Made for Flash Floods

Some basic knowledge of the region’s geography and weather patterns helps us answer the first question. Headwaters of the Guadalupe River Basin are perfectly positioned in a region already known as “Flash Flood Ally”, within a sprawling swath across central Texas extending both west and northeast of Austin. The Guadalupe River flows toward the east and curves southeast for nearly 250 miles in a relatively narrow drainage basin from its headwaters, starting in Hill country and the Edwards Plateau west of Kerrville, spreading onto its floodplain, and finally spilling into San Antonio Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Average annual precipitation in Hill Country is about 30 inches. Average July precipitation is just over 2 inches, sandwiched between May/June and Sep/Oct peaks. (Average annual precipitation in Texas varies from 10 inches near El Paso in the far west to 60 inches around Houston in the far east, which leaves this targeted region midway between the state’s contrasting dry and wet climates.)

The surrounding Edwards Plateau is underlain by limestone rock formations and thin soils with infiltration capacities that can be quickly overwhelmed by occasional high-intensity rainfall events experienced in these parts of Texas. Sheet flow down the hillsides is rapidly concentrated into narrow channel flows at the bottom of the slopes. According to the USGS, “The Guadalupe River Basin is relatively long and narrow, with a length of approximately 237 miles and a maximum width of about 50 miles. The basin has a drainage area of approximately 6,700 square miles (mi²).” The entire basin has been growing in population to over 600,000. But those headwaters in that steeper northwestern part of the basin are most prone to flash flooding.

Texas flash flood events often begin in the Gulf of Mexico, where ocean water temperatures soar above 80°F during summer months. Such warm water evaporates into warm overlying air masses that have a high capacity to hold water vapor. (Dew points as high as 80°F are sometimes recorded along the Texas coast from summer into fall.) Those air masses are not only full of water, but are charged with tremendous amounts of stored latent heat, waiting to be released when the vapor condenses to form clouds. The muggy air columns often swirl inland into Mexico or directly into Texas, sometimes imbedded in tropical disturbances.

That is exactly what happened during the recent flash floods. After Tropical Storm Barry moved over land and dissipated above the Mexican highlands, its moisture teamed up with additional remnant moisture drawn in from the warm East Pacific (from the other side of southern Mexico). The juiced-up air mass drifted north and became concentrated in pockets caught in a weak unstable low-pressure circulation that stalled over central Texas. Summer surface heating and additional forced lifting up the Edwards Plateau in what is known as Hill Country (which rises up over 3,000 feet) provided the extra instability necessary to build towering severe thunderstorms and local torrential cloudbursts.

The National Weather Service forecast this general pattern days ahead of time and even issued flash flood watches for the region, but these were not the kind of steady and widespread precipitation events common to weather fronts or tropical storms. Many regions of Texas (and some near the worst flooding) received little or no rain, leaving those residents to wonder what was the big deal. Every local Texan has experienced this typical convective summer hit-and-miss instability. Forecasters can warn of scattered thunderstorms and severe weather, but forecast models can’t precisely pinpoint which exact hill or neighborhood will receive the drenching until the local event becomes imminent. Still, NWS tools that include increasingly accurate high-resolution models helped to forecast and follow the massive mesoscale convective system that was developing. Rain rates up to 2-4 inches/hour and local storm totals of 6-8 inches were forecast, though one spot would eventually receive up to a foot or more. Alerts were elevated to flash flood warnings hours ahead as storm locations and severities became more apparent. When individual storms further strengthened and threats increased, wording in the screeching flood warnings became more urgent and desperate, heightened to considerable elevated risk, and finally to a flash flood emergency, which is very rare. (Note the summary of these warnings at the end of this story.) But the communication didn’t make it from the NWS to the victims.  

Gravity took over from there, driving cloudbursts on to the sloping surfaces; sheets of water from above landed to become sheet flow headed to the nearest rill or gully. Within minutes, headwater tributary channels that slice through Hill Country served as efficient conduits as they converged to deliver copious streamflow downhill into the Guadalupe River. Depending on the location, river levels are estimated to have increased from a mere trickle to over 25 feet in less than an hour.

Holiday camps were filled with visitors and some locals who were either out of range of the warnings or had temporarily discarded their phones to celebrate their peaceful weekend in nature. The apparent lack of weather radios and absence of sirens exacerbated the dearth of emergency information, leaving oblivious and vulnerable locals and campers in the dark until the floodwaters were surging around them and it was too late; victims didn’t even have time to make the 5- or 10-minute walk up to higher ground that would have saved them. Hundreds were first stranded and then swept away in another definition of the perfect storm. As the hours passed, peak Guadalupe River floodwaters raced downstream, but passing by populations that were receiving the warnings. Scores of upstream victims, who were incorporated into the cascading flood debris, may never be found in the massive downstream deposits. It seems somehow appropriate that, after being caught in reservoirs and behind dams, the Guadalupe’s floodwaters are headed back to the Gulf of Mexico where all this started, perhaps to evaporate again and continue the hydrologic cycle, or even to fuel the next flash flood event.

Learning from Our Mistakes

There is always a lot of finger-pointing following a disaster such as this. For instance, poorly informed individuals have even been misled with misguided stories about cloud seeding. But cloud seeding efforts have been shown to—at best—increase precipitation from preexisting rain clouds by up to 10%, while no additional precipitation is often the result. And the only company (Rainmaker) that was seeding up to a hundred miles away halted its operations two days before the storms hit. As more information pours in (and it is always easier to second-guess as Monday-morning quarterbacks), what at first seemed to be a tragic and unavoidable series of events may have been averted with some simple precautions: by making sure the camps had access and paid attention to emergency warning systems. A few functional weather radios and/or a siren (such as the one installed just downstream) may have saved hundreds of lives. Relocation of the camps slightly uphill from their previous locations and farther from the riverbed will likely be a future remedy. After all, the greatest number of lives lost were in the epicenter of “flash flood alley”, in the heart of the state that averages the greatest number of flash flood victims each year.

While it has earned our attention, this heartbreaking event represents a motivating opportunity to reevaluate where we develop on floodplains and where we live and set up camp to make sure we aren’t the next victims. And if we travel beyond communication range of the outside world, a good map and some simple research ahead of time could determine whether or not we return safely to share our adventures. It is also an opportunity to recall that for every one-degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature, our atmospheric sponge has the capacity to hold 3-4% more water vapor. In a world of increasing temperatures and hydroclimatic whiplash, what goes up must eventually come down, and this helps to explain why severe rain events and their floods are becoming more common: our atmosphere is loading with greater amounts of water and energy that must be distributed. Meanwhile, we are compelled to ask if such a tragedy could happen in California.               

Are Californians the Next Victims?

It is a bit ironic how both Texas and California exhibit landscapes that suffer from long periods of debilitating drought, punctuated by torrential downpours and catastrophic flash floods. Within hours in both states, concerns about over drafting groundwater resources, lowering water tables, and dried-up springs turn to saving victims from dangerous flooding. Our Golden State harbors a wide range of flash flood environments, especially after fires strip off protective vegetation. All 58 counties have experienced some sort of severe flooding. Look for steep slopes and a lack of vegetation in places that receive sporadic precipitation and you are in flash flood country. Add loose materials weathered on those slopes, and you are in mud and debris flow country. You will find them scattered across the southwest states and you will hear about the latest unsuspecting victims that were swept to their deaths. I have experienced my share of these violent events and I wrote about a few of them in my California Sky Watcher book. I even started my academic career by studying their impacts on landscapes around the White Mountains along the California/Nevada border. But the conditions that lead to our flash flood events are usually quite different from Texas.

During our southwest summer “monsoon”, we only occasionally get incursions of warm, moist air masses from Mexico. Our summer moisture usually sneaks in from the Sonoran Desert or the Gulf of California rather than directly from the Gulf of Mexico, mainly impacting our inland mountains and deserts. Check out our website story from my storm chasing a few years ago. During late summer, rare tropical disturbances (check this video) might even drift up into California (such as Hilary in August, 2023) as they die out. But our “monsoon” airmasses hardly ever arrive as charged up as those Gulf of Mexico surges into Texas. So, our summer thunderstorms are usually more isolated and less severe, producing very little summer rain on the average, even in our desert and mountain areas.

These towering storms are more like afternoon and evening oddities that must build and maintain themselves above smaller specific watersheds in order to power localized flash floods and debris flows. But their rarity is also what makes them dangerous, when they unexpectedly pop up and generate violent flows that can briefly submerge canyons and cough out material on to alluvial fans before spreading into adjacent valleys. Partly cloudy with a chance of scattered afternoon thunderstorms, and a high of 105 or more, can suddenly turn into a violent two-inch cloudburst and deadly flash flood within an hour.

The aprons of alluvial fans that stretch out from the base of our inland mountains, particularly across Southern California and into the Basin and Range, are made of successive mud and debris flows, recalling thousands of years of rare but violent floods that charged out of individual drainage basins long before our developments and infrastructures covered them. On average, these summer events become wetter and more frequent as we travel east into Arizona and New Mexico. Much of the desert southwest east of the Colorado River experiences peak annual rainfall during the summer months. That is why rangers and other officials close some trails in places such as the Zion Canyon Narrows when hit-and-miss storms erupt into the forecast.

California’s greatest floods are usually associated with our winter storms’ atmospheric rivers. In contrast to the Texas summer downpours, these larger systems that sweep off the Pacific are forecast long before they come ashore so that we can prepare for them, they bring widespread rain and snow, and they may hang around for days. But the danger and damage can easily exceed many billions of dollars as flooding ravages multiple drainage basins, tests our dams and other flood control infrastructures, and spreads across hundreds of square miles of floodplains after spilling out of surrounding mountains.

California’s most powerful series of atmospheric rivers and resulting megaflood (December 1861 – February 1862) not only lasted for more than a month, but inundated many of our lowlands, including the Central Valley and Los Angeles Basin into Orange County. This event is used as an example for what researchers call the ARkStorm (Atmospheric River 1,000), which is likely to return to do more damage than “The Big One”, the massive earthquake that is overdue along the San Andreas Fault Zone. As examples, floodplains along the Yuba, Russian, and Pajaro Rivers, most rivers pouring out of the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada, and most of the Central Valley and Southern California coastal plains are all at risk. Intense downpours that become imbedded in atmospheric rivers and move over burn scars have also powered scores of local mud and debris flows, such as in Montecito in 2018, which killed 23 people. So, we can certainly learn from the Texas tragedies, but we are certainly not Texas (interpret as you wish).

What we share with Texas are the increasing amounts of moisture and energy in our atmosphere, warning us how such extreme events are becoming more likely each year. Instead of building developments in harm’s way, we can prepare by leaving spreading basins open at the base of our mountain ranges to catch runoff and allow the pooled water to gradually soak into our aquifers. We can also build more debris basins at strategic locations along water courses to catch debris flows before they invade our settlements and destroy infrastructures. We also share serious concerns about how recent budget cuts and layoffs at NOAA and the National Weather Service will lead to the unnecessary loss of life and property in the future. Let’s all hope that we will be smart enough to prepare for the coming extreme weather events so we won’t have to write future stories about similar tragedies in California.

Continue below to find some additional sources and a timeline of the Texas flood warnings.

Relevant links:

Guadalupe River Basin Poster

NY Times Texas Flood Sequence

Guadalupe River Rainwater Harvesting

From InFRM: Interagency Flood Risk Management/USGS

Daniel Swain Video at Weather West

Some California Links:
Note how the first two videos look hauntingly similar to the Guadalupe, Texas flash flood. 

