Introduction: Transmogrification in California

We need a new word to describe this. Forgive those who sense that we have entered some sort of space-time warp, when two locations and microclimates separated by just a few miles could experience such radically different atmospheres, as if they were worlds apart. But it also seems unthinkable that such remarkable changes could occur within any specific region within just one year, challenging us again to check our calendars. Old descriptors for our once more dependable seasons and weather patterns have been evolving toward unfamiliar, unlikely, exceptional, and unprecedented. Comparing the final months of the calendar years 2024 and 2025 unveils a topsy-turvy environment that repeatedly produced chaotic scenes more common to a science fiction movie. Exceptional pattern anomalies amplified again through and beyond the first month of 2026.

Several years of stories on this website have documented widely researched seasonal disorders that have made news headlines each month … and they only seem to be getting weirder and more impactful. We are, at this time in this state, perfectly situated to explore and learn from these upheavals as our unparalleled diversity of microclimates, ecosystems, and landscapes continue calling out to us.

Calendar Contrariness

One year ago, our stories led you through the unprecedented weather patterns that set the stage for catastrophic historic and deadly wildfires which eventually consumed entire Southern California communities. We examined the momentous drought that left only around 1/10^th of an inch of rain in the SoCal coastal plains from spring into mid-January (the middle of our rainy season). This year stood out in stark contrast as many of those same locations had already equaled or exceeded half their average annual precipitation totals by mid-November, long before what are usually the wettest months of the rainy season. But as we advanced into November, 2025, nature performed another dramatic switch. Persistent weather patterns locked into place into mid-December and they were all powerfully connected: SoCal’s seemingly endless sun and above-average temperatures in the 80s versus consecutive days of record cold, dank, and dreary valley fog; merciless warm atmospheric rivers (ARs) from the tropics that produced record catastrophic flooding in Washington contrasted with arctic blasts that plunged the upper Midwest and East Coast into the deep freeze. Yet another radical shift near the end of December (and into 2026) brought powerful storms and flooding atmospheric rivers across California during the holiday season. Another reversal to persistent, resilient high-pressure systems and winter storm blockades dried out the entire West Coast through January while historic Arctic deep freezes paralyzed the continent east of the Rockies all the way to the Eastern Seaboard. The spectacular diversity of conditions and their theatrical impacts on us and our landscapes have ranged from astounding to unnerving. There’s so much going on in this story that should keep curious observers on the edge of their seats.  

Episode One: Odd Cutoff Lows Spin Their Moisture Magic

Some of the blame for these multiple twists of fate (sometimes coined weather whiplash) started with a series of odd early-season cold and unstable upper-level low-pressure troughs that dug down from the north and broke off from general circulation patterns. November’s cutoff low repeat performers skimmed down the West Coast, mostly whirled and sprinkled through Northern California, taking the bulk of their moisture and energy with them. Then, the pesky, reenergized storms anchored and spun their turbulence over waters just off the Southern California Bight, entrained Pacific moisture, and tossed it inland. Give the National Weather Service credit for warning us about these cutoff lows that remain a weather forecaster’s woe.

As hours ticked into days, trains of steady showers circulated from Mexico up through and past Santa Barbara County. When the unstable moisture was lifted up the Transverse Ranges, heavier orographic precipitation watered the slopes and snuffed out the fire season. Soils became saturated, seasonal streams resumed flowing early, fresh green spouts appeared everywhere, and premature weeds erupted in our gardens. Since the showers were mostly beneficial and steady rather than sporadic downburst gulley washers, we were first spared the worst of flooding and debris flows that could have coughed out of our burn scars. Observers were wondering how it was possible that the hills were so alive just one calendar year after debilitating drought and Santa Ana winds had primed these same landscapes for their dehydrated fiery destruction. One of the wettest starts to our rainy season this year had transposed last year’s driest into our rear-view mirrors.

