Considering the top 20 most destructive California fires from Cal Fire’s database, 6 of those have happened in the last 10 months.

The worse so far is the Tubbs Fire last October, and that was HUGE. Nearly 6,000 structures were burned, 22 people were killed. The sixth on the list is the Carr fire, with just under 1,500 structures burned and six killed as of this writing, but that fire is still burning.

I’ll just add this. There was a moment in time between about 2 and 3 years ago, when it was apparent to me and many others that fires were getting worse. But the data was just coming in. There were studies that stopped their data roughly a year or a year and a half earlier that showed no statistically convincing increase. The delay in data range is normal. You get your data, clean it up, then Reviewer three adds eight months to the publication process, etc. so most studies are one or maybe two years late. Anyway, I was being told over and over again that I was wrong whenever I talked about fires. Much of that came from those who were sufficiently in the game to pretend they were not denying climate change, but who chose to get into the contrarian game despite the huge moral cost of doing so.

Well, we were right. We told you so. Shame.

Eventually, of course, the wildfires will stop. Like the surgeons say, the bleeding always stops. Eventually. One way or another.

Whatever.

Now, the California state Democratic party has had an endorsing event. You will see the following FALSEHOODS promulgated because of it:

• Now that Berniebots/Progressives have added their own candidate to the race, the Democrats can’t win, this race
• Progressives are going to throw Diane Feinstein out despite her great power and service and wondrfulness
• Other similar things.

But, the truth is, the way the system works in California, there are exactly two people running in the general election for Senate: Feinstein and de Leon. There are no Republicans, do the Democrat will win.

Also, given that Feinstein cleaned de Leon’s clock in the primary, you can bet that she’ll win the general election as well. But, who knows, either one could win.

There is relevance to what is happening here. Within the California Democratic Party, progressives have suddenly developed a significant power base, quite possibly displacing both centrists and labor. If that is a bad thing, don’t worry. Given the primary system in California, they can’t do too much damage. If it is a good thing, then this is a real good thing, in my opinion, because we actually need to have more progressives, and we need to drop the centrist, incremental, line and be more strongly true to our values.

Personally, I’d like to see Feinstein stay to continue the fight against Trump. Personally, I’d like to see de Leon win, because we need to be shifting towards a more progressive landscape. Personally, I’d like to see the Republican lose this race, and that is going to happen for sure because there is no Republican in this race.

So everything in California is good. Stop whinging, y’all!

Meanwhile, on the hypothetical worst case scenario for flooding in California…

If an ARkStorm were to come to the US West Coast, this is what the flooding in California could look like:

The ARkStorm (Atmospheric River k for 1,000 Storm, but it is possible there is a biblical reference of some kind in there) is both a theoretical possibility and a reality. It is a theoretical possibility because one major “pineapple express” sort of storm, or an extra large one, can cause major flooding. A second one, and maybe a third one, in a short time, can cause MAJOR flooding. If an early storm, or two, causes huge snowpack development, followed by a couple of really wet storms, that that can cause MAJOR MAJOR flooding. You add it up, you get an ARkStorm.

It is a real thing, and not just theoretical, because it has been observed. It happened during the winter of December through January 1861-1862. It flooded like in that map, but worse, because the storm also affected states and provinces all along the coast from north of Vancouver to south of the Mexican border, and interior US states.

It was known as the Great Flood of 1862, and there has never since been a flood of that magnitude observed in the region.

It caused a lake to form that was 300 miles north- to south, about 20 miles wide, and up to 30 feet deep. Some towns were washed away or badly damaged and required extensive rebuilding. Some towns, such as Eldoradoville, were washed away and never rebuilt.

The total economic impact of a similar flood, were it to happen today, would be greater (maybe double) the economic impact of any of the larger earthquake scenarios that planners plan for. Similarly, the morbidity and mortality would reach levels exceeding a major earthquake. Much of the existing flood control infrastructure in California is built with the ARkStorm in mind. That, of course, will help. But the Great Storm of 1862 happened when hardly anybody lived in California.

