If this is El Nino, I'm scared

[pinkytoe]

We were told El Nino would create some hairy weather this fall in our area and apparently it has started. Historic flooding, tornado alerts today...Scary stuff..

[Ultralight]

It could get weird! And tragic...

Are you contemplating which problems could most effect you and thinking of ways to prepare?

[rodeosweetheart]

And the sharks are coming in really, really close, which is weird and also scary.

[CathyA]

It's a scary time.

[Williamsmith]

Not as scary as the ice age was. Did you know we have had climate change for hundreds of millions of years but only in the last few years have humans believed they could gather together in one big unified effort that could regulate the temperature of the earth and lessen the effects of catastrophic natural events. I can't even get my wife to agree on the setting of our thermostat. It is a scary time.

[bae]

~10,000 years ago, the land I live on was buried under a mile+ sheet of ice. The mini tectonic plate we are on is still rebounding from the weight of that ice, at a rate faster than sea level rise.

[Gardenarian]

Hi Pinkytoe - where are you located?

The El Nino won't have much effect on Southern Oregon - warmer winter, possibly.

I was in California during the last big El Nino (97? 98?) and remember lots of mudslides. With it being so very dry there for the past 6 years, it's hard to predict what the effect of a lot of rain will be as to flooding, slides, etc. I hope it increases the snow pack.

[mschrisgo2]

Well, I'm in California, in the San Francisco Bay area, and I'm pretty sure we are going to see flooding in the urban creeks and low-laying areas, mud slides in all of the recently burned areas, which are huge, and a LOT of downed trees, which means significant power outages. (The pine and redwood tree trunks are shriveled; they are dying.)

As I was driving to work this morning, I was considering alternate routes. I drive along a natural marsh for 11 miles- not really sure there is an alternate route, but I need to find out before I need it.

Then I get to my school and realize it is actually in a rather significant flood plain. Yikes! Why do we do this in California? "oh, we can build here, it only floods every 30 years, no problem" ?!?!?

(oh, and that snow pack? can't _increase_ it because it is totally gone, have to start from scratch now.)

[pinkytoe]

We're in Central Texas where it seems to be either extreme - drought or floods. However, the intensity of some of the recent rain is crazy - 15" in two hours. At least in my little bitty lifetime frame of reference it seems unusual.

[Rogar]

I read the other day that Death Valley actually flooded and parts of the National Park are closed due to road damage. It is about the driest looking place I've ever visited, although heavy rains are not unheard of. My impression is that weather forecasters tend to be a little over dramatic and out here in the west we may have more wet weather or catastrophic weather than usual, but not unprecedented. One news story referred to this year's El Nino as a Godzilla El Nino and I started to wonder what would happen if the Godzilla El Nino met the Arctic Vortex?