slgwv's photos with the keyword: flooding

Aftermath of flooding from spring a year ago!

Our informal name for this unnamed, and usually dry, basin. Part of the "inner valley" basin, which is also flooded, can be seen over the low saddle in the middle distance. Looking west; the snow-clad mountains are the Carson Range. The summit to the left is Slide Mountain, while Mount Rose (10,776 ft/3285 m) is the high point just right of center. It's the centerpiece of the Mt. Rose Wilderness area. Reno, Nevada, lies in the basin off to the right of the pic.

Another small basin in the Virginia Range above our house which we informally call "Dog Bone Pond," due to its shape as seen from above (leftmost inset). Because of the extraordinary winter the basin filled to a level not seen in decades. The flooded bushes in the foreground are sagebrush, and some junipers around the edges were even flooded (left-center inset). The basin was completely dry in June '09 (right-center inset), and held only a little water in February 2010 (rightmost inset). Looking pretty much south.

Junipers in "Dog Bone Pond" in the Virginia Range, from the extraordinary winter this year. Looking east; the partly snowclad main crest of the range can be seen on the skyline to the right.

Another view of this small officially unnamed basin that's been filled by the extraordinary winter. It was completely dry in May '09 (leftmost inset), almost dry in Feb 2011 (center inset), and completely dry again in May '12 (rightmost inset).

Formed by Oroville Dam on the Feather River, California, near (yes!) the town of Oroville. (Great gold rush name, too--"oro" = "gold" in Spanish. ;) The reservoir had been extremely hard hit by the drought, and there were lots of earnest prognostications that it would take _years_ to recover, if ever. Well, it took one season. In mid-February >100,000 cubic feet per second of water (something over 2800 m^3/sec, if I've done the arithmetic right) was pouring down the Feather, and not only did the reservoir fill, it spilled over the concrete bypass spillway to the point that heavy damage ensued. The middle section (all concrete!) was completely eroded out. Fortunately, the hard metamorphic bedrock resisted further erosion, once the loose surface material was washed away, and the overflow established itself in a bedrock channel--looked kinda cool, actually, like a natural slot canyon. The dam and its clobbered spillway made national news in the US. Dunno about overseas, but there are gobs of videos all over the net; here's one of a series done by the same aerial photographer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2aD53JIDzo He also has one of reopening the spillway a couple of weeks ago, to the tune of 35K cfs: www.youtube.com/watch?v=65TMuhsKuVM&t=155s This is being done to lower the reservoir to make room for the spring runoff! The video also gives a good view of the eroded-out middle of the spillway. So, what we're looking at in this pic is the newly lowered level, from its all-time high. The driftwood on the shore below consists largely of trees eroded out from the shore by wave action at the high water level. Even now, the water level is _still_ higher than it's been in years; note the flooded tree. Note also that in the satellite view this inlet is completely dry! And there's still lots of snow waiting to melt in the Sierra--

Another example of the extraordinary snowpack this year. This area is transitional between the Sierra Nevada proper and the Cascades, starting around Lassen Peak about 40 miles north, and altho it's lower in elevation than the High Sierra it received a _lot_ of snow last season. The insets show more typical stream flow in Dec 2010 (left), and during the height of the drought in Jan 2015 (right). The gray dome with white highlights to the right of the creek is Soda Rock. It is composed of travertine, a spring-deposited limestone, and figures in the creation myth of the Maidu, the local Native American tribe, as the place where their ancestors entered the world above.

Looking to the right from the same photo-stance as this pic: www.ipernity.com/doc/289859/44673778 Soda Rock is now across the creek to the left. The inset photo is from the more normal flow year of 2010. The flood has turned the channel downstream into a pretty continuous string of class V rapids.

This is maybe a mile downstream from the previous pictures www.ipernity.com/doc/289859/44673778 www.ipernity.com/doc/289859/44673774 and is just upstream of the confluence with Spanish Creek, said confluence marking the start of the East Branch of the North Fork of the Feather River (yes, that _is_ the official name! Really.) The leftmost insert shows the flow in Dec 2010, at a more normal level; the middle insert shows the flow during the drought, in Jan 2015, and the rightmost insert is a close-up of the spectacular rapid thru the rocks. The bedrock here is a hard, vertically foliated metamorphic rock that is almost at right angles to the current. The highway on the left is California State Route 89.

Another view of this year's flooding in the small tectonic basin we call the "inner valley", looking south. Insets show this same general view in previous years. In March 2011 (leftmost) there was some water, but more usually the basin has been completely dry, as in May 2012 (center) and May 2014 (rightmost). The amount of water this season has been extraordinary.