Arctic Blast Hits California

Fierce Storm Lashes State With Heavy Rain, Snow, Winds; Hundreds Of Thousands Lose Power

(CBS/AP)  A fierce arctic storm pounded California Friday with heavy rain, whipping winds and threats to drench mudslide-prone canyons already charred by wildfire.

Power already was knocked out to hundreds of thousands of residents, and the California Highway Patrol encouraged drivers to stay off the roads. Truckers were told to hunker down in blizzard-like conditions over mountain passes in the Sierra Nevada, and even some ski resorts closed.

Residents of burn areas such as the Malibu Hills and Orange County's Santiago Canyon Friday braced for the prospect of mud slides and rapid debris flows as three back-to-back storms took aim at the region.

L.A. County Fire Captain Bob Goldman spoke to CBS News warning, "that water's gonna come down in large volumes at high velocity and it's going to pick up anything in its path and that will be burned bush, trees, limbs, cars, couches."

The first of the three storms had been expected Thursday afternoon or evening but moved more slowly than anticipated and finally reached the Southland late Friday morning, reports CBS News station KCBS-TV.

"This could be the most significant rainfall across the Southland since January 2005," the NWS said in an advisory.

Authorities warned truckers traveling in blizzard-like conditions over mountain passes in the Sierra Nevada to hunker down, and some ski resorts closed because of hazardous conditions.

"It's a whiteout here," said Neil Erasmus, general manager of Ice Lake Lodge and Rainbow Lodge in Soda Springs. "We're plowing and grooming, plowing and grooming to keep us from being buried in."

Forecasters said the mountains could see 10 feet of snow by storms end. A trio of storms was expected throughout the state through the weekend.

Winds howled in the mountain areas, gusting up to 85 miles an hour, and in the Sacramento Valley, gusts topped 65 miles an hour, the strongest in a decade. CBS News correspondent Sandra Hughes reports that winds in mountain passes are reportedly gusting around 150 miles an hour - as high as a category four hurricane.

The California Highway Patrol cautioned drivers and encouraged them to stay off the roads. Parts of highways from the Sacramento area to the San Francisco Bay Area were closed because of debris blocking lanes. Ferry service in the San Francisco Bay was interrupted, as well.

"It isn't the weather that causes these collisions, it's the way people drive in them," said Sgt. Les Bishop, a spokesman for California Highway Patrol. "It's no secret that we've got a major storm rolling in, and it's everybody's responsibility to drive in a safe manner."

Discarded Christmas trees have been blown into the streets of San Francisco. Scaffoldings have toppled and garbage bins are overturned. Broken tree limbs are scattered across neighborhood streets.

Power was knocked out to hundreds of thousands of residents across Northern California, from the Bay Area to the Central Valley, creating problems on the freeways and causing delays at the airports.

"Because of the strong winds and heavy rains, restoration is taking longer than normal," said Darlene Chiu, a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas and Electric.

Homeowners rushed to stack sandbags around houses, and scurried to stock up on last-minute provisions.

"People were waiting in line for shopping carts," said Barbara Sholle, of Mammoth Lakes. Sholle went to the supermarket after receiving a call from the eastern Sierra ski town's reverse-911 system. She waited an hour to pay for her groceries amid a crush of residents.

In Southern California, the storm was gathering strength off the coast and was expected to strike the region by mid-afternoon, National Weather Service forecaster Andrew Rorke said.

"We're watching it really blossom on satellite," he said.

The storm was expected to pound Southern California with 2-4 inches of rain overnight in the valleys, with 6 inches possible in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and up to 12 inches overnight in the south-facing mountains from Ventura County south to San Diego.

"The last rain we had, it all went under my foundation and I don't like that. It was flowing under my house," said Cindy Darling, a receptionist at the Lake Arrowhead Chamber of Commerce who got sandbags from the local fire department to put above her house. "Everything up here's on a hill, so you have to do something."

Authorities in Orange County issued a voluntary evacuation order for residents of fire-scarred Modjeska and Silverado canyons beginning Friday afternoon. The order also calls for the mandatory evacuation of large animals from the mudslide-prone canyons, where 15 homes burned last fall in a 28,000-acre wildfire.

NWS forecasters warned that flooding threatens not just areas denuded by wildfire.

"This system could bring significant flooding concerns to other areas of Southern and Central California in addition to the burn areas," according to one NWS advisory. "The extended period of heavy rain will likely cause considerable urban and small stream flooding, with the potential for life-threatening flash flooding," KCBS reported.

Ocean tides were expected to swell to 30 feet, prompting the U.S. Coast Guard to caution boaters to remain in port.

No planes were taking off or landing at Sacramento International Airport because of high winds, but the airport remained open, said spokeswoman Gina Swankie.

The U.S. Forest Service issued an avalanche warning for Mount Shasta, in the Cascade Range in far Northern California.

"If you don't have to go out this weekend, it might be a nice weekend to stay at home after the holidays," said Frank McCarton, chief deputy director of the California Office of Emergency Services.

The state opened its emergency operations center Friday morning to coordinate storm response.

Riverside and San Bernardino counties have deployed swift-water rescue teams in case torrential rains bring flash floods and mudslides.

Several ski resorts weren't taking any chances, with Heavenly Mountain Resort at South Lake Tahoe, Alpine Meadows Ski Area in Tahoe City and Mt. Rose Ski Resort near Reno shutting down for the day.

"It's just really, really windy and we don't feel it's safe conditions for our operators or the public," Alpine Meadows spokeswoman Laura Ryan said.

Snow began falling in Tuolumne Meadows Thursday night, and a steady rain was pelting the Yosemite Valley by Friday morning, Gediman said.

Residents and local officials from Sacramento to Manteca planned to patrol the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta during high tide midday Friday to watch for levee breaks, but weren't predicting major floods, said Ron Baldwin, director of emergency operations for San Joaquin County.

"We're going to have to keep an eye on the water and the high tides but we're hopeful we can get through this without any problems," Baldwin said. "That said, no one's going home."

As the storms barreled into the West, a freeze in the East was subsiding. Florida's citrus growers might have been spared major damage, but it will be Saturday or later before strawberry farmers
know the extent of their losses.

A serious freeze would have been devastating to the Florida's citrus trees, already struggling from years of diseases and hurricanes. But most groves are in central and South Florida, where temperatures hovered in high 20s and low 30s. Trees can be ruined when temperatures fall to 28 degrees for four hours.

"It could have been far, far worse," said Terry McElroy, a spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

At Bill Baggs Cape Florida state park in Key Biscayne, iguanas were falling out of trees Thursday. The cold-blooded reptiles go into a sort of hibernation when temperatures get too low, even if
they are perched in branches. Most woke up when the weather warmed later in the day.

The animals are not native to Florida and are considered a nuisance, park officials told The Miami Herald.

[mediapreachr]

''singinrick:

Are all Christians as retarded as you?
Posted by jimfinster at 12:29 AM : Jan 05, 2008''
Do i feel frustration in your voice?
Being christian has nothing to do with how professionally qualified an individuals really is.
Personally I met intelligent christians,also met dumb as dirt ones too.
You have to be flexible and also polite too navigate easier in life.

[the74blaster]

"Anthropogenic warming is real, it is also miniscule. Using the MODTRAN facility maintained by the University of Chicago, the relationship between atmospheric CO2 content and increase in average global atmospheric temperature is shown in this graph.

Posted by t_barr,

This may be an interesting article, but I have several questions that you or it does not address.

1. When you change the concentration of carbon dioxide any change in global temperature is going to lag by years. All you have to do is look at when the sun reaches the summer solstice on June 20th. Our maximum average temperature occurs about a month later. Does this article address the issue of lagtime and if it does how long is it when dealing with atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide?

Does this article make the assumption that carbon dioxide is the only cause of global warming? If so then it is useless until it considers the effect of other factors that impact global warming.

[erasmus6]

There seems to be a lot of people in the U.S. that are paranoid.

They need their guns so they can protect themselves from their government. I realize that you have a problem with that government but I really don''t think you are going to need guns.

They need their guns because they don''t want the cops to be the only ones with them. What is it they are afraid of? They called it something but I can''t remember what it was. Never heard of it before.

And now there is this paranoia that thousands of people have come up with this huge hoax about global warming.

Notice a pattern?

[kevsan1]

My last post on this article since it looks like it will be disappearing soon. We have a much more pressing and dangerous situation we go through at least twice a year - the Taurid meteor complex. It''s the remains of a giant comets or comets and it takes us at least a week to cross it both times. Some parts of the Taurid stream are denser than others and nobody knows for sure how much debris is in it and where it is. The Tunguska 1908 event happened during the summer Taurids. Astronomers Clube and Napier fear we are entering the time when we will be encountering the denser debris field, increasing our chances of being hit and there is no real plan to deal with it.

[kevsan1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_conspiracy_theory

*A Washington Post article describing the views of global warming skeptics quotes climatologist William M. Gray as having "his own conspiracy theory," saying, "He has made a list of 15 reasons for the global warming hysteria. The list includes the need to come up with an enemy after the end of the Cold War, and the desire among scientists, government leaders and environmentalists to find a political cause that would enable them to ''organize, propagandize, force conformity and exercise political influence. Big world government could best lead (and control) us to a better world!''"

*Tim Ball, former professor at the University of Winnipeg, wrote in a February 2007 interview, "You%u2019ve got this incestuous little group that is controlling the whole process both through their publications and the IPCC. I%u2019m not a conspiracy theorist and I hate being even pushed toward that, but I think there is a consensus conspiracy that%u2019s going on."

*Bilderberg Group also named as possibly behind it since their main goal is to control the world.

[clestes-2009]

I am still waiting for someone to explain to me

1. who is behind the hoax

2. how was it perpetraded to the extend that 15,000
climate scientist from all over the world have been fooled, not to mention the Nobel committee and the 1200 UN scientists

Until someone can actually answer those questions with facts likes names and dates your posts are not worth the effort of typing a resonse.