The Whitewater River flooded after Tropical Storm Hilary (August, 2023) dropped torrential rains on the San Bernardino Mountains.

Here’s dramatic video showing what resulted when a relatively warm atmospheric river dumped heavy rain on low-elevation Sierra Nevada snowpacks (March 10, 2023), all part of a series of deluges that eventually broke California’s twenty-plus-years megadrought.

A Story about the Megaflood of 1862 and preparing for another.

Burned Watershed Geohazards from the California Department of Conservation.

Central Valley Flood Protection Plan

National Weather Service Budget Cut Impacts

Late July Update: Summer monsoon thunderstorms continued to generate flash flooding across New Mexico into late July, 2025. The mountain village of Ruidoso was repeatedly flooded when heavy cloudbursts poured over upstream burn scars. Here are just two examples of videos floating around out there.     

Here is a summary (from media sources) of some emergency warnings from the National Weather Service leading up to and during the Guadalupe River flash flood event:

Thursday, July 3

The National Weather Service had issued several flood watches for counties in central Texas on Thursday, July 3, warning of the possibility of rain and flash flooding through Friday, but these were not emergency alerts.

11:41 p.m., Bandera County — NWS sends a warning about potentially “life threatening” flash flooding of creeks and streams for residents of central Bandera County, the neighboring county to the south of Kerr County and Camp Mystic. The message includes some standard NWS flash flooding language: “Turn around, don’t drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood deaths occur in vehicles. Be especially cautious at night when it is harder to recognize the dangers of flooding. In hilly terrain there are hundreds of low water crossings which are potentially dangerous in heavy rain. Do not attempt to cross flooded roads. Find an alternate route.” 

Friday, July 4

1:14 a.m., Bandera and Kerr Counties — This message, the first one for Kerr County, included some of the same standard NWS flash flooding language as the warning sent to Bandera about an hour and a half before.

1:53 a.m., Bandera County — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier first warning to Bandera County (but not Kerr).

3:35 a.m., Bandera and Kerr Counties — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to the two counties, but in the warning language it adds: “It is important to know where you are relative to streams, rivers, or creeks which can become killers in heavy rains. Campers and hikers should avoid streams or creeks.” 

4:03 a.m., Bandera and Kerr Counties — This NWS message, covering the area that includes Camp Mystic, repeats much of the earlier message but is the first to add this more urgent wording: “This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!” and “Move to higher ground now! This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order.”

4:03 a.m. — The National Weather Service in Austin/San Antonio issues a Flash Flood Emergency, stating: “At 403 AM CDT, Doppler radar and automated rain gauges indicated thunderstorms producing heavy rain. Numerous low water crossings as well as the Guadalupe River at Hunt are flooding. Between 4 and 10 inches of rain have fallen. The expected rainfall rate is 2 to 4 inches in 1 hour. Additional rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches are possible in the warned area. Flash flooding is already occurring.”

5:34 a.m., Kerr County — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to Kerr County, which includes Camp Mystic. “This is a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY for the Guadalupe River from Hunt through Kerrvile and Center Point. This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!” and “Move to higher ground now! This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation.”

6:06 a.m., Bandera and Kerr Counties — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to both counties. It reads in part: “Local law enforcement reported numerous low water crossings flooded and major flooding occurring along the Guadalupe River with rescues taking place. Between 5 and 10 inches of rain have fallen. Additional rainfall amounts up to 2 inches are possible in the warned area. Flash flooding is already occurring. This is a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY for South-central Kerr County, including Hunt. This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!” 

6:27 a.m., Kerr County — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to Kerr County, saying “This is a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY” and “SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!”

The Guadalupe River reached its peak level of about 36 feet at around 7 a.m. Friday, July 4.

7:24 a.m., Kerr and Kendall Counties — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to Kerr County and neighboring Kendall County, to the east. It reads in part: “A large and deadly flood wave is moving down the Guadalupe River. Flash flooding is already occurring. This is a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY for THE GUADALUPE RIVER FROM CENTER POINT TO SISTERDALE. This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!”

8:47 a.m., Kerr County — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to Kerr County.

9:04 a.m., Bandera and Kerr Counties — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to these two counties.

Several repeat warnings followed, especially for downstream locations, as peak flooding spread southeast out of Hill Country.  

The following additional images (you may recognize some from previous stories on our webpage or in my book) illustrate summer thunderstorm impacts in California’s deserts.

THE END

The post Flash Flood! … From Texas to California first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Why Join the Naturalists?

We can’t survive without access to the fresh air, water, food, shelter, spiritual enrichment, aesthetics, personal restoration, and nature’s other essentials that allow us to celebrate life on this third planet from the sun. Our very physical and mental health depend on nature. But our popular cultures have detached us from Earth’s natural systems and cycles, the very forces and processes that rule our world, resulting in perilous dysfunctions that even AI cannot treat or resolve. And have you checked the news lately? Our nature deficit disorders are having tragic consequences that threaten humans, millions of other species, and the very future of our planet.

The UC California Naturalist statewide natural resource education and service program is coming to the rescue! This extraordinary program fosters “a diverse community of naturalists and promotes stewardship of California’s natural resources through education and service.” They draw you in with refreshing truth telling: “We cannot protect and restore California’s unique ecology without an environmentally literate, engaged public.” … and … “Becoming a naturalist offers a chance to explore nature and deepen your understanding of how nature works.” And then they make you offers you can’t refuse: “Are you interested in nature? Do you love CA’s diverse ecosystems? Embark on an immersive adventure with experts. Deepen your understanding of ecology and forge lasting friendships. This course has graduated career starters through retirees, all learning together to become a community of Certified California Naturalists.” How could we resist this magical week in Yosemite?

Follow Us on this Magical Natural History Tour

Join me on this journey as I share some of our day-to-day discoveries from the experts in the field who live this stuff. Images and excerpts from more than 32 pages of field notes prove that, even after leading hundreds of field classes and field trips with thousands of my students and colleagues over more than three decades, we and I will never stop learning. (The stories here are taken from my personal field notes and some occasional background research. All photos are mine and are not edited or manipulated in any way.) Let your curiosity fly like the clouds and wings over Half Dome in this Yosemite natural history expedition.   

Chris Cameron was our organizer, leader, and master instructor for these exceptional learning experiences. Without Chris, a one-of-a-kind tour guide and educator, we wouldn’t be able to retrace our steps because there wouldn’t be any. He demonstrated phenomenal skills in gathering seasoned professionals and curious students together to learn within nature’s living laboratories. And his people skills are the icing on the cake!    

Each day of our expedition gets its own page in this story; simply click to the page that matches the day and/or subject. You are encouraged to follow me chronologically to soak in the full benefits. Here’s how it’s all organized:

Day/Page One (Saturday, 4-12-2025): From the Central Valley up to ECCO in Oakhurst
Day/Page Two (Sunday, 4-13-2025): Geology, Creation, and More than 100 Million Years
Day/Page Three (Monday, 4-14-2025): Healthy Forests and Roaring Falls
Day/page Four (Tuesday, 4-15-2025): Cliffs, Bats, Fires, Technology and Botany
Day/Page Five (Wednesday, 4-16-2025): Following the Trail to Native Americans and American Settlers
Day/Page Six (Thursday 4-17-2025): Grazing, Logging, and Hunting, Oh My!
Day/Page Seven (Friday 4-18-2025): Sharing Our Discoveries

Day One (Saturday, 4-12-2025): From the Central Valley up to ECCO in Oakhurst:

A drive north along Hwy 41 from Fresno eventually takes you out of the Central Valley, which shines as the country’s most productive agricultural landscapes. This sprawling valley is vital in making California the number one agricultural state in the nation, as the state generates well more than $50 billion income per year from farm products.     

As the road gradually slopes up toward Sierra Nevada foothills, we find ourselves surrounded by open grasslands that recall the vast prairies that once dominated the Golden State’s inland valleys before the Spanish arrived. You will notice cattle grazing on pastoral rolling hills, landscapes occasionally interrupted and sliced by serpentine streams and rivers meandering from east to west, out of higher elevations and into the valley. (These lush narrow riparian strips are what remains (less than 10%) of the broad gallery forests that once extended on both sides of streams and rivers flowing out of the Sierra Nevada.) Today’s hills turn verdant green by April and erupt into rainbow displays of wildflowers such as lupine. But the grasses and flowers will soon dehydrate to the golden browns of punishing summer drought, leaving their seeds in parched soils, waiting for next winter’s rains and next spring’s renewed fantastical displays.

But another invader has recently rivaled the seasonal nonnative grasses on these gentle slopes at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains: humans and their developments. Developers are gobbling up some of these landscapes and attracting people who want to escape urban crowds, chaos, and traffic. “Build it and they will come” continues to spread across these landscapes that tourists have been passing by for decades on their way to the high country. Entire wannabe self-sufficient communities have been sprouting and extending over the grasslands and oak woodlands. And the changes are not coming without controversy. As these ecosystems are scraped up and paved, some locals are watching their reasons for living here disappear, while recent arrivals find relative peace and quiet in their perceived bucolic settings. Talk of limited water and other resources, habitat destruction, loss of open spaces, pollution, land values, affordable housing, and increasing traffic congestion is replacing the traditional agrarian discourse and cultures. Such noticeable changes are stretching and then redefining our perceptions of wildland-urban interfaces. The end of this world as we knew it may be just one more development away.

Once we get up above about 1,000’ elevation, where a little more precipitation falls and temperatures are a bit cooler, an assortment of scattered oak trees pops up above the ground cover. At about 2,000’, the woodlands thicken and diversify to include gray pine and other drought-tolerant trees. These scraggly pines with long, grayish needles and big cones often appear bent and twisted as though they were dancing through the night and were suddenly frozen in a pose by the morning light, waiting for summer’s fire or winter’s first merciful rehydrating showers. As we progress higher, slopes tend to steepen and we notice mixed pine forests as we look up toward snow in the distant high country. (We will revisit Sierra Nevada’s vegetation zones in more detail during the next few days.) We drop down into the town of Oakhurst (elevation 2,274’), nestled in its little valley that many consider the gateway to Yosemite. Traveling up and a little farther north, we finally turn off Hwy 41 and will settle, hang our hats, and share tasty meals at ECCO each night, which is a pretty typical option for tour and educational groups looking for base camps in and near Yosemite: “The Episcopal Conference Center Oakhurst (ECCO) has been serving the religious, educational and non-profit conference and retreat needs of Fresno, Madera, Mariposa and the rest of California’s Central Valley since 1982.”       

This is where we can hear Yosemite calling from just several miles away. The rolling landscapes in and around ECCO (about 3,100’ ASL) is populated with mostly open oak and pine woodland. The deciduous oak trees are just beginning to sprout by mid-April, careful to avoid any late-season freezes. A giant pond with a fountain demands attention, decorating the property and attracting more than our senses. Depending on the season, an assortment of waterfowl and other wildlife visit or live around the water (more than 100 species of birds have been recorded there), demonstrating animal behaviors that deserve a line or two in our field notebooks.

