Random Ramblings: Aerial Wildland Firefighting

I have blogged about aerial wildland firefighting since 2009. I am not a firefighter and am not a pilot, just an interested bystander who wants to learn more and share what I learn here. Join me here as I blog on the aircraft and the pilots who fight wildland fires from the air in support of crews on the ground. I also blog on concerns affecting fire crews on the ground as well as other aviation and meteorology issues. Learn what it takes to do jobs that are staffed by the best of the best.

Monday, January 02, 2023

Follow-up: West Coast USA Atmospheric River Event Jan 1 update

I want to follow-up on my December 30th post reporting on the December 31, 2022 to January 1 2023 Atmospheric River Event (ARE) on the west coast of the United States. In my December 30th post, I focused on the Sacramento California area, understanding that this ARE impacted other areas of California. I want to begin by reminding everyone about the importance of following your local emergency management agency and signing up to receive alerts. In addition, your local Weather Forecast Office of the National Weather Service provides warnings such as flash flood warnings that you may receive on your smart phones, known as Wireless Emergency Alerts.

I begin by sharing a screen shot I took of the Sacramento California area from Apple Maps on my iMac. I hope that I captured some of the areas that were severely impacted by the flooding rains that hit the Sacramento area this past weekend. I normally save images from Google Earth when I want to show a map of an area that I am referring to in this blog. In this case, I wanted to show CA Highway 99 on a map and it was easier to take a screen shot from Apple Maps to show you some of the highways. Sections of CA Highway 99 were among the roads and highways that were flooded over the weekend. Evacuations were ordered in the Point Pleasant area (south of Sacramento) on January 1st. As I write this on January 2nd, I am uncertain if this evacuation order is still in place.

Three day rainfall totals for the three days ending on January 1st ranged from 1.5 inches to over 9 inches (see the video below), with snow in the higher elevations. More rain is forecast for later this week (January 2 through 7). The storm resulted in power outages.

Sacramento CA area, screenshot from Apple Maps

The National Public Radio affiliate in Sacramento, CapRadio, has a nice report on the Sacramento Storm on January 1st (but no video). I like to see images and videos so I am embeding a video from KCRA in Sacramento (January 1, approximately 5:30 PM PST), it is over 16 minutes that I thought that some of you might find useful. I got a lot out of this video because I wanted an overview of the heavy rain fall and resultant flooding over the weekend. I got this from watching the entire video. Of course, the shots of the flooding will mean more to those of you who are familiar with the area.

For those who are short of time and have specific concerns here are some approximate time points in the video in minutes:seconds: