening teams is an easy cost cut that is totally unrelated to any smarmy PR sales pitch about "Being Water Wise!"

 

[Californian Elitist]

I still think it's a little optimistic to assume that one year of surplus rain is enough to reverse decades of insufficient precipitation.

Even if it does make a dent, the precipitation next year (and following years) would need to elevated over the last several years in order to sustain a turnaround.

The drought isn’t over.

 

[TP2000]

The drought isn’t over.

Not 100% entirely, not yet. At least not officially as the data is always delayed a week or more.

Tomorrow's Drought update from the Federal Government will show that a large majority of California is no longer in drought. All the rain and snow we've been receiving in the West since mid March is gravy on top of the newly droughtless landscape. Good news!

It's the California snowpack that is the real story here, and there could be problems with floods this April through June when it all starts melting. The weather was much colder than normal, in addition to being wetter, this winter all over the West. And as of today, with major California reservoirs trying to empty as many acre-feet of water as they can to make room for melting snow next month, the reservoir situation is massively improved from just four months ago!

Home Page

Working with other agencies and the public, our programs strategically manage California's water resources and systems. Our goal is to meet social, environmental, and economic objectives for long-term water sustainability.

cdec.water.ca.gov

 

[Californian Elitist]

Not 100% entirely, not yet. At least not officially as the data is always delayed a week or more.

Tomorrow's Drought update from the Federal Government will show that a large majority of California is no longer in drought. All the rain we've been receiving in the West since mid March is gravy on top of the newly droughtless landscape. Good news!

Right, it’s not over.

 

[TP2000]

Right, it’s not over.

It's over hydrologically and scientifically, from all the data you can see in real-time.

It is not over from a PR media perspective, due to data being delayed by government bureaus a week or more.

There are three key dates coming up quickly where normal people (unlike retired weirdos like me who track this stuff from my Climate Command Center, AKA my den) will be able to see on the TV news or local media the delayed updates to the drought situation. They are as follows, so you can mark your calendar and boast "Oh, I already knew that!" when it happens;

Thursday, March 23rd: US Drought Monitor Update that will remove the remaining drought-free counties in SoCal from merely "Abnormally Dry" to "Normal"

Thursday, March 30th: US Drought Monitor Update that will remove large swaths of the interior West Great Basin from Drought status, in addition to removing the smaller parts of the Mojave Desert and Northern Sierra High Country from Drought status.

Monday, April 3rd: The annual, and surprisingly quite ceremonial, final snowpack reading at California's Department of Water Resources official measurement station in the Sierras at Phillips Station. The Governor attends this ceremony some years, but it's unknown if Governor Newsom will make an appearance there this year. But it will be a big media event and an announcement that could go down in the history books as one of the deepest snowpacks in modern history. 2023 could surpass the record years of 1983 or 1951. It has already surpassed the huge El Nino year of 1998 (the weather was much warmer then, because of El Nino, so more rain than snow).

Mark your calendars, kids! There will be several pre-planned media events being staged in the next two weeks that will formally announce the official end of the drought for California!

 

[TP2000]

Just to whet (get it?!) your appetite for the upcoming formal announcements on the end of the drought, here are two images that sum up the unusually cold and wet winter that California has had. And that is now dragging into spring!

This is real information and hard data that has already been captured officially from satellites and ground stations, not "expert" predictions from humans sitting in cubicles.

Precipitation across the entire state was at least 100% of normal for almost the entire state from October 1st through March 21st. Over half the state has over 150% of normal precipitation, and a huge section about the size of Illinois had over 200% of normal precipitation.

Temperatures across the entire state were well below normal from October 1st through March 21st.
It was the unusually cold temps for many months that led to the historically huge snowpack that has not yet started melting. The technical meteorological term for this phenomenon is called "Brr!"

 

[Californian Elitist]

It's over hydrologically and scientifically, from all the data you can see in real-time.

It is not over from a PR media perspective, due to data being delayed by government bureaus a week or more.

There are three key dates coming up quickly where normal people (unlike retired weirdos like me who track this stuff from my Climate Command Center, AKA my den) will be able to see on the TV news or local media the delayed updates to the drought situation. They are as follows, so you can mark your calendar and boast "Oh, I already knew that!" when it happens;

Thursday, March 23rd: US Drought Monitor Update that will remove the remaining drought-free counties in SoCal from merely "Abnormally Dry" to "Normal"

Thursday, March 30th: US Drought Monitor Update that will remove large swaths of the interior West Great Basin from Drought status, in addition to removing the smaller parts of the Mojave Desert and Northern Sierra High Country from Drought status.

Monday, April 3rd: The annual, and surprisingly quite ceremonial, final snowpack reading at California's Department of Water Resources official measurement station in the Sierras at Phillips Station. The Governor attends this ceremony some years, but it's unknown if Governor Newsom will make an appearance there this year. But it will be a big media event and an announcement that could go down in the history books as one of the deepest snowpacks in modern history. 2023 could surpass the record years of 1983 or 1951. It has already surpassed the huge El Nino year of 1998 (the weather was much warmer then, because of El Nino, so more rain than snow).

Mark your calendars, kids! There will be several pre-planned media events being staged in the next two weeks that will formally announce the official end of the drought for California!

The drought is not over.