Wild turkeys are particularly entertaining as they dive out of their trees (where they roost at night to avoid predators) early in the morning and trot around during the day. Their toe-walking and dragging one foot in front of the other leaves an arrowhead-like trail. Turkeys are not native to California, but numerous attempts to introduce them finally became successful so that their numbers multiplied since the 1960s until they now total about 250,000 in the state. These omnivores mate and lay their eggs during spring. Gestation takes about a month and they are most vulnerable to predators (such as coyote, bobcats, foxes, some birds, and domesticated animals) after hatching. Adults may become nuisances around humans as they show aggression with their flapping and pecking; their droppings also get pretty messy. They’ve been known to damage gardens and attack their reflections in windows and on the sides of cars.  

The turkeys remind us that every species of plant and animal, every landscape, rock, cloud, water drop, and weather event have captivating natural history stories to tell. Informative and useful narratives grow from research that connects all of us to our natural world. We can see why this is just one of the naturalist programs across the US. Master instructor Chris Cameron started our course by summarizing how we celebrate biodiversity with environmental literacy, scientific and social understanding, by honing our interpretive skills, and practicing collaborative conservation. We reviewed our state’s bioregions and geomorphic provinces (from page 29 in our required California Naturalist Handbook), which coincide with the physiographic regions we have explored in numerous stories on this website and in my publications. And we recognized how the California Floristic Province, a biological hotspot with its thousands of species that include a large percentage of endemics, is experiencing a biodiversity crises as increasing numbers of those unique plants and animals are threatened with extinction. We recognize how naturalists’ work has become crucial as we observe, communicate, and act to build essential links between scientists and the average person. After dinner, our first day and evening ended with my presentation that summarized some fascinating properties of water and the weather patterns and climates that rule over our plant communities, topics we have highlighted on this website and in my recent California Sky Watcher book and statewide tour.      

Click (below) to the next page and day.

The post Cal Naturalists Invade Yosemite first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

It’s invisible, underestimated, misunderstood, and often taken for granted. It transports and directs air masses, storms, moisture, clouds, smoke, dust, and sand. It glides over ocean and lake surfaces, generating waves (see our earlier website story about waves). It spreads pollen that helps propagate plant species and carries odors that animals must follow for survival. Insects, birds, and planes must fly into and through it. It can set the day’s moods: refreshing here, maddening there. It can nurture life and then destroy it in an instant. We could never give wind enough credit for rocking our world. No wonder we have assigned such colorful and descriptive names to winds common to Californians: Diablo, Santa Ana, Sundowner, Mono, Washoe Zephyr, Sierra Wave, Palmdale Wave, etc. … and even shared their stories on our website and in our book. The wind keeps us guessing with its wild mood swings and leaves us on the edges of our seats with its entertaining performances: swirling, dancing, rustling, whispering, singing, moaning, and howling, And then it vanishes and gives us the silent treatment.

How fast can winds blow across the Golden State? Recent records have been set, thanks to increasing wind speeds and our improved technologies to measure them. It is not surprising that records fall when strong currents are forced to skim over the state’s highest ridges and peaks, mostly in the Sierra Nevada. During the powerful atmospheric river that swept the state on February 4-5, 2024 (see our recent website story), a 162-mph gust was recorded at Ward Mountain (8,643 feet asl), above the Tahoe Basin. During the same storm, a 148-mph gust blasted across nearby Palisades Tahoe (8,700 ft) while a 125-mph gale roared past Mammoth Mountain. This was part of a massive and destructive windstorm that ravaged Northern California from the coast to the mountains, knocking out power to nearly one million people. Just weeks later, on March 1, 2024, a 190-mph gust swirled over Palisades Tahoe during the historic blizzard that is summarized in this story with weather maps. But none of these have yet eclipsed the NWS official 199-mph confirmed record set at Ward Mountain Palisades in 2017. Several records over 150-mph have been set on other peaks and ridges, but those above 8,000 feet looking down on the Tahoe Basin are the consistent Golden State winners. (California wind records can’t compete with the US wind speed winner: Mt Washington in New Hampshire at 231-mph.)        

We all share memories of how windstorms interrupted or changed our lives when the gusts reshaped landscapes and damaged infrastructures around the places we call home. My mountain neighbor Steve Chadwick, who also spent ample time living in the desert, reminds me how windstorms occasionally blow sand across Coachella Valley roads. He and other residents have watched several desert roads (Gene Autry Trail and Indian Canyon Drive are examples) disappear below the shifting sands. After each event, the buried roads-turned sand dunes must be closed until sand plows (think snow plows) clear the way. Up on the nearby mountain around Idyllwild, power is interrupted when windstorms knock branches and trees down on to utility lines. Today, power companies across California are busy year-round clearing branches and dead trees away from their lines that may threaten to ignite the next deadly wildfire. Still, life on Earth requires wind and Steve was also quick to remind me how tons of dust blown from the Sahara are essential to the health of the Amazon. Here is a fascinating NASA article that summarizes this discovery.       

The big wind show starts with a pressure gradient force. Because wind always wants to blow from relatively high atmospheric pressure to low pressure (at the same altitude above sea level), air flows. The breeze or wind you sense is the force of billions of air molecules per cubic centimeter racing out of high pressure and into low pressure systems. When strong high- and low-pressure systems are positioned very close to one another, there is a steeper pressure gradient that will energize stronger winds. By contrast, when there is little or no difference between high and low air pressure around you, the wind will remain calm. Since pressure systems are constantly strengthening or weakening and migrating, wind velocities are always changing. The billions of air molecules you feel and breathe have likely traveled thousands of horizontal miles and thousands of vertical feet (or meters) to get to you. They are sailing messengers announcing how our dynamic atmosphere is fluctuating and what changes you might expect in the future.

Because Earth turns under this air set in motion, the Coriolis effect will also kick in. The wind will be turned to its right out of high-pressure systems in the northern hemisphere and also nudged to its right as it flows into low-pressure systems. Add friction near Earth’s surface and the pressure gradient force will gradually win this windy tug-of-war. This is why winds spin clockwise out of high pressure anticyclones (fair weather systems) and counterclockwise into our northern hemisphere low pressure cyclones or storm systems. (Note that winds turn and spin in opposite directions when pouring out of highs and into low pressure systems in the southern hemisphere.) Looking for more details about these pressure patterns and winds? Check out the weather maps at the end of this story and then our new California Sky Watcher publication.

There is much more to this aeolian story, but you can see why spring can be a breezy season. Extreme temperature gradients can bolster strong pressure gradients as warm summer air masses encroach upon winter’s stubborn cold air masses. Sporadically and unevenly, summer will win this annual war, but not without some windy battles. Additionally, as the longer days and higher sun angles rapidly warm inland land surfaces, the progression through spring encourages onshore breezes. Air will begin expanding and rising above those heated land surfaces, creating thermal low pressure there that will suck in the cooler, denser air that forms above our cold ocean currents. Sea breezes and their marine layers will begin to dominate weather conditions along the coast well into summer. Mountain barriers represent massive blockades, except for the few canyons and passes that become narrow wind tunnels where coastal air masses attempt to squeeze inland. You will find some of our largest wind turbines – producing energy for millions of Californians ­– aligned within these natural air vents.            

Continue with this developing photo essay as we demonstrate how wind shapes our world and how we can estimate wind direction and speed by looking up at the sky. We highlight some of the windiest episodes that ended the winter and continued into the spring of 2024. Conditions became particularly exciting at the end of this wet and stormy El Niño season, which threatened to complete the wettest two consecutive years in Los Angeles history. If you are looking for more detailed meteorological explanations for all this air pressure and wind mania, continue to the final weather maps near the end of this story.            

The wayward wind might be a restless wind, but it opens windows for us to sense the systems and cycles that rule in our natural world, beckoning us to explore and better understand the vital scientific experiments that nature conducts every minute of every day. Because we have just swirled around the edges of such a tempestuous topic during this brief summary, you might want to check out a new publication where we blow the lid off the many aeolian mysteries found on our third rock from the sun: California Sky Watcher.

The post Blowin’ in the Wind first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Whether they are considered nature’s great cathedrals or breathtaking scenery without rivals, there is nothing quite like them on this planet. They helped inspire me and millions of others to learn more about the natural forces and processes that are shaping our world and how we all fit in. They and other grand landscapes in California and beyond motivated me to become the student, researcher, teacher, and naturalist that I am today. We have featured Yosemite Valley and Kings Canyon landscapes in previous stories that you will find in this project and website. In this story, we explore Zion Canyon.

How has it changed and how does this high desert canyon compare to and contrast with our Yosemite? Join me, your master ranger and natural history interpreter armed with 50 years of observations and field experiences, as I guide you to discover the science behind the scenery.

On the surface, there are some uncanny similarities between our Sierra Nevada’s Yosemite and Utah’s Zion. Each of these valleys sits at about 4,000 feet (1,200 m) above sea level, surrounded by thousands of feet of vertical rock walls soaring abruptly above their eroding rivers. Each of their names begin with the last letters of our alphabet, monikers that recall the people and cultures who once settled in these other-worldly canyons. But great differences stand out when we look a little closer.     

We returned to Zion’s campgrounds during the prolonged and historic heat wave of July 2023, a month when the high temperature at their weather station (near their Human History Museum and Visitor Center) made it to 110° F (43° C) on two days. Only four days of that month had high temperatures just below 100° F (38° C), which is closer to the July average. (The highest temperature ever recorded at Zion was 115°, including July 10 and 11, 2021.) This contrasts with their typically lowest temperatures in the teens over the winter and a low of 14° F (-10° C) on January 31, 2023.

Imagine experiencing such a 124° temperature range in one location within less than six months! Welcome to cold winters and hot summers common to the thin dry continental air of the high desert. During this trip, nature forced us to alter our daily schedule so that we could hike the dry trails during early mornings and evenings and spend the hottest afternoons within the shaded narrows, immersed in the Virgin River, or at the museum or visitor center. We were rewarded with comfortable evenings to view bats darting around and then thousands of stars rotating in the dark night sky.

Weather patterns and climates in Zion are glaringly different from our Yosemite, which drains and opens toward the west, facing the Pacific Ocean. As wet winter storms stream off the Pacific, they dump copious amounts of orographic rain and snow as they glide up Sierra Nevada’s western slopes. (Check out our earlier story on the atmospheric rivers of 2023 and an even earlier story following a water drop.) Yosemite Valley averages more than 36 inches (>91 cm) of precipitation per year and the surrounding high country receives even more.

But by the time those Pacific storms skim over southern Utah’s high desert, they are usually spent, leaving only trace amounts of precipitation. Zion Canyon averages only 15.7 inches (40 cm) of precipitation and 3.8 inches (10 cm) of snow each year, compared to the massive snow drifts that accumulate in the Sierra Nevada each season. Also in contrast to our Yosemite and Kings, Zion has a distinct late summer rainy season associated with the Southwest (North American) monsoon, averaging more than an inch of rain each month from July through October. And though Yosemite may briefly be dampened by infrequent isolated summer storms, such quick hitters are not reliable precipitation producers or drought busters in what John Muir coined our Range of Light.