Ocean Current Mysteries

Augmenting the improbability of these captivating whodunnits, all this early-season atmospheric chaos was raining down during the start of a weak La Niña year, when cooling water currents in the tropical East Pacific might be expected to result in more stable air and a relatively dry SoCal rainy season. Here’s more proof that the El Niño/La Niña Oscillations we research as ENSO cycles (such as in previous stories on this website) and their effects have NOT been as dependable or predictable during this century compared to late last century. We are reminded that we are observing and researching targets that are constantly moving and evolving.

A possible less-understood culprit for the October-December 2025 SoCal wetness could have been the now infamous North Pacific “blob” that peaked in September and circulated through the end of the year. This giant marine heat wave (which has reappeared in some form during recent years) expanded to 5,000 miles across the Northern Pacific Ocean until sea surface temperatures maxed out at a record 68°F (20°C). In addition to ongoing climate change, research suggests that recent decreases in air pollution (particularly sulfur dioxide) from cleaner shipping and Chinese sources have helped to clear Pacific air masses of reflective aerosols, allowing more direct solar radiation to heat ocean surfaces. Regardless, such a mysterious warm blob throws another complicating variable into our understanding of ocean-atmosphere interactions that could be responsible for these historic anomalies.

Episode Two: High Pressure Heat Versus Cold Fog

As if to keep us on our toes and our eyes on the skes, nature abruptly and dramatically flipped the switch again after mid-November. Massive high-pressure systems took control, building and oscillating off the Southern California coast and over the Southwest States into Mexico. The strength and extent of these tall, heavy domes of stacked air challenged seasonal records and eventually dominated the entire state. As air descended out of the monstrous fair-weather storm blockers, clear and dry became the latest curious forecast fads across most of the state, lasting an entire month through mid-December, a period which normally marks the annual start to our seasonal rains. The November air columns started out cool, but days of dry offshore flow and compressional heating pushed temperatures into the 80s along the SoCal coast and into the upper 80s in the inland valleys right into mid-December. Weather stations in the Coast Ranges (such as in the Santa Cruz Mountains) and Sierra Nevada foothills recorded high temperatures well into the 70s in the clear, dry, sinking air. Adding an additional layer of complexity, another conspicuous exception developed and stubbornly held out as the antithesis to the warm and dry: historic valley fog episodes.

Epic Fog Traps

The same powerful high pressure that squeezed Southwest air columns toward the surface for a month also capped a shallow layer of cold air that settled and pooled in Northern and Central California inland valleys like dense water in a vast bathtub. I’ve written on this website and in my latest California Sky Watcher book about how our Great Central Valley is the perfect winter laboratory to make valley fog (AKA as tule fog or radiation fog), which forms in place as cold, dense, heavy air often settles down to the lowest flatlands and becomes trapped for 400 miles from Redding to Bakersfield. In this latest classic episode, the valley floor had been moistened by those earlier October/November rain events; then, the air just sat down there below the inversion with little or no circulation as leftover heat radiated out, gradually cooling the air toward its dewpoint. Once the late-night air chilled to near 100% relative humidity, the moist haze turned to cold fog. Now, we have a saturated pool of air trapped in the confines of our natural oval-shaped beaker, with the Coast Ranges on one side and the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the other.

With such short daylight hours and low sun angles, weak sunlight struggled to boost temperatures above dewpoints, allowing the winter fog to further thicken during long nights until it didn’t even “burn off” during the daytime. This tule fog enshrouded the valley from late November well into mid-December, 2025. It became the star of conversations, news headlines, and memes as the cold and gray bled west through the Carquinez Strait to invade the Bay Area. As valley temperatures stalled in the 40s, Bay Area residents shivered through consecutive hazy and foggy days that could barely warm into the 50s. The dull creepy mist also condensed in other inland valleys through Central and Northern California, from wine country, to the Trinity, Klamath, and Eel River Basins. Such a remarkable and historic prolonged exaggeration of the annual valley fog doldrums was capable of depressing the most upbeat Pollyanna to beg for mercy in the form of some clear-sky relief.