 

[Rich T]

There is so much wrong with the Disney Parks experience currently that closing early because of bad weather is nothing. I would happily see the parks close every day at freaking 2 PM in exchange for comfortable capacities, no Genie +, no virtual queues, more ride TLC, no shoehorned IPs, and on and on and on.

 

[Practical Pig]

Technology has made great strides in the last 50 years. Weather forecasting is one of those areas that has greatly improved. But even today, with supercomputers and TV Doppler Radar Girls in tight sweaters, you can only really predict general trends a maximum of 10 days out.

Forecasts a week out, and you're still just dealing with basic trends. Only when you get about 3 days out can you start to nail down actual weather forecasts that are fairly predictable. That's still a big improvement from the late 20th century, when it was mainly just a day to maybe two days out where a forecast could be fairly solid.

This past winter is proof that the "experts" have absolutely no idea what the weather will be two weeks from now, let alone 3 months from now. Or a decade from now.

Widespread drought expected to persist across the West this winter

According to NOAA's newly released winter forecast for the U.S., no end to the extreme drought is in sight.

www.nbcnews.com

But it already happened. As of the end of February, 64% of California is now drought free. The drought is over.

Tomorrow the federal Drought Monitor releases an update, but it won't include the rain that fell the last few days. All of Southern California is expected to be entirely drought free with tomorrow's update. And then the next Thursday's update goes even bigger across the West.

But all of the rain that has continued to fall since mid March is just gravy on that drought-free status. In a state like California that receives only a few inches of rain, to only a few tenths of an inch of rain, in the month of March that will be hugely beneficial to an already drought-free state.


The one thing that will take awhile to recover is the water levels in underground aquifers. But the water takes months and even a year or more to reach those lower underground areas, so it's just a waiting game for all the water to slowly seep and drip-drip-drip underground for the next year or so.



I'm of the strong opinion that the growing use of AstroTurf in park areas is simply a labor savings cost cut. They don't have to pay gardeners every week to care for it and mow it and maintain it.

This is, after all, a company that still atomizes thousands of gallons of water per night into thin air during World of Color and Fantasmic! shows. The water usage at Disneyland is HUGE, and not something they appear to want to stop. Saving money by cutting labor usage for the gardening teams is an easy cost cut that is totally unrelated to any smarmy PR sales pitch about "Being Water Wise!"

I'm of the strong opinion that the growing use of AstroTurf in park areas is simply a labor savings cost cut. They don't have to pay gardeners every week to care for it and mow it and maintain it.

This is, after all, a company that still atomizes thousands of gallons of water per night into thin air during World of Color and Fantasmic! shows. The water usage at Disneyland is HUGE, and not something they appear to want to stop. Saving money by cutting labor usage for the gardening teams is an easy cost cut that is totally unrelated to any smarmy PR sales pitch about "Being Water Wise!"

I've been of that opinion since they first started putting in the plastic grass. The water saving is minuscule compared to where they continue to consume vast amounts. This is pure cost-cutting.

 

[TP2000]

The drought is not over.

The next US Drought Monitor report gets released at 6:30am my time on Thursday, just about 9 hours from now.

Just for my records here in my den The TP2000 Climate Command Center, what government agency or climatology center are you using to determine when the drought has ended in California?

 

[TP2000]

I've been of that opinion since they first started putting in the plastic grass. The water saving is minuscule compared to where they continue to consume vast amounts. This is pure cost-cutting.

Yes, it's clearly obvious this was a decision made for labor savings and staffing reductions.

Why pay a Horticulture CM about twenty bucks an hour plus full benefits and payroll taxes to mow the lawn regularly in front of The Haunted Mansion when you could just slather it in AstroTurf and forget about it for a couple years until it's time for a new roll of plastic grass?

Because of the recent drought, it was easy for the PR team to wrap themselves up in moral authority and pretend they were installing AstroTurf around Disneyland to save on water usage. But most people can see through that PR crap if they think about it for a few moments.

As for weather, I've been happy to see you guys up around Eureka and Crescent City have been getting a break lately from these storms! The last month or so the storm track shifted even further south sending it all to the central coast or southward. Very unusual for late winter!

That said, there's something magical about those winter storms slamming the rugged Northern California and Oregon coast. Talk about Mother Nature on a rampage! But if you have hot cocoa (and perhaps a cute date) to sit and watch it with it can be magnificent.

 

[TP2000]

Thinking more about water usage at Disneyland Resort, which by its very definition is 500 acres of heavily landscaped property made for the very decadent waste of energy and resources to simply entertain already decadently cared for middle-class Americans, how many hundreds of gallons of water do you think evaporates into thin air on just one water ride like Grizzly River Run on a hot and arid day in July through October in Anaheim?

You know that type of day, usually from July through October. It's hot, blazing SoCal sun, dry as a bone, humidity down at 15% or lower. And Grizzly River Run just keeps pumping tens of thousands of gallons of water up and through all it's flumes and waterfalls and show effects. Blasting atomized water into the dry, Anaheim air for 12 hours per day. They've got to lose at least a thousand gallons or more of water per day in those arid, hot conditions. At just that one ride alone.

 

[CaptinEO]

The drought isn’t over.

It's almost over. Doesn't mean it can't come back. I've never seen this much rain in my life living out here.