Torrential summer rains soaked Zion and the Desert Southwest in 2022, causing extensive flash flooding. But the North American monsoon did not perform during our visit on this sizzling July of 2023. Only 0.05 inches was recorded on the only day of precipitation that month (July 25). The fickle monsoon thunderstorm cloudbursts and flash floods will repeatedly wash out roads and trails and carry people away in the debris during one summer and then be disappointing no shows the next. Plants and animals and people who have not adapted to these high desert weather extreme realities do not survive. There is even a late summer rainy season flowering cycle on exhibit in the Southwest and across the Colorado Plateau. This is also why, when cumulus clouds begin boiling into thunderheads within the thermals that rise in summer’s midday heat, we are warned to steer clear of Zion’s narrows and slot canyons that can become violent cascading death traps within minutes. You can thank these powerful gully washers for helping to carve the deep canyons such as Zion that have made Colorado Plateau scenery world famous. In contrast, Yosemite’s Merced River and other Sierra Nevada streams and their ability to erode and deposit are dependent on runoff and snowmelt from those winter storms off the Pacific.

The Sierra Nevada and Colorado Plateau are composed of very different rock formations lifted by very different tectonic forces. The core of Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada is mostly made of massive granitic batholiths that cooled and crystalized from gargantuan underground magma chambers formed in subduction zones around 100 million years ago. More recent vertical faulting has elevated their solid granitic escarpments along steep eastern slopes until high Sierra Nevada peaks reach more than 14,000 feet (4,267 m) above sea level, while western slopes more gradually descend toward the Great Central Valley.

In contrast, the Colorado Plateau is underlain by thousands of feet of mostly sedimentary deposits that also date back more than 100 million years. Millions more years later, heat, pressure, and nature’s glues had lithified the particles into sedimentary rocks. The relatively undisturbed layers were more recently and gradually warped upward by compressional forces until the highest points of the plateau soar over 12,000 feet (>3,658 m) ASL. Gravity’s pull on water flowing from such lofty elevations has energized streams to cut deep canyons into Sierra Nevada’s granitic plutons and into the Colorado Plateau’s vulnerable layers of sedimentary rock formations.

The Grand Canyon is often used as the classic example of how a powerful river (the Colorado) can erode deep chasms as surrounding landscapes are lifted higher. Weathering and erosion will eventually widen the incised narrows over time. The relatively young Zion Canyon is also widening as the Virgin River cuts through it.  

Yosemite and other Sierra Nevada canyons have been carved by floods from wet winter storms and snowmelt that runs off impressive snow packs well into the summer. But the most spectacular high country Sierra Nevada valleys and canyons were also extensively carved by alpine (mountain/valley) glaciers during previous glacial periods. As the flowing ice scraped out deep high-elevation cirques and U-shaped trenches through preexisting mountain canyons, glacial moraine rock piles were deposited downstream, leaving dramatic Ice Age landscapes. (Check out our webpage story from 2019, Norway vs. California, where we examine such glacial grandeur.)

Today’s summer storms contribute relatively little runoff into today’s Sierra Nevada streams that follow those canyons. On the Colorado Plateau, gentler cold winter rains and melting winter snows also add to frigid runoff into the canyons. And like Sierra Nevada rock formations, cycles of freezing and thawing during winter help to crack and physically weather rocks so that blocks are liberated to break off from the cliffs and eventually be carried away after they disintegrate into smaller pieces. But summer’s violent flash floods are responsible for transporting much of that loose rock and sediment downstream in Zion. And only the highest peaks and ridges of the Colorado Plateau exhibit some glacial topography; Zion Canyon and Desert Southwest landscapes were not carved by powerful Ice Age glaciers such as those that once scraped through Sierra Nevada high country.  

There are also glaring differences between Yosemite and Zion in the color and texture of their rock walls. The granitic rocks of the Sierra Nevada are dominated by lighter minerals of quartz and feldspar, but are often speckled with darker crystals containing more iron and other heavier elements. This massive stew of magma chamber chemicals solidified into a solid salt-and-pepper matrix of rocks and minerals.

As the mountains were lifted, overlying rocks were weathered and stripped away, exposing them to weathering and erosion. Chemical weathering processes can be seen as dark stains and vertical streaks on the cliffs where iron and other darker elements oxidize in the water and air. Physical weathering processes include exfoliation, the pressure release that breaks massive rocks into thin skins or onion-like layers to slide and fall downslope. (Check out our website story where we follow a grain of sand.)

In contrast, the sedimentary layers of Zion are clearly and classically stacked with the older deposits on the bottom and the younger rock formations on top of them. (Still younger rocks that once capped them have been eroded and washed away long ago.) Click here for more rock layer details. The Virgin River has sliced through all of them like a sharp knife through a layer cake: nature’s road cuts. Relatively resistant lighter-colored sandstones are dominated by sandy grains with more quartz and feldspar. The layers grading from sandstones to siltstones and mudstones and shales that contain more iron and other heavier elements tend to oxidize into rusty and red colors when exposed to air and water; thinner skins of these weathered surfaces are sometimes referred to as desert varnish. And so, the highly-resistant lighter-colored speckled cliffs and canyons of the Sierra Nevada look quite different from the thousands of feet of vermilion layers of sedimentary rocks weathering in Zion. In both cases, millions of years of internal mountain building forces and external denudational processes have conspired to sculpt some of the most spectacular landscapes on Earth.

Contrasts between our Sierra Nevada and the Colorado Plateau (and particularly Yosemite and Zion) are also noticeable within their plant and animal communities. In both regions, you can find the classic vegetation zones grading from Lower Sonoran grasslands and prairies to Upper Sonoran chaparral and open woodlands, to Transition Zone woodlands and open forests, to Canadian Zone cooler and wetter forests, to still loftier subalpine Hudsonian plant communities, into the highest Arctic-Alpine Zone islands. But wetter Sierra Nevada slopes nurture lusher forests with species such as Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron gianteum, the largest trees on Earth) that you won’t find on the drier Colorado Plateau.

So, as you climb up from lower elevations in Zion toward higher elevations on the Colorado Plateau, you will notice high desert xeric species. They include Rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa), Big Basin Sagebrush (Artemesia tridentata), and several different species of buckwheat. A little higher up, you will find what some call pygmy woodlands. Pinyon pines (Pinus monophylla and Pinus edulis) grow with live oaks and other oak species that shed their leaves, growing from shrubs into small trees. They mix with Utah Juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) at lower elevations around 4,000-5,500 feet in the Upper Sonoran and Red Cedar (Juniperus scopulorum) at higher elevations above 5,000 feet in Transition and Canadian Zones. Ponderosa Pines (Pinus ponderosa) appear and grow denser at higher elevations as we make our way into wetter mixed conifer and aspen forests with Douglas Fir (Pseudotauga menziesii), White Fir (Abies concolor), White Pine (Pinus strobiformus), and Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides). You also will find a host of colorful wildflowers decorating the understories at these higher elevations. Several species bloom throughout the summer, nurtured by those monsoon thundershowers that more commonly soak the cooler high plateau.

As with riparian communities in the Sierra Nevada, biomass and species diversity dramatically increase along and adjacent to stream and river courses. Where soils remain damp and the relative humidity increases around water courses in Zion, look for denser stands of Fremont Cottonwood (Populus fremontii), Red Birch (Betula occidentalis), various willow species, cattails, and rushes. As you enter the narrows where natural springs and seeps erupt from the sandstone cliff faces, look for fern and other water-loving species that combine in rock cracks to form delicate hanging gardens. Water might also be king in California, but life-giving moisture can transform Colorado Plateau’s dehydrated high desert into productive ecosystems that support numerous species of plants and animals.

Zion’s birds share the advantage of flying to water and food sources. We spotted some raptors, roadrunners, ravens, turkey vultures, and a condor flying overhead. But the real flying shows in Zion start just after sunset, when a seemingly chaotic air show of bats dart around, using their sophisticated radar to hunt and keep insect populations under control. You will also find the greatest number of species and densest populations of animals around Zion’s water courses. We saw wild turkeys, mule deer, and fox in the canyon. Raccoons, skunks, bobcats, porcupines, and owls are also found in the riparian habitats near water, mostly at night. Coyote can be heard howling around the canyon as they hunt in the twilight and darkness. Though American Beavers (Castor Canadensis) have burrowed their lodges into the banks of the Virgin River, they are difficult to spot. They don’t build beaver dams seen along other western rivers, since the river-altering structures would be destroyed by frequent flash floods. Look for the chewing scars on cottonwood trees near the river. All of this gnawing and other beaver activity usually peak during overnight hours, when it is more difficult for predators to hunt them.

As with Yosemite, humans have impacted Zion mammals and cut predator populations in the canyon. There are only a few cougars in the entire park. Such extermination and displacement of mountain lions by early farmers and ranchers and then crowds of visitors caused an unnatural explosion of deer populations. These ubiquitous browsers then feed on cottonwood and other seedlings to reduce the normal rate of plant regrowth. The results include decreasing biodiversity and increasing impacts on populations of many different riparian species. Add efforts to control reoccurring flood damage and you can see how natural channel flow has been destabilized along the Virgin River. This is another classic example of how human impacts can become ripple effects that can change natural systems and cycles and then entire landscapes, even in our national parks.

And that brings us full circle to what Yosemite and Zion might have most in common: they are perfect examples of unique landscapes of grandeur and national parks that we are loving to death. Yosemite is just about 200 miles (or four hours) from Bay Area cities, just over two hours from Central Valley population centers, and about 300 miles (6 hours) from LA. Generations of traditional Yosemite National Park lovers live in these California conurbations. Zion is only about 160 miles (2.5 hours) from a growing Las Vegas. Each of these nearby major metropolitan areas welcomes millions of tourists each year and many of these visitors clamor to squeeze a visit to one of these iconic parks into their itineraries. Unlike those of us who adore our national parks as places to find peace and solitude and to experience and learn about nature, the average visitor spends only a few hours on the ground in those national parks. Millions of people each year exploit them as social media selfie checkoff lists.

The crowds began choking Yosemite Valley decades ago, especially on summer weekends. They brought massive traffic jams, pollution, chaos, and amusement park atmospheres in what were supposed to be exceptional natural environments to be cherished and preserved for the benefit of future generations. Yosemite experimented with reservation systems from 2020-21 and a peak hours reservations system in 2022. Park officials are currently using data gathered from these experiments to develop a Visitor Access Management Plan and you are invited to provide your input. Avid naturalists and backcountry hikers have also been impacted, with most backcountry trails and wilderness areas requiring permits. Growing crowds traipsing to the top of Half Dome (a round-trip hike of about 15 miles with a 4,800-foot elevation gain) eventually created dangerous and sometimes deadly conditions on the steep and slippery dome. I’ve trudged to the top a few times over the years, but today’s permit system limits 300 hikers per day to make use of the chains and steps that lead up the side of the dome.  

Zion National Park is challenged with similar dilemmas: how do our most beloved and popular parks offer access to the greatest number of people, without ruining the nature experience for each visitor and compromising the mission and integrity of our national parks?

Several years ago, Zion’s crowds multiplied as nearby Las Vegas grew and the Utah Office of Tourism began promotions to attract visitors from other states and from around the world. It worked too well if you enjoyed Zion for its nature experiences. The summer traffic and crowds in the canyon became so chaotic, the park was forced to close the road into the canyon to vehicles and require visitors to take the free shuttle from early spring into late fall. Another amusement park atmosphere erupted especially on summer weekends as overwhelmed tourists jammed the overwhelmed visitor center. Others were herded through the maze of winding chains that eventually led them into shuttles where they were crammed like sardines, hoping to eventually be dropped off at key stops to search for their elusive solitude. Add some stifling summer heat and you can see why rangers who wanted to interpret and share the beauty and magic of nature have been forced into crowd control that sometimes turns into safety concerns and crime control after visitors reach their boiling points; good for the businesses in adjacent Springdale, not so good for anyone seeking a quiet nature experience.