To be or not to be Fog

Though we call it “fog”, this particular weeks-long episode often formed as low stratus cloud ceilings a few hundred feet above the ground. Visibilities near the ground (and below the thicker hovering blanket) were often measured at around a mile or so, decreasing at night and slightly improving again each afternoon. Just above the inversion, at around 2,000 feet above sea level, temperatures warmed well into the 70s each day thanks to dry, sinking air and unlimited visibilities. Some mountain and foothill communities could only look down through their pristine ether toward the distant layers of thick silver cotton below. In contrast, that same descending air often scoured out any inversions trying to form in SoCal. When the high pressure strengthened overhead, the Southland enjoyed a string of iconic warm and crystal-clear December days. When the resilient high weakened or drifted a bit, a shallow marine layer was enabled to spread night and morning fog into coastal valleys. During those days, most California coastal and valley communities were mired below stagnant inversions that forced air quality management districts to issue alerts and enforce no burn days: no chestnuts roasting on open fires to belch smoke that quickly gets trapped below shallow choking anvils.

Pollution and Fog Partnerships

Recent research shows that the frequency of cold valley fog events in California was increasing each decade into the 1980s, most likely because of increasing air pollution. Droplets of water are more likely to condense around certain particulate matter, known as cloud condensation nuclei. As emissions from fuels combustion and farm operations increased, fog episodes became thicker and more frequent. After the 1980s, as air pollution controls took effect and emissions decreased, so has the frequency of dense fog. Indeed, there is an exact correlation between NOx pollution (nitrogen oxides) content in valley air and fog density and frequency, measured both from the ground and satellite imagery. This could explain why the more recent thickest “fog” actually formed a few hundred feet above sea level, leaving the higher fringes of the valley shrouded while residents at lower elevations were looking up toward the grayest low blanket. Gradual climate change could also be playing a role when today’s warming surface temperatures remain just a degree or two above valley dew points.

Essential Fog

These might seem like foggy details, but they are important for a number of reasons, far beyond casting our brooding moods; here are two. First, transportation is often crippled by dense valley fog. There is a long history of deadly California accidents caused by low visibilities, followed by scenes of multiple mangled vehicles once the mysterious murk finally begins to clear. Surviving commuters have been caught in hours of gridlock on shrouded highways and narrow serpentine detour routes. Air traffic is often diverted and delayed when even the most experienced pilots with highly sophisticated cockpit instruments are challenged while attempting to take off or land through such dense curtains of potential aviation disasters. Second, the foggy winter chill deposits some moisture and may shield valley fruit and nut trees from direct sunlight during dormant periods of rest, which eventually increases annual production of these multi-billion-dollar agricultural products. (Before native plant communities were plowed, grazed, and developed into history, winter fog played an essential role in nurturing vast valley prairies that some coined California’s Kansas.)

Tule fog’s malaise is finally broken up when restraining high pressure eases or moves away and when turbulent instability sweeps in from the Pacific, allowing wind currents to scour down to valley floors. Regardless, this latest misty atmospheric quagmire kept millions of acres and millions of Californians from the Central Valley to the Bay Area enveloped throughout a remarkable string of consecutive clammy days and nights with temperatures stuck in the 40s F.

Episode Three: Catastrophic Floods and Frigid East Coast Connections

We can also recognize how our resilient high-pressure blocker was part of a larger pattern that dominated weather across the continent. As air descended out of our massive high, its winds were turned to the right by the Coriolis force, creating those familiar clockwise pinwheel circulations common to all high-pressure systems that often span thousands of miles in the Northern Hemisphere. These gyrating winds curved toward big, cold low-pressure systems spinning counterclockwise in the Gulf of Alaska. Strong pressure gradients and powerful air streams grew along narrow battlefronts between the highs and lows to drive abundant moisture and embedded disturbances flowing across the Pacific within atmospheric firehoses; a parade of rainmakers were directed north, up and over California’s tall stacks of fair weather and into the stormy Pacific Northwest.

The resulting archetypal atmospheric rivers (ARs) had sources so distant and farther south of Hawaii that Mango Express replaced the more familiar Pineapple Express monikers. The prolonged invasions of unusually warm moist air strengthened to attack the Pacific Northwest. Snow levels were so high, almost all the precipitation fell as torrential mountain rain that had to runoff somewhere. Rivers surged over their banks in December until record stream gauge heights sent catastrophic flooding across landscapes and into neighborhoods from north of Portland into Canada.