The ARkStorm is thought to be a once in a century, maybe once in two century, event. However, the kind of storm system that would cause an ARkStorm is probably more common today under climate change, so maybe we can expect to see more of them.

I’ll speculate, however, that the worse possible ARkStrom may be somewhat less likely today because the build up of snowpack over the course of a few storms during early and mid winter is less likely, with global warming. So that reservoir of water to be washed off the mountains by subsequent storms in the series would be less. So that’s something.

Want to read more about ARkStorm? Click here for access to the USGS report.

Later this week, a pineapple express type storm will strike Southern California. This is not an ARkStorm, but a storm such as this week’s is one component of such a storm. So it is a good reminder. However, while this storm is not going to turn the interior valleys of California into the great lakes they want so much to be, it may cause heavy rain in areas recently denuded by massive fires. So, there is the threat of landslides.

#AtmosphericRiver event just getting started. Very prominent moisture plume extends from deep subtropics directly to California. Lull in rain right now, but intensity should pick up dramatically tomorrow (esp. Central Coast) as large-scale dynamics act on moisture. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/ZXvfbkXXkx

— Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) March 21, 2018

From Climate Signals, an organization that watches these things: Record breaking rain is expected. Note that this sort of atmospheric river event is the main cause of flooding in thatregion. This is part of an overall pattern of extreme rain events increasing with climate change. See THIS LINK for more on atmospheric rivers.

Feinstein is well liked and respected, but she is old-school, and still seems to believe in things like, Republicans can be talked to, and no matter how bad they are every single day, maybe some day one will do something that isn’t totally bone-headed and nefarious. It seems to be Senator Feinstein’s recent comment that maybe Trump could be a good president after all is the straw that set this particular camel’s back in motion, if you will pardon the mixing of metaphors. Also, Dianne Feinstein would be 91 in her last year in office, which is kind of old.

Personally, I think that some of Feinstein’s rhetoric is just the way Senators talk, they pretend things are normal when they are not, and they are all hauty tauty because they are the Senate, after all, and not the House.

One theory I’ve heard is that Feinstein, who is a bit old to run, will win, then in a year or so, step down and be replaced by an appointee of Jerry Brown. That is a really bad idea because it will be so obviously inside trading that it will backfire, and we don’t need that bad will going on right now. The best outcome is probably that de León simply wins. But, I’d love to hear from Californians what they think of all this?

For instance … it gets try, plants become vulnerable to fire. Fires happen denuding the dry landscape. Then it rains, and you get more severe floods together with landslides. You know the story because for years this has been the pattern in California.

But there is another roughly similar, or at least analogous, problem that is now being discussed. The levees that are mean to keep floodwaters contained in California were already in fairly bad shape. Prior to the drought, a significant number of levees were known to be at risk of failure should they actually get used. Many are thought unable to handle earthquakes as well.

But with the drought, several factors have probably made the levees weaker. This is an ongoing process and will continue as long as the drought continues.

From a letter to science, “Drought threatens California’s levees” by Farshid Vahedifard, Amir Aghakouchak, and Joe Robinson,

Prolonged droughts undermine the stability of levee systems by increasing water seepage through soil, soil cracking, soil strength reduction, soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition, and land subsidence and erosion . The sand-clay mixtures, which form the body of the levees and consequently the entire structure, can lose a substantial amount of strength under dry conditions. Furthermore, levees in California are built on peaty soils, and the extreme drought leads to greater SOC decomposition in these soils. A large amount of the global carbon stock is found in peaty soils, and ~25% of this estimated stock is predicted to diminish under extremely dry conditions. Oxidation of SOC under a prolonged drought can also accelerate land subsidence. In fact, 75% of the land subsidence across California is accredited to oxidation of SOC. Land subsidence can increase the risk of water rising over the top of the levees.

This happened in Australia. Remember the big flooding a couple of years back? Some of that was made worse by levees failing, and those levees had been weakened by prolonged drought. So this is not theoretical.