And as if to mimic Yosemite’s Half Dome, the narrow chain path up to Angel’s Landing finally got so popular, it turned into a dangerous line of frustrated climbers scrambling over one another. And so, similar to Half Dome, the National Park Service has been stringently enforcing their Angels Landing Pilot Permit Program. I’ve also meandered up the steep switchbacks to this popular peak a few times in past decades, but don’t attempt these memorable climbs without your permit these days.

Whether there are too many people searching for their peace and quiet in nature, or too many people searching for their perfect selfies to post on social media, I don’t offer any better solutions to the crowd control problems that have plagued these otherwise magical wonderlands during recent years. I do know that our world has changed since we could roll in and get first-come, first-served camping spots during the summer in our most spectacular national parks. And I wish the folks at the National Park Service the very best as they struggle to balance the often conflicting serve and preserve missions.

For your part, it is best to visit these magnificent gems off season during weekdays when possible. Or, you can find your solitude at nearby less popular and more remote natural sanctuaries; there are still plenty to choose from that can be just as rewarding and many have been highlighted in stories on this website. In California, some of these retreats are closer to home and more easily accessible than you might think.

If you have a little more time, come along on the following bonus trip. Let’s move up to the plateau more than 3,400 feet (>1036 m) above the canyon along what is called the West Rim Trail to see how the biogeography at higher elevations around Zion National Park is so different from the hotter and drier deserts below. We will leave the crowds behind and then leave you on the high plateau above 7,000 feet (>2,130 m) in the Zion wilderness where summers are delightfully cool (if you can avoid the occasional thunderstorms) and winters are icy cold. For those looking for an introduction to Zion from the National Park Service, check out the link at the end of our story.

Before you go, visit the official National Park Service website that will help you prepare for your adventures: https://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm

The post Zion vs Yosemite: the Science behind the Splendor first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Classic extreme orographic precipitation and rain shadow effects were on full display across California during the wet winter of 2023. Coastal and mountain locations experienced a wetter-than-normal rainy season, some with double their average rain and snow totals. But precipitation dropped off dramatically as the air masses drifted southeast and down into the deserts. San Diego County offers excellent examples. The slopes around Palomar Mountain received more than 50 inches of water-equivalent precipitation. The official NWS station at Anza Borrego, located on the eastern rain shadow slopes of the same Peninsular Ranges, recorded less than 10 inches of rainfall, which is also a wet year for them. Just about 25 miles farther east, down around the Salton Trough of Imperial County, seasonal rainfall totals were only near an inch. The storms could be seen drenching mountain slopes to the west, but they dissipated when air masses descended into southeastern California’s lower deserts. Similar extremes were recorded as the inundated San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains blocked heavier rains from soaking parts of the Mojave Desert.     

The results were colorful superbloom desert landscapes up along Peninsular Range and other mountain barriers and slopes, but with abrupt transitions to desolate arid terrain to the east, where you had to look more carefully to find flowering plants. Follow us as we venture around Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in April. We will discover colorful landscapes with numerous species celebrating the seasonal rains, while less fortunate desert locales to the east continued to struggle through debilitating drought. Click on to Page 2 to view high desert blooms around the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve. In both cases, we will observe some flowers and colors that only appear after exceptionally wet years.

Now you can click on to Page 2 to explore the memorable April superbloom farther to the north, in our high desert.

The post Chasing the Desert Superbloom, 2023 first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

This story is not designed to compete with the exhaustive and exceptionally informative sources that are made available to all of us by dedicated California surfers who share their experiences and cultures. Instead, we continue here where some of our project’s previous stories left off, as we have already explored the science of waves and how they and ocean currents impact and shape our coastal landscapes. (As example, refer to our stories following a water drop or the natural history of a grain of sand). So, we don’t focus on the science behind the waves here. Instead, this is a more specific personal story from the perspective of a continually evolving natural scientist and native Californian who has loved and respected the ocean since childhood and who enjoys an occasional physical challenge, especially in the great outdoors. As with many of our stories, it ends with a series of photos that will transport you around the state, this time traveling along our coastline.

Meeting the Challenge
Since the ocean is open to all of us, the sport of surfing can be inclusive…but only if you are dedicated and determined. The physical demands become clear with your first try. You must be physically fit and a good swimmer, and willing to fling yourself into challenging, uncomfortable, and even harsh and sometimes dangerous environments. As with serious swimmers in our turbulent Pacific Ocean, you must have a love for nature that will encourage you to quickly learn about our geography, oceanography, meteorology, marine biology, and coastal geomorphology. Learning how to paddle and maneuver through the surf with a board is just one step; standing on a surfboard while it is skimming down a wave is a whole different experience requiring unique skills. The time and effort will include getting up early to avoid the afternoon winds and choppy seas. Dipping into our frigid California Current for an extended time requires wearing a wet suit, even during most of our summer conditions in southern California. And you must live close enough to the beach to cut transportation time and costs, particularly where heavy traffic can block quick access. The entire process, from getting to the beach with your board, surfing, and cleaning sand out of strange places, is at least a three-hour commitment. So, are you ready for the challenge? 

Before Joining the Lineup
Government agencies and organizations such as NOAA and the Surfrider Foundation have roughly estimated that there are more than 3 million people who surf in the U.S. every year; more than one million of them are in California. This sport contributes many millions of dollars to a string of our local coastal economies. But only a tiny fraction of those surfers make it into the water on any given day or week. Still, when conditions are most favorable, the best surf breaks can get crowded. So it is best for neophytes to practice away from the experts, where waves are smaller and gentler. Keep at least 30 feet distance from others so that you and your board can do no harm. (Beginners should also start with a softboard or “foamie”, since they are more buoyant and less likely to cause injuries when tossed around in the surf zone.) You should also try to find a beach with refracting waves that gradually spill over, rather than large, plunging surf that can pummel the beginner into a violent tempest resembling the inside of an agitating washing machine. Beginners will also want to become familiar with the whitewater before they venture out any farther. Before entering the water, spend several minutes watching for the cycles of larger waves that will arrive in sets. These sets of deeper groundswell waves are generated far out at sea, while surface wind waves are generated from local winds and are less desirable for surfing. Anticipating and reading the waves will make you more comfortable and confident and safer once you enter the water. Note how every day’s conditions are different on every beach. And never turn your back on the ocean until you’re catching a wave. 

Improving Conditions
There is plenty of good surfing news in California. Almost all Golden State beaches below mean high tide are open to the public. (Mean high tide is the average of all high tides over many years. However you can roughly estimate this by looking for stranded lines of kelp or obvious signs that water has sculpted the sand farther up on the beach.) And the quality of our coastal waters has improved significantly over the last few decades, thanks to efforts to divert and treat street runoff and other pollutants. By the late 1900s, Californians were spending billions of dollars diverting and treating sewage and other toxic waste that would have otherwise spoiled many of our beaches and made it nearly impossible to swim without getting sick. Avoid the few remaining contaminated beaches (where you may find the highest bacteria levels), which are usually adjacent to piers, stream and river outlets, or enclosed bays with poor water circulation. You can also understand why it is best to stay out of the water during and after storm runoff. The worst example might be at our very southern border where the heavily polluted Tijuana River flows into the sea. Thanks to organizations such as Heal the Bay and the Surfrider Foundation, it is easy to find the grade for your favorite beach: https://www.beachreportcard.org

Jaws
Sensationalist media obsessed with ratings have shamelessly hyped shark threats. At most, very few attacks are recorded each year along our entire Golden State coastline, resulting in an average of less than one fatality. Your chances of being hit by lightning are about the same. California surfers and swimmers are more than 1,000 times more likely to drown than be attacked by a shark.       

Take a Class
The bottom line is (and most experienced surfers will cheer me on here), you will need surfing instructions to get started. You will find good public and private surfing classes up and down our coast with great instructors who will teach you much more than we can cover in this story. This gives us a chance to focus on exceptional swimming and surfing instructor role models.    

Natalia Cascino is a positive role model for all surfers and surfing instructors. She has built a well-earned reputation as a cherished and respected swimming and surfing teacher in southern California. With her knowledge and experience, and her ceaseless energy and positive attitude, she has helped countless students improve their swimming and surfing skills, while also having a lot of fun. In this series of photos, you will also notice Ryan King, another positive role model. He has been surfing since he was a kid and it shows in everything he does. Watch him while he works with Natalia as they teach two classes of fledgling college students how to surf. Their love for the ocean and the waves is contagious.

Surfing from North to South
Now continue with us as we visit several of our state’s surfing beaches. With more than 1,250 miles (2,000 km) of rugged coastline, there are far too many California beaches to feature in this story. Here, we’ve selected several as examples and arranged them from north to south.   

Surfing the Golden Gate. In this video, surfers take advantage of swells approaching from the west/northwest. The waves enter through the Golden Gate, then refract into the bay and spill over around Ft. Point.   

Mavericks at Half Moon Bay. There are scores of awesome videos showing epic surf that can erupt at world-famous Mavericks, south of San Francisco. Some of these waves have been estimated at over 50 feet (15m), as winter storms churned the North Pacific! They are powerful enough to be recorded on seismometers when they break. To save time, I picked out two very different perspectives for you. (Note how these videos show the most extreme surfing conditions that can threaten the most seasoned, expert surfers.) Then, make sure you stay with us as we continue down the coast: If you haven’t jumped into extreme surfing videos before, know that it is a fantastical rabbit hole world with no end. So, it might be best to complete our story and then go back to these links.       

Moving on down the coast to Santa Cruz…

Check out this interactive map to learn about current conditions at California beaches: https://www.surfline.com/surf-reports-forecasts-cams/united-states/california/5332921

Splashing into the waves and surrounding yourself with Earth’s largest ocean may be the most effective and rewarding learning experiences of your life. Books and classrooms can never compete with nature’s most spectacular natural science laboratory, where experiential learning opportunities are always calling out to all of us.

The post Surfing CalifornIA first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

(Where you see numbers blocked in parentheses, you might consult Page 2 of this story for more detailed definitions and explanations.)

Following the Monsoon
The summer monsoon arrives in the Southwest with towering cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds and sudden thunderstorm downpours that can deliver more rain in an hour than what may have accumulated in the previous several months. The storms become especially common during afternoon surface heating in the high country of New Mexico and Arizona, as moisture drifts up from Mexico. Many of these locations experience peak annual precipitation from July into September. (As a related update, check out this NWS story about how monsoon thunderstorms became severe and deadly in Phoenix, AZ on July 24, 2024.) Occasionally, when upper level pressure and wind patterns are favorable, this moisture and instability will drift across the California border, into southern California deserts and mountain ranges, and even up the spine of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This usually occurs when a strong upper level high pressure system wobbles somewhere near the Four Corners Region, pushing winds clockwise around it, creating wind flow out of the southeast over us, and advecting moist air into southern parts of our state. Though only a few California locations near the Colorado River receive their peak annual precipitation during late summer (and it’s usually not much), these brief monsoonal encroachments can bring isolated summer storms more common to Flagstaff or Taos into parts of southern California and beyond.