Amplified Waves Make West Coast-East Coast Connections

How is this connected to the December artic blasts that dropped clippers of snow, ice, and wind storms across the upper Midwest until temperatures plunged below zero F and wind chills could freeze flesh within a few minutes? Once that same stream of air arched up and over our West Coast high pressure ridge, it came diving down its opposite (east) side and into the middle of the continent. This downstream trough opened the door for arctic air to race directly out of Canada and all the way to the East Coast, proving how all of these pattern shifts and winds are connected. And these high-amplitude waves in the upper-level winds are just what computer models have warned us about. As the Arctic has warmed faster than most other locations on our planet, temperature gradients and pressure gradients between warmer air to the south and cool air to the north are decreasing. The jet stream that forms between these contrasting air masses tends to slow down and form large meanders (Rossby waves) of upper-level troughs and ridges that get stuck in place and that’s exactly what happened through mid-December. Two more powerful connections in one paragraph!      

Episode Four: Atmospheric Rivers Bring More Winds of Change 

Later in December, yet another major weather pattern whiplash changed everything again. The stubborn Southwest high-pressure system finally began weakening and drifting away, allowing that historic atmospheric river to gradually, mile by mile, sag south as pressures dropped. As it shifted south, the AR whipped back and forth, targeting most of California through the holiday season. To keep your attention and prove how these winter AR storms mean business in Northern California’s high country, consider this NWS forecast on December 23, 2025 for Mount Shasta:

“Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 13. Wind chill values as low as -13. Windy, with a south wind 85 to 95 mph increasing to 100 to 110 mph after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 115 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 41 to 47 inches possible.” 

Unfortunately, snow levels remained very high especially early during most of these AR onslaughts, adding snowpacks only to the highest elevations, often above resort levels. A low-pressure trough forming off the coast finally bent the AR into a more southwest-northeast oriented arc to circulate copious amounts of rain and high-elevation snow into the state. As air pressure continued to drop offshore, fears of a “bomb cyclone” event grew, while pulses of damaging winds, thunderstorms, and other severe weather swung across California’s Central and North coast during the holidays.

And as the bullseye finally migrated into Southern California, this AR was following recent patterns, behaving much like computer models have also warned: as global temperatures increase, warmer water can evaporate into warmer air that has the capacity to hold more water vapor. These trends are loading ARs with moisture and energy since the air can hold about 7% more water vapor for every 1°C increase in temperature (about 4% more water vapor for each 1°F). Recent single AR events have produced more than a foot of rain as they get lifted over higher terrain. In this holiday episode, such orographic effects dumped more than a foot of water into rain gauges from north of Santa Barbara along the Transverse Ranges into the San Gabriel Mountains. Where ARs had stalled over them, some weather stations had already received their average annual rainfall totals even before the two normally wettest months (January and February) of the season. As expected, flooding and debris flows belched out of the mountains, particularly below recent burn scars. The resort communities of Wrightwood and Lytle Creek in the San Gabriel Mountains earned most of the media attention for mudflow destruction (see links to videos following these essays). With a few exceptions, many of these fitful storms lost much of their punch while trying to slip south toward San Diego County, bringing mostly lighter and beneficial precipitation there.  

Reiterating the power of atmospheric connections (again), upper-level winds dipping around the low-pressure trough that directed firehoses to blast California through the Christmas season were forced to turn back north over a massive high-pressure ridge dominating the central US. Air descending out of this monster dome of high pressure set countless records for both the hottest high and highest low temperatures ever recorded during the holiday season, from Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, across the Rocky Mountains, through the Plains and Midwest and into the southern US. Temperatures peaked at 20-35°F above the average in many of these regions (high temperatures in and around Oklahoma City made it past 80°F) while some Californians were getting washed out.  