GOOD LUCK!

"NASA Mission Detects Significant Antarctic Ice Mass Loss Scientists were able to conduct the first-ever gravity survey of the entire Antarctic ice sheet using data from the joint NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). This comprehensive study found the ice sheet''s mass has decreased significantly from 2002 to 2005."
This report is from 2006. The Antarctic ice mass is shrinking, albeit at a slower rate than the Arctic.

[kevsan1]

Al Gore Debates Global Warming:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XDI2NVTYRXU

20/20 Stossel- GMAB - Al Gore Global Warming Debate:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1Ezn8zEdMzU

[mcvet]

Go to bed...dummy....


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by poopusbuttus at 03:48 AM : Jan 05, 2008
+ report abuse

You nazi''s are so sad! That''s all you have left isn''t it? TRY as you will to be Superior to others this is all you have left. ROFLMAO I wonder if you losers know how stupid you sound with it?? EVERYONE know''s you losers are attempting to act like the Reich Propaganda Ministry but you are failing... badly. ROFLMAO Sieg Heil Bush!! ROFLMAO

[mrmazerati]

You know, I;m getting really sick and tired of hearing about a "global warming swindle." Climatologists aren''t motivated to "swindle." If they were, they would become politicians. Scientists can disagree over the data, they can be proven right or wrong to one degree or another, but swindlers, they ain''t. Enough of these paranoid conspiracy theories, already.

[iceman_1960]

"Iceman_1960, Oh God, what ***! There isn"t anything that isn"t predicted in the bible. Just like Nostradomous, you can read anything into the words you want... Religion has NO PLACE in science, so don"t babble at me about the bible and climate change!"
- Posted by clestes at 09:23 PM : Jan 04, 2008

I was joking about that -- finding Global Warming in Biblical Prophecy.

USAToday realized that.

You"re right; if George Bush started breaking wind during his State of the Union Address, it would take me about 2 minutes to find a Bible verse that foretold it.

[iceman_1960]

Technical Bump.

[Website suffering scripting errors again]

[samrensho]

Heck, they''ve all got their obese butts in their gas guzzling SUV''s so who cares.

[abdoul_pasha]

I`m sorry for the natural disaster. Here it only rains.

[dsr57]

Ha ha ha ha ha

[poopusbuttus]

Posted by brianbwb at 03:29 AM : Jan 05, 2008


Go to bed...dummy....

[brianbwb-2009]

"...there is no friggin way that a few more years will determine the fate of the planet based on the contribution the USA makes in CO2." Posted by t_barr

Skip CO2, we are poisoning our living space with toxic chemical waste, and have done so for decades. Maybe you''re too young to remember when Pittsburgh was dark at noon from the pollution, when it was life threatening to eat Great Lakes fish from mercury dumped into the water. Maybe you haven''t noticed the rise in the price of Pacific salmon, because the places they breed no longer support their life.

We have the tech to correct this, but those who worry that their profit margins are more important than life, continue to advocate "wait and see". This is more like Bush''s "the science ain''t in on this yet" BS, when even a cretin such as he should remember what Pittsburgh used to look like, and couldn''t understand "science" if they drew the pictures in a copy of "My Pet Goat".

So, continue to sit in the middle of the train tracks, until you know that those lights coming at you are really a train. By then you won''t have enough time to get out of the way.

[erasmus6]

"What is happening today is much much faster. Drastically so. 100 years is a millisecond to the earth. Species are going extinct at a rate that is similar to the dinos." posted by clestes

It is amazing, isn''t it, how people can''t see what is happening? Of course the reason they can''t see it is because they don''t WANT to see it. The fact that they think it is a hoax even when 15,000 world climate scientist all agree about global warming is proof of that. Afterall if they (the idiots) did believe, then that would mean they would have to get off their fat a-s-s-es and do something. That would be too much work for them, they would have to make some changes in their lifestyle. They just figure that it isn''t going to happen in their lifetime so they don''t need to worry about it. They don''t care that their grandchildren or great grandchildren are going to suffer.

A book came out in 1999 by David Suzuki and Holly Dressel and in it they said that we had almost reached the point of no return. They also said that scientists had been trying for years to get the word out but the media would not print it. WHY? Because reporting on CELEBRITIES was more important. People did not want to hear about that, they want to hear about celebrities so that is what they print.

We still would be in the dark if it wasn''t for Al Gore.

[rudy654-2009]

For those who seem to think that what is happening in CA is proof against global warming, think again. The last few months CA was in a drought situation. Now all of a sudden the State is inundated with one storm after another after experiencing one dry month after another. That is not a normal winter. It is unusual in the extreme and seriously dangerous. So don''t try to be so superficial as to use this as some kind of "proof" fitting only the Limboog man''s philosophy. Global warming has been demonstrated as a fact, and the results are being felt even now with all these extremes.

[dsr57]

RUN B.I.T.C.H.E.S RUN FOR YOUR EFFING LIFE ! ! !