Exceptional Storms in the Summer of 2021
During July and August of 2021, an unusually early and then wet monsoon season soaked and then flooded parts of New Mexico and Arizona with heavy rain and deadly flash flooding that even broke some records. In a few cases, the disturbances, instability, and moisture drifted into California with some spectacular results. Deserts and mountain ranges from the Colorado River to southern California’s mountain ranges, and from the Basin and Range to the Sierra Nevada had been dehydrated by months of relentless drought and record high temperatures. Suddenly, relief appeared in the form of subtropical clouds that shielded the blazing sun and then towering thunderheads carrying torrential downpours and spectacular lightning displays. Lightning strikes within drier thunderstorms with higher cloud bases increased fire dangers, while wetter storms delivered life-giving cloudbursts that quickly soaked soils and even generated some flash flooding. Though these storms were characteristically widely scattered and of short duration, this reoccurring pattern during July and into August eventually dumped surprising amounts of measurable rainfall on nearly every weather station, including places such as Death Valley.

Monitoring and Chasing Summer Moisture
I was fortunate to anticipate and then chase some of these legendary-but-misunderstood storms during one day on July 30, 2021. For several days, wind flowing from the southeast had been sporadically delivering moisture from Arizona and Mexico into the state. Record wet air masses with high dew points were flooding Arizona, even driving afternoon high temperatures down into the low 80s (~28 C)in Phoenix for three straight days, another record for July. And some of this moist air was moving across the Colorado River Valley and the Mexican Border into California.

Mountains Accentuate Air Mass Ascension
My search for thunderstorms started in San Gorgonio (Banning) Pass, where a thunderhead had already built over the San Bernardino Mountains by noon, delivering narrow rain columns to quench local slopes. Another impressive cumulonimbus towered higher on the south side of the pass, wavering over and near San Jacinto Peak. (2) Air flow from the southeast sheared its top over the pass. Heavy shafts of rain poured on to the northern slopes of the San Jacintos and into desert canyons, above where Hwy 111 toward Palm Springs forks off of Interstate 10. (3) I suspected that this already impressive build up could produce some surprising rainfall totals around the San Jacinto Mountains, but I wanted to monitor the development of a desert storm. (Sure enough, these mountain storms would eventually build further into the afternoon until more than 1.6 inches (~4 cm) of rain fell in Idyllwild in a violent cloudburst that lasted less than two hours.) My desert storm drama would come later in the day.

Science-savvy Gambling with Cumulus
Monitoring updated radar and satellite imagery and some specifics in the forecast, I noticed the monsoon moisture still streaming in from Mexico and Arizona and so I headed east along Interstate 10 past Indio. As thunderheads continued to build over the now-distant San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains, I continued east up the I 10 hill toward Chiriaco Summit.  A few NWS flash flood warnings for nearby regions interrupted radio and phone reception. But as I turned off toward Joshua Tree National Park, the desert remained relatively hot and quiet with only a few small puffy cumulus clouds below a thin veil of higher clouds, all combining to decorate the sky. Following this road north, I noticed a line of small, but well-defined cumulus popping up in the afternoon thermals over the park’s peaks. And so, I decided to make my stand around here. Most casual observers might have considered these little clouds to be innocuous scene enhancers. But they were forming along a line as moist air now heated by direct afternoon sunlight was buoyed up along Joshua Tree Park’s western slopes, which rise above the Coachella Valley. After about an hour that included a short self-guided nature trail through this sizzling desert of dead and dying plants, a landscape clearly suffering from exceptional drought, my gamble paid off.

Tranquil Desert Turns to Violent Waterworld
As suspected, the cumulus I targeted suddenly began to blossom into towering icy cauliflowers. Within another half hour, a dense rain shaft had formed and the impressive storm was producing constant rumbling thunder. Its downdrafts soon obscured desert peaks and slopes that included Monument Mountain to the northwest of the Cottonwood Springs Visitor Center, which was closed for the summer. I meandered up Pinkham Canyon dirt road toward the storm, but finally turned around, knowing what could happen should a downpour suddenly spread over me. Returning back on the main road through the park, I pushed north along Pinto Basin Road for a few miles to where it intersects Smoke Tree Wash. By then, the storm had dramatically strengthened and expanded, producing frequent lightning and violent downbursts of rain and hail from west to east across the sky and the road. A process called back-building seemed to keep the storms spreading across the park, into the prevailing winds. Roaring waterfalls from the sky were pouring over me and the surrounding exposed terrain. I stayed long enough to experience the excitement until it was raining so hard and so long that I knew it meant danger. So, I turned back around to higher ground, away from this wash with smoke trees, just before the flooding could make the road impassible. (Smoke Trees (Psorothamnus spinosus) grow in linear patterns along usually dry desert washes for a reason. Their seeds are abraded by flash floods and debris flows that encourage germination; later, the wash provides access to a little more ground water than surrounding desert terrain.)

Turn Around, Don’t Drown
By then, violent downdrafts were delivering ominous sheets of rain in buckets from storms to the west and east that then merged overhead. As winds gusted up to 40 miles per hour, funnel cloud formations could be seen rising up into the cumulonimbus after nearly touching the desert floor. It turned almost as dark as night on this July 30 afternoon. It would have been nice to try to document the few hours of potentially deadly flooding that damaged and closed roads within the park. But, I was wise to follow the “turn around, don’t drown” rule that echoes across the Southwest during this time of year. So, I headed back uphill toward the Cottonwood Visitor Center, out from under the frequent lightning strikes and curtains of roaring torrential rain that had created this temporary chaotic waterworld in the California desert. Violent storms continued migrating across the park, sending destabilizing outflows ahead and feeding off the remaining heat rising from surfaces not yet cooled by cloudbursts. Within a couple of hours, the sun was setting, while other destabilizing heat sources were pinched out by the cooling rains. (4) A few nature photographers, attracted by the electrical displays, attempted to capture some lightning photos just before dark as the storm quickly dispersed and more quickly dissipated, mostly retreating toward the east.

Appreciating Summer Cycles
Those who traveled across the desert that afternoon and evening were treated to what many Californians might consider an oddity. But, for most folks familiar with the desert southwest, such as vehicle passengers displaying Arizona and New Mexico and Utah license plates, it was just another example of how the summer monsoon can put on a dazzling sky show. And it is likely that the plants and animals caught under those cloudbursts, previously dehydrated and desiccated by unprecedented drought, were lucky to survive until this brief soaking that would get them through one more summer.

Unreliable but Spectacular
Most Californians are accustomed to the hours and days of more widespread, steady rains brought by winter’s migrating middle latitude wave cyclones off the North Pacific. And it is true that nearly all of the state’s precipitation is delivered from such systems that migrate farther north during the warm season, leaving us with months of summer drought. These patterns help define our Mediterranean climate.  It is also true that our surprise and sporadic summer showers can’t compare to regions with direct sources of tropical air (such as around Florida) where wet thunderstorms might march across the heated land during each summer afternoon. In the Southwest, summer weather conditions and surface and upper level wind patterns must conspire to draw in moisture from more distant sources. But such infrequency doesn’t minimize the drama and excitement and the relief from summer’s dry heat that these pop-up summer thunderstorms can bring, especially along the Colorado River Valley, across inland California, and up the ridges of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Forecasting One-tenth to Five Inches of Partly Cloudy
National Weather Service forecasters are challenged by extreme variabilities and inconsistencies in local summer monsoon storm and rainfall patterns, especially when the public doesn’t understand these events. On the coastal sides of the mountains during winter and pretty much all year in the coastal basins, a 20% chance of rain means it will probably not rain, and if it does, it will be some kind of drizzle. During the southwest monsoon in inland California, there could still be an 80% chance that it won’t rain at any one location; but local folks should know that wherever isolated monsoon storms develop, they could produce memorable gullywashers and even brief serious or deadly flooding. This uncertainty doesn’t connect with most clueless visitors from coastal cities. Usually, forecasters write the estimated, generalized precipitation totals and follow it with a phrase such as “however, greater amounts may occur during storms.” As mountain weather watcher Steve Chadwick notes, it might be clearer to write, “Isolated heavy rains and flash flooding are possible throughout the forecast area”, to warn those who are less experienced. Or, they could use Steve’s more humorous interpretation of these weather events: “one-tenth to five inches of partly cloudy.”

If you are interested in more details about weather conditions during the observed storms on July 30, 2021 in Joshua Tree NP, go to Number 5 on our scientific definitions and explanations Page 2. (5) 

The post Storm Chasing in the California Desert first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Forward: Sand Grain Abbreviated Autobiography 

Let me introduce myself. I am a grain of sand. You have seen me resting or moving along the ground, probably around your feet. You may have even trapped me in your shoes or dragged me into your home. Though you may not have paid attention, my sparkling crystals were shouting out to share my enthralling stories of adventure and intrigue that span millions of years of natural history in the Golden State.  

There are much older and younger rocks, pebbles, and sand grains, but my story began about 100 million years ago. It started deep below the surface in a massive melt that you call a magma chamber. This scalding, churning mass formed as a dense, relatively thin ocean plate slid east and was subducted beneath a less-dense, more buoyant continental plate that rode on top of it. I was dragged with other materials of the ocean crust that were later mixed, incorporated into, and melted with the continental crust in very high temperature environments. As the dynamics changed and the subduction zone migrated away, I cooled and crystallized with millions of tons of other materials around me. In my case, I grew into a large, tough quartz crystal, though I was surrounded by some darker crystals with different chemistries. I remained in this still-warm-but-gradually-cooling environment, deep below the surface, resting for millions of years.

Nearly 80 million years later (more than 20 million years ago), tectonic activity lifted me along with the surrounding granitic rock materials. Overlying rock formations were eroded away, exposing us at the surface in a very different California. Weathering broke us into smaller fragments so that erosion, energized by running water, carried us away, toward the ancient coastline that was a little farther east compared to today’s seashore. There, we were deposited, buried below layers of fresh sediment, and glued and pressed into sedimentary rock layers, where we rested for nearly 20 million more years. Just a few million years ago, we were lifted again by tectonic activity.

In what seemed to be a repeat performance, overlying layers of rock were eroded away until we were exposed at the surface again, this time within our beds of sandstone, only to be subject to a fresh round of weathering. I eventually broke out as a chunk of sandstone, was whittled down to a sand grain, and got carried into a stream, until I was deposited on the beach. There, I got caught in the wave zone and pushed down the beach where I was discovered for this story.

Looking to the future, I will eventually be carried back into the surf and deposited into a deep submarine canyon. As tons of new sediments are deposited on top of me, I will be pressed and incorporated into sandstone again. I will wait there for millions more years for the future internal forces or heat sources that might transform me yet again, as I journey through the eternal rock cycle. Remember that there are billions of other California sand grains that may share similar or quite different stories about where they came from and where they are going; they all contribute to the Golden State’s incredibly diverse landscapes and natural history.

Though I’ve just summarized my adventures, there is much more to learn from my experiences. They are as much about me as they are about you, since we are all being impacted by the powerful and dynamic Earth cycles and systems that can destroy or nurture us. So, I challenge you to read on through the following sagas, recounting some details of my escapades from a more scientific point of view. They include long periods of sedentary calm, punctuated by violent upheavals and turbulent migrations, through millions of years of Earth history in California.

Preface: Following a Grain of Sand

This is a story about the physical systems and cycles which have shaped and continue to sculpt the Earth around us and the sand grain that we follow. They include long periods of intense internal heat and pressure, followed by undisturbed tranquility and isolation, succeeded by steady upheavals of unsettling tectonic activity, fueled by Earth’s internal engines and heat sources. These enduring environments are interrupted by relatively brief intervals of alterations and radical transformations that involve exposure to harsh environments and exciting, turbulent, action-packed scenes, driven by Earth’s powerful external forces.

