South Wind

 An Unusually Rainy Day in Cairo, Egypt - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman

fliesinyoureyes.com

In California’s Central Valley a south wind means rain.  Normally from late March through early November a high pressure system with its perpetual northwest wind settles over the West and drives all precipitation from the Pacific Ocean into the Canada and the Pacific Northwest.  From November through March the high pressure weakens and moves eastward, giving the San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada Mountains a chance for rain and snow.

Low pressure weather systems spell relief for Mediterranean climates.  Unlike high pressure systems which spin clockwise and bring dry, sunny weather, these winds swirl in a counter clockwise motion.  As a low approaches the coast of California from the Pacific, the leading edge winds are southerly.  The low barometric pressure within the system draws moist air from the Pacific and sends it skyward where it condenses into water and falls to earth.  As the storm continues eastward, the winds relent as the center of the system passes overhead.  Finally, the trailing edge with its reverse northerly wind signals the conclusion of the storm and a return to fair weather.

This winter the south winds did not come to California.  Day after day the weather was delightful with sunny skies, wispy clouds moving overhead, and the same relentless northwest wind.  The mountains were snowless and the lowlands bone dry.  California was rolling the dice again, struggling to capture enough water behind its limited reservoir capacity to survive the drought.  Fortunately, last year’s rainy season brought near record precipitation which kept reservoirs unusually full, but could the state withstand two consecutive dry years or three or four?

Then in April, long after major storms come, the south winds arrived.  Over a period of five days, two inches of rain fell on the San Joaquin Valley, five feet of snow at the local ski area, and even more of the white stuff in the High Sierra. 

The local paper, The Fresno Bee, which never saw a cup that was not half empty, downplayed the turn of events as too little too late.  Due to the risky weather patterns of the American West, one would think the area’s major newspaper would support the agricultural industry and advocate public works projects to provide a steady, predictable source of water.  However, its left leaning editors and reporters are content to harp on us for watering lawns and flushing toilets.

In California we should save for the not-so-rainy days, not just hope and pray for rain and snow.  Conservation is an essential part of the solution, but in a state of 38 million people and rising, it will only go so far, because no politician or advocacy group can summon the south wind.

Dams and Saving Accounts

Ferns and Snow on Milford Trek, New Zealand - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman
fliesinyoureyes.com

2010 and 2011 brought near record levels of precipitation to California leaving the Sierra Nevada's packed with snow and the reservoirs overflowing. It looked like another banner year when over an inch of rain fell in the Central Valley during the normally dry month of October. But since then this area may well as be the Atacama Desert, for not one drop of rain has fallen. For an ecosystem which each year survives on five or six large winter storms that deposit the entire next year’s water supply in the form of snow in the mountains, it is a dire situation.

California’s owes its sustainability and prosperity to a network of dams which capture water flowing from the mountains. They are savings accounts built of concrete and earth which collect excess water to be used during the dry months of April through November. If enough water remains at the end of the growing season, then it can be used to tide the state over in times of drought.

Most dam building ceased in California by the 1960’s when the state’s population hovered between 15 and 20 million people. Now there are 37 million people vying for the same amount of finite resources. Efforts to expand capacity of existing structures or build new dams have been met with fierce resistance from environmental groups which advocate extreme conservation and a return to 19th century levels of water utilization. Other than asking 35 million people to leave the state, it is unclear how this can be done other than asking Californians to revert to the era of the noble savage.

Ever since 1986 when Marc Reisner’s book, Cadillac Desert, excoriated the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers, the environmental lobby has used it as a manifesto to attack public works projects which made modern life in the American West possible. To make his case as compelling as possible, Reisner resorted to ad hominem attacks by detailing the sex life of Floyd Dominy, former Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, who was instrumental in dam construction in the 1950’s and 1960’s. But even sex could not convince the public that flood control, hydroelectric power, and full reservoirs are a bad idea, so environmentalists exploited laws to stymie progress by shielding their arguments behind the scales of the snail darter.

Like precious water which runs unused to the sea, the government refuses to save tax revenue for rainy days. Every year politicians roll the dice hoping Pacific storms will come, and the few remaining Californians who pay taxes make good on the state’s debts. Analysts base projections on the best case scenario, an over optimistic Farmer’s Almanac of economics that predicts abundant tax receipts every year. If these rosy forecasts fall short, the farmer shares irrigation water with the delta smelt, and welfare benefits are transformed to entitlements.

Once again it is time to grab the spade and turn the soil in the garden to prepare for spring planting. Unlike the farmers of the Central Valley who feed much of the world, I dig, plant, water, and harvest for a hobby. I do pay taxes for a living, however, and am fed up with politicians who wished they lived in Sweden’s cradle to grave society where the average personal income tax rate is 58%, the corporation tax rate is 26%, and the VAT is 25%. Pollyanna runs the treasury and weather central in Washington, D.C., Sacramento, and most of the state capitals. Spend now and often, let the water out of the dams, to hell with saving, and hope for the best!