CAP/CCCC researchers Mike Dettinger, Dan Cayan and Kelly Redmond are working with a coordinated USGS/NOAA team to examine California's preparedness for a cataclysmic flood. The name for this scenario is ARk Storm and it is expected to run during April 2011.
A Winter Storm Scenario for USGS Multihazards Demonstration Project
F.M. Ralph, M. Dettinger, D. Cox, and L. Jones
In 2008, the USGS Multihazards Demonstration Project (MHDP) brought together over 300 experts to create "ShakeOut" the most comprehensive earthquake scenario and the largest earthquake drill ever.
The MHDP is now preparing for its next major public project, "ARkStorm," a scenario to address massive West Coast storms that rival those that severely impacted California in December 1861 and January 1862. The MHDP has assembled experts from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (MOAA), US Geological Survey (USGS), Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps), the State of California, and many other organizations to design a large, but scientifically plausible, hypothetical storm. The storm will originate near the equator, resulting in an Atmospheric River (AR) of moisture that will grow large, gain speed, and slam into the US West Coast with intense winds and rains for a prolonged period of several weeks. The task of ARkStorm is to elevate the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property, and ecosystems posed by extreme winter storms on the US West Coast. The ARkStorm scenario will provide emergency responders, resource managers, and the public a reality check on what is historically possible.
To help prepare, experts will examine in detail the possibility, cost and consequences of floods, landslides, coastal erosion and inundation, debris flows, environmental consequences like pollution and extirpation of endangered species, and physical damage possibilities like bridge scour, road closures, dam failure, property loss, and levee system collapse. Consideration will be given to catastrophic disruption to the water supply to California; the resulting impacts on groundwater pumping, seawater intrusion, water supply degradation, and land subsidence; and a detailed examination of climatic change forces that could exacerbate the problems.
Experts from the California Applications Program are providing leadership in the design and production of the detailed description of the extreme storm conditions at the core of this exercise, and with overall planning of the broader program.
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SUPER STORM FEARS GROW
From the article by Dana Bartholomew:
First come the wildfires. Then the extended cloudbursts. Then the furies of mud, rock and debris that roar out of the San Gabriel foothills. And in the floods' wake, every few decades, rage death and destruction across Southern California. "The debris flows, reported as mudslides, pick up speed like a water-born avalanche coming down off the mountains - moving at 40 miles per hour picking up boulders like minivans and sweeping into the city," said Lucy Jones, chief scientist for the Multi-Hazards Demonstration Project at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena. "In (1934 and) 1978 it happened in La Crescenta ... and it'll happen again." California may be caught in the throes of a years-long drought, but Jones and other crisis experts are now planning for a flood of Noah's Ark proportions. Worried about the long-term effects of climate change, the USGS and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration are co-creating a scenario for a cataclysmic flood across the Golden State.
(Los Angeles Daily News, July 2009) -
ARkStorm: A winter you wouldn't believe (but should)
From Discovery's Global Science Blog, an article by John D. Cox:
To test the weather disaster preparedness of the nation's most populous state, meteorologists are conjuring up a pair of hypothetical winter storms that could wash over both northern and southern California just days apart. Among the more remarkable aspects of the "ARkStorm" project is that, from a meteorological point of view, the scenario is entirely plausible. About all that separates the developing scenario and the real thing is random luck.
(Discovery Channel, July 2009)