Because they have been located on or near plate boundaries, California’s landscapes have long displayed some of the best examples of how tectonic forces can, relatively rapidly, lift terrains high above their base levels. These steep, freshly exposed slopes quickly become playgrounds for energized external, denudational processes that collaborate to degrade landscapes back down, often to the sea. These highly energized, often counterbalancing forces dominate the destiny of our California sand grain.

Your latest trip to the coast could never rival the more than 100-million-year-long odyssey that finally delivered our sand grain to the same beach that you now share. We dare to recognize here the significance of the time-honored method of time keeping known as the sand clock or hour glass, as it compares to geologic time. Could it be more than a coincidental metaphor? Could the sand grains sifting through our hour glass, counting seconds, minutes, and hours, simply be impersonating the sand grains circulating in Earth’s cycles as they count time by the decades, centuries, and millions of years?

Armed with our knowledge about Earth history, we might rethink our uninformed perceptions of a grain of sand. We cast aside our previous dismissals, such as “dirt cheap” or “all we are is dust in the wind”, elevating sand to the respect it has earned in our world with “old as dirt” and “solid as a rock”. Because, as you will see, our sand grain is far more than solid as a rock, as it represents an artifact of fascinating natural history, evidence of millions of years of Earth systems and cycles that continue to this day and will continue long after we have perished. You don’t have to look far: as we follow our curiosity, more pieces of this sand puzzle fall into place. They fit together to paint this incredibly diverse and colorful picture we call California. Following our grain of sand opens new windows, clears our lenses, and clarifies our place in this world and how we might fit in. Science guides us to learn more from this sand grain’s magical mystery tour that beckons us.    

We have divided our story into five parts and individual pages that follow our sand grain: Part I: From the Cauldron below into the Light Above; Part II: Roundabout Trip to the Beach; Part III: On the Beach and into the Ocean; Part IV: Sand Grain Natural History Glossary of Explanations and Definitions; and Part V: Sand Grain Journeys California Picture Book. Simply click on to that page if you wish to skip to another part.

Part I: From the Cauldron below into the Light Above               

We begin more than 100 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Era. Though much of California was still below the ocean, mountain building was well underway and steep ancient ranges were emerging above the sea. This helps explain why there are few dinosaur fossils in the Golden State compared to some other western states just toward the east, where there were more expansive terrains above the ocean: limited Mesozoic terrestrial environments in California included few habitats that could support dinosaur populations.

Local Mesozoic mountain building was energized by a colossal subduction zone just to the west. A dense, but thin ocean plate was thrust below a much more buoyant continental plate, dominating the dynamic geology across California for millions of years. This is somewhat similar to the dynamics off the coast of far northern California and the Pacific Northwest today. Tremendous heat was generated as materials from the ocean crust were plastered and ground into the continent. (The internal source of heat that has been fueling plate tectonics and melting rock materials comes from deeper within the Earth, generated by intense pressure and friction and the gradual decay of radioactive elements.)

As the ocean crust was subducted, its mafic chemistry (with darker and heavier material higher in iron and magnesium) melted and became more buoyant. As this hot, thin, runny magma made its way up into the continental crust, more felsic (sialic) materials melted into it. These high-silica rocks added minerals lighter in color and weight, and they made the melt more viscous. As the ratios of silicon and oxygen (compared to heavier, darker elements) increased, the mix of now gooey ingredients slowed its migration toward the surface. (Silicon and oxygen are the two most common elements found on Earth’s surface; rocks with higher amounts of these elements have lower melting temperatures and, therefore, tend to be more viscous when they melt.) Though some of the magma erupted at the surface to form various volcanic rocks, much of the magma chamber remained emplaced, churning below the surface of the continental crust. Stranded thousands of feet (or meters) below the surface, most of the melt gradually cooled and crystallized to form a giant granitic pluton.

Parts of this massive batholith, with a diverse range of chemical properties, cooled and crystalized at different rates in different locations over millions of years. It would eventually be named the Sierra Nevada Batholith and it and rocks with similar stories would, in due course, form the foundations of most of today’s major mountain ranges in the Golden State. The rock and sand grain we follow was “born” in this environment. Since it formed from millions of covalent bonds of silicon and oxygen, it would be called a quartz crystal. Because the bonding is so strong, quartz is a relatively tough crystal to break down and because silicon and oxygen bonds form crystals light in color and weight, these are typical characteristics of quartz. Furthermore, these magma chambers cooled very slowly deep below the surface, allowing the crystals to grow to very large sizes that can be easily recognized by the unaided eye. Combine all these factors and we see why we find so many rocks in the Sierra Nevada and many other California mountain ranges displaying large, light-colored crystals.   

E1: Go to explanation E1 in our glossary to view how silicon dioxide bonds to forms quartz.

You will often also notice a scattering of darker crystals that decorate these rocks. These geofreckles formed as a variety of other elements bonded with the silicon and oxygen atoms to create darker minerals.

E2: Go to explanation E2 to see how various elements combine to form minerals that then mingle to form intrusive igneous rocks.   

E2a: Orthoclase feldspar.

E2b: The structure of mica.

E2c: Identifying mica and its chemical composition.

You can see how those massive granitic batholiths have left us with tons of familiar rocks possessing varying chemistries. They are mostly dominated by the elements silicon and oxygen, which combine with some of the other elements to build minerals such as the quartz, feldspars, and micas so common in these granitic rocks. You might even find some darker amphibole in the granitic batholiths. And as the iron and magnesium content increases further, we grade away from the granites and into the more mafic rocks.

E3: Go to E3 for more information about igneous rocks (including volcanic rocks) that differ from our granitic rocks. 

As tectonic activity lifted the granitic core rocks and mountains were built, overlying rock formations were stripped away until our sand grain in its rock emerged at the surface. About 20 million years ago, it was exposed and weathered, eroded, and transported out of its pluton. But remember that most of the Golden State’s major mountain ranges have foundations dominated by granitic batholiths and they have, for millions of years, been shedding rocks and crystals that tend to be highly felsic (higher in silica and lighter in weight and color). Also recall that quartz’s silicon and oxygen covalent bonds are strong, allowing these crystals to survive much of the weathering and erosional processes that might dissolve and destroy other minerals with weaker bonds. These high quartz content sands may eventually be deposited in layers and lithified to become sandstones. This is exactly what happened to our sand grain.

The post Natural History of a Grain of Sand first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Please allow me to explain.

For those of you not in the know, the expression “New York Minute,” refers to something done very fast.  We don’t usually think of erosional processes as happening with haste. Rather it is another expression, “geologic time,” which is often used to highlight the oceans of time it takes constructive and destructive processes to shape Earth’s surface.  In this realm of eons and eras, things happen in agonizingly slow fashion.  You can safely look away for a moment, grab a beverage, and not worry about missing any of the action.

That’s right folks, don’t touch that dial …

But when it comes to erosional landforms, badlands are one of the speed demons of geomorphology.  These loosely compacted formations are often composed of soft, unconsolidated deposits, conglomerates, or friable sedimentary rocks.  But would you believe that landscapes such as this can potentially be shaped by the elements so quickly, that you might actually witness the process in real time? As it turns out, that rapidity of change is an important factor in badlands formation. More on that in another minute — see what I did there?

Badlands topography is distinguished by its lack of vegetation. These grounds are riddled with narrow gullies and ravines that more often than not, have steep and plunging gradients. Such slopes make it hard for plants to find a foothold. Speaking of feet, overland travel through such areas is often arduous. Though a short hike, my traipsing around in this area collecting pictures and video for this story proved difficult. It has been postulated that this fact is the primary reason why these features are so named.

Don’t shuffle off to Buffalo, or Manhattan, to find them …

Badlands as a feature of the landscape are quite uncommon in New York or elsewhere east of the Mississippi. I should know. I grew up in Connecticut. There is nothing remotely resembling these landforms anywhere to be found on the East Coast. Humid environments, like those found in the Empire State, lend themselves to vegetation cover. Vegetation helps anchor the soil, regolith, and other loosely consolidated sediments.  There is no doubt that erosion still happens in the “wet” East. It just tends to happen more slowly and usually in less dramatic fashion with less striking results.

When badlands do occur in such areas it is usually prompted by disturbances (fires, floods, avalanches etc.) that temporarily alter the landscape. Left to their own devices, these lands usually revegetate themselves quickly enough so that they don’t grow into the formations we see in Quatal Canyon. Indeed, even in this area, the badland features comprise a relatively small area of only a few hundred acres in extent around the steepest escarpments and terrain.

Human modifications to the land are another way such features can form. Again, disturbance is the key. Anthropogenic activity has the potential to disturb the land as much or more than some natural processes. Deforestation, development, slash & burn agriculture, acid rain, and climate change are but some of the human impacts that can help strip the natural protective layer of vegetation from the surface and exacerbate erosional activity.

The key difference between the east and west is the drop in average annual precipitation once you cross the 100th meridian. West of that line, the lack of water and/or unequal distribution thereof actually becomes a major factor in the fluvial processes that shape the land. It sounds like a paradox and it is to some degree. But the lower the annual precipitation totals are in any given area, the higher the variability of precipitation will be. What this means in practical terms is a cycle of drought and deluge for areas like Quatal Canyon. Large parts of California fall into this category.

So why are they here, precisely?

Quatal Canyon is a major drainage/tributary of the Santa Maria Watershed. The intermittent streams that currently course though this semi-arid region rise on the WSW slopes of nearby Mt. Pinos. According to USGS survey maps, much of the surrounding area and valleys are underlain with Quaternary, sedimentary rocks. Sedimentary rocks, while not as crumbly as unconsolidated sediments, still weather and erode faster than most igneous or metamorphic rock. At some point in the past, a sizable amount of clay, silt, and sand was transported and deposited by fluvial processes in the streams or perhaps in a shallow lake that once existed here. These formations were then buried by more resistant layers and covered with vegetation before becoming exposed once more to the elements. That exposure may have been from a disturbance, natural erosional processes, or tectonic activity or some combination thereof.

Okay, maybe not N.Y. but what does this have to do with Utah?

The coloration of these rocks (orange, white and reddish hues) and the minerals they contain (iron oxides, mostly), coupled with the spectacular shapes they take on (spires, hoodoos and pillars) are what make this area reminiscent of the fantastic lands of the Beehive State. Obviously this smallish formation of a few hundred acres in Quatal Canyon can’t compare to the sweeping grandeur that is to be found in Bryce Canyon National Park. But in the hidden recesses and folds of this formation, you can find places that look strikingly similar. The processes are more or less the same.

Owing to the elevation (~ 4,000’/1219m) and the inland location of Quatal Canyon, much of the vegetation that surrounds the badlands is also very similar to that of the Great Basin Province: pinon and juniper woodlands. With some carefully chosen angles, I’ve fooled even knowledgeable people about the exact location of these features. Then again, the Golden State is well-known as a stand-in for many other exotic locales across the globe. Hollywood has made an industry of that fact.

More than meets the eye …

Badlands, as it turns out, are also a good place to teach about drainage patterns.   The lack of vegetated cover combined with soft sediments means that rainfall doesn’t flow overland very long — and you can easily see its effects.   Here, surface runoff quickly starts carving small rills and gullies in the loose ground.  Also, with no vegetation to help shield from and soak up precipitation events, the ephemeral streams that form in these lands can more quickly become erosional torrents. These patterns are easily discernible here even to the untrained eye.

In turn, the geology and geomorphology are laid bare in such places. It is not hard to identify such things as tilting, folding, or warping in the clearly visible stratified layers. Teaching such subjects in my native Connecticut would be more difficult by virtue of the fact that — barring a few rock outcrops here and there — trees and grass cover everything of interest. That is obviously not so in the more arid regions of the west. The dearth of ground cover means the minerals and mechanisms that make up landforms are more easily exposed to the eye and the rock hammer.

There are much more extensive areas of badlands to be found in California. Perhaps the largest cluster is a discontinuous assemblage in and around Anza-Borrego State Park. Those badlands are measured in square miles, not acres. Portions of the Mecca Hills near the north end of the Salton Sea also exhibit some badlands topography.  Probably the most sublime examples can be found in the Golden State can be experienced at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park.

More than anything, badlands are just really cool to look at! 

Though I have lived in the Golden State now for some 20 years, I still can gaze out upon the scenery here with “Eastern Eyes.” To my gaze, badlands are one of the most exotic and awe inspiring landforms I can think of. And in knowing a thing or two about geology and geomorphology, they speak to me of a changing Earth, the passage of time, and beauty that is the natural world.

There is nothing bad about them at all.

The post Badlands In a New York Minute? first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Let me introduce myself. I am a California water drop. I condensed from billions of water vapor molecules in the air above the North Pacific Ocean to become embedded in the clouds that evolved into a large storm system. Through alternating ups and downs, and freeze and thaw cycles, I was carried in a rotating middle latitude wave cyclone as it drifted southeast and toward California. As the storm swept across the Golden State, I was forced to rise higher over the mountains and I grew as a giant ice crystal until I fell as a fluffy-turned-heavy snowflake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

After weeks of resting in the snowpack just above 9,000’ elevation, I emerged in the spring thaw, melting into Yosemite’s subalpine ecosystems. I flowed down the slopes under the force of gravity and merged with similar water drops until we accumulated into rivulets that merged into tributary streams that finally joined the Merced River. The river, swelling with spring’s snowmelt, cut through spectacular mountain canyons and valleys and tumbled over waterfalls. After flowing west through Yosemite Valley, I finally glided through the gentler-sloping foothill country and into the Central Valley. After maneuvering through various reservoirs and other human obstructions, I joined the larger San Joaquin River. From there, I flowed northwest on the valley floor and into the storied Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. There, I merged with Sacramento River water and gradually meandered through San Francisco Bay, under the Golden Gate, and back out to sea.

I drifted south in the cold California current and began veering to my right and farther out to sea off Baja, Mexico. Caught in the giant clockwise pinwheel that is the North Pacific Gyre, I turned farther west toward Asia and then north. My saga “ends” where it started in the North Pacific Ocean. But, my story doesn’t really “end” there any more than it “started” there, since I am playing an active role within Earth’s interconnected, perpetual water cycles.

As you follow my path in the more detailed account that follows in Parts I and II, the author will map out the many other routes I could have followed, with suggestions about how other water drops traveled in many different directions to experience their many very different fates. It is a classic California water story.

So, put on your seat belt, enjoy the ride, and don’t forget to show your appreciation, as you may run into me at any time on any day.    

Preface: Following the Water and our Story

Here is a story about a drop of water that happened to pass through California during its wild ride within Earth’s great water cycles. As with other visitors to the Golden State, it undergoes many different phases and metamorphoses as it passes through an astounding variety of environments. And similar to other residents of and visitors to California, our water drop cannot remain isolated, as it often interacts and merges with other drops and its dynamic surroundings. This is a captivating story of adventure that alternates from scenes of peace and quiet solitude to extreme turbulence and chaotic violence, all powered by nature. The difference between our drop and your favorite superhero story is that this saga is plausible and our water drop and others like it are having direct and indirect impacts on all of us every hour of every day. 

Our story is organized into three parts. The first part (Web Page 1) is mostly a meteorological experience that follows the water as it rides through the atmosphere above the North Pacific Ocean all the way to California and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The second part (Web Page 2) is mainly a hydrological adventure that shadows our water as gravity pulls it down the mountain slopes, into the Merced River, through Yosemite and into the Central Valley, and finally back out into the Pacific Ocean. The third part (Web Page 3) is a sort of glossary that explains some of the more technical terms and concepts used throughout this riveting saga; it is intended to provide you with a clearer understanding of the science behind the story and the scenery. When discussions deserve more detailed scientific explanations, they are flagged with “(E)” and a numbered notation in the text so that you can quickly refer to the glossary in Part III on Web Page 3, where you will find a more thorough explanation that might prove helpful.       

Every day, 40 million Californians watch water flow out of their faucets or down their streets or through streams or in to various reservoirs and lakes. They might catch raindrops or snowflakes and then marvel at how water in the soil is absorbed by all the plants and animals around them for essential nourishment. Where did that water come from and where is it going? The mystery unfolds here as we follow a California water drop.

Part I: A Wild Ride to California

It all “started” in the North Pacific Ocean when surface water gained enough energy to evaporate into a passing air mass that was not yet near saturation. Another way to word this is that the air temperature was higher than its dew point temperature, so that the relative humidity remained below 100%; and so the air retained its capacity to hold more water vapor, or water in the gaseous phase (E1). Countless billions of water vapor molecules that added up to tons of H2O were absorbed by this air mass as the total amount of water vapor in the clear air (E2) increased over time. As more water molecules were absorbed, the cooler air parcels eventually approached saturation and a few variable, innocuous clouds began to condense in some of the air parcels at various altitudes in the stable air column.

Then, a very cold, dense, heavy air mass slid east off the frigid Asian continent and over the North Pacific and changed everything. It wedged under our relatively warmer and lighter air column and lifted it, creating instability and turbulence (E3). As our air mass ascended, it quickly cooled to its dew point temperature. Each of the innumerable billions of tiny water droplets organized around water-seeking condensation nuclei known as hygroscopic nuclei and our water drop was no exception. It condensed and grew and successfully competed for available moisture by forming around a tiny, suspended, salt particle (E4). As the slightly salty water drops grew in the saturated air, accelerated condensation released latent heat, adding more energy to the surrounding clouds during the change of state from vapor to liquid water drops (E5). Many of the drops, including ours, began to freeze as they were lifted to higher altitudes where temperatures were well below freezing, releasing a little more latent heat during their change of state, encouraging more vertical development in the clouds. 

This became an unstable environment where towering clouds were organizing into a massive low pressure system with its rising air masses. The growing storm took on characteristics of a middle latitude cyclone. Our water drop-turned –ice crystal was caught in the winds spiraling into the low in a counterclockwise direction. Stronger pressure gradients pulled the ice crystal’s air parcel toward its left and into the center of low pressure, but the Coriolis effect (caused by the spinning Earth) was simultaneously pulling our ice crystal and its surrounding air parcel to its right (E6). This natural tug-of-war was joined by centripetal and frictional forces that exerted their influence as our ice crystal and its air parcel continued spiraling counterclockwise toward and around the strengthening low pressure storm. It was caught in fierce, gale-force winds as it collided with billions of other water drops and pieces of ice in the clouds. Our ice crystal alternately ascended and froze in updrafts and descended and partially melted in downdrafts; but it never made it to the surface, as opposed to some others that precipitated as snow, sleet, rain, or hail, or others that evaporated into the air before reaching the surface (E7).                

Our developing middle latitude wave cyclone was considered to be an Aleutian Low since it originated near the Gulf of Alaska. It grew to more than 1,000 miles in diameter as appendages of warm and cold fronts organized and spiraled around it (E8). Upper level winds began steering the entire system east, toward the West Coast. These powerful high-altitude winds, which peak in a cylindrical core that we call the jet stream, sheared off tons of ice crystals and carried them away to the east from the top of the storm. Simultaneously, more water vapor was being absorbed and incorporated into the base of the storm from the moist environment closer to the surface. Still, our ice crystal/water drop managed to hold together and remain in the storm system. As those upper level winds shaped a deeper longwave trough in the westerlies (E9), the entire system began drifting southeast toward the West Coast. Our storm system was transporting our water drop/ice crystal to California as the wild ride continued.

As the storm approached California’s north coast, its counterclockwise rotation pulled in a plume of warmer, moist air from the subtropics up ahead of it. Our ice crystal was caught near this intrusion and it nearly melted back to become a water drop…until it swung around the low and encountered a colder air mass pulled down from the Gulf of Alaska, freezing it again. Through days of freezing and thawing and growing larger and smaller around that initial microscopic salt particle, racing around the low and across the Pacific with surrounding air parcels, our water drop/ ice crystal had somehow survived. And now it was embedded in a definitive cold front associated with the mother low, all marching across the California coast. It rode in the towering and turbulent cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds of the cold front as it swept down the coast and inland.

As the front carried up and over the Coast Ranges, embedded air masses were forced to rise even faster, creating more instability (E10). Ours became one of the tons of ice crystals that grew larger by accretion in the ascending saturated air until it was so heavy, it fell toward the ground near the Bay Area. Though many other giant crystals landed there just after melting, ours encountered another powerful updraft that lifted it higher into the clouds. It rode these clouds with the cold front all the way over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where they were lifted even higher, up to 30,000 feet. During this orographic lifting, additional moisture attached to our ice crystal so that it finally grew too heavy (E11). And so it fell into the high country of Yosemite, crunched between tiny air pockets with billions of other snowflakes that may have similar stories (E12).

That winter storm delivered copious amounts of low-elevation rain and high-elevation snow as it swept through northern and central California. Water drops and ice crystals similar to the one we have followed soaked into soils and accumulated on surfaces from the Klamaths and Cascades, to the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada, and in the valleys that separated them. The cold front even held together long enough to spread lesser amounts of precipitation into thirsty southern California (E13). But as the upper level trough continued drifting east, the storm and cold front that it carried was forced up over those major mountain ranges. The rising air on the west side of the mountains squeezed out and then dumped most of the remaining moisture there in the form of orographic precipitation. In contrast, by the time the system cleared the peaks and descended down the leeward, or rainshadow, sides of the mountains, it was in disarray and moisture starved (E14). Though some showers would also fall over the mountains of the Basin and Range to the east, our ice crystal had already dropped out over Yosemite, just before the at least temporary demise of this once-powerful Pacific storm system.

Our large snowflake that fell out of the storm that winter night entered a dramatically different environment in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It settled and piled up with billions of other snowflakes and ice pellets into Yosemite’s high country, a place of solitude with a kind of striking calm and quiet that few of today’s humans will ever experience. There were no people for many miles in this mountain wilderness, where even the animals had taken shelter. It was a deafening silence, as the fluffy snow seemed to absorb any sound that dared propagate through this frigid winter wonderland. An occasional clump of snow would fall to the surface from the limbs of a nearby overburden Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) or other tree species in this subalpine forest. Our giant snowflake was eventually buried below layers of other snowflakes delivered from this and subsequent winter storms. Quiet and calm buried in more silence, squashed together, waiting for a warming sun that wouldn’t come for weeks.

But as with the other raindrops and ice crystals that fell across the state during this latest winter storm, there are plenty of surprises, dramas, and excitement to come in our story, as we follow the continuing adventures of this water drop in California.

The post Adventures of a Water Drop, California Style first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.