It would be difficult to overstate the difference between the start of last year’s rainy season and this 2025-2026 season, especially in Southern California. (The official water season begins on October 1 each year.) The parade of holiday storms continued across California through the first few days of January, raining on the Rose Parade for the first time in 20 years and cancelling celebrations into the New Year’s Weekend. Contrast this year’s drought-breaking and eventual deadly inundations with virtually no rain by this time last year and the deadly fires that followed. On January 1 alone, more than one inch of rain fell from Oxnard to Long Beach, setting new records for the date. By early January, 2026, numerous locations from north of Orange County to the Central Coast Ranges had already equaled or exceeded their average annual rainfall totals, just as the two traditionally wettest months of the year were to begin. Some stations (such as in Santa Barbara County) experienced their wettest start just after last year’s record driest start to any rainy season. On the first days of January this year, freshwater runoff coincided with another astronomical King Tides event, causing historic shoreline flooding (such as around the Bay Area), when the tides combined with low pressure, onshore winds, and storm surges. You can see why we can only guess what surprises to expect in the long run, so stay tuned.  

Epilogue: Following the Science that Connects the Dots to our Future

This story’s roller-coaster ride analysis of interconnected phenomena guides us into 2026, as we hope to settle back into more seasonable expectations; but nature likely has other plans. If you want to imagine 2026 and beyond, click back to some of 2025’s extreme weather events, such as those analyzed in our other recent website stories (rogue storms, Texas flash floods, SoCal wildfires, etc.). What do they all have in common? Though we were warned a few days ahead by remarkably accurate forecasts from the National Weather Service, the deadly catastrophes went on to destroy too many lives and too much property, often because local officials failed to properly prepare and respond.

We have learned that anything goes as we anticipate beyond those seven- and ten-day forecasts, and the mysteries grow as we look further into the next year. So, we wonder why, at this critical time when we must better comprehend the science behind what is rocking our world, the US Government is cutting the heart out of the very scientific organizations that help us make sense of these changes and anticipate what might be next. As I write this, the latest victim to be thrown on the chopping block is the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado. Should we lose this and other vital agencies that objectively and efficiently guide us through the science of change and warn us what to anticipate, we all become victims. What took us decades to build and nurture may be lost forever. Such short-sided penny-wise and pound-foolish irreversible policies are certain signs of a less developed society in decline, a culture that celebrates ignorance only to suffer the long-term consequences.    

We could be forgiven for behaving like the frogs in the pot parable, except these are not gradual changes; they’re slapping our faces and kicking our butts every season. Changes that have always ruled our world have been growing in intensity and duration and these coalescing change agents are calling out for our immediate attention. Like uninvited intruders in our homes, such massive experiments are repeatedly and more frequently transforming our environments and our lives to remind us that we ignore them—and nature—at our peril.

For you dedicated weather enthusiasts and researchers who are hungry for even more discussion and details, continue on past this brief list of links, where you will find a chronological sequence of dynamic images from the last months and days of 2025. We then carry you through the next weather whiplash that delivered another record-breaking West Coast dry spell which coincided with the historic (and connected) cold waves of deadly ice and snow storms that froze the Midwest and East Coast through January 2026.       

California Current Marine Heatwave Tracker

Atmospheric Rivers Science

Mud and Debris Flow Videos from Wrightwood and Nearby High Desert:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=4259235981063913

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1576524737019441

Lytle Creek Mudflows

King Tides During the Storms Videos

Daniel Swaine’s Weather West year-end summary, including late December storms

Defunding National Center for Atmospheric Research

A History of Winter Dry Spells from Golden Gate Weather Services (and thanks to Bill Patzert)

By late January, 2026, the early warm storms followed by mid-season drought sounded alarms across the West as snowpacks dwindled.

The latest maps.

Trapped under another round of resilient high-pressure systems, dangerous tule fog episodes returned to California inland valleys through January.

The series of warm, sunny days that followed early-season heavy rains produced a premature season surprise desert bloom (in January!) at places such as Anza Borrego. This story explores the mysteries behind Joshua Tree early bloomers at higher desert elevations.

A wealth of additional images (from the ground and from space) and maps follows, carrying you through some of the more memorable and dynamic weather events and colorful scenes from late 2025. Captions are limited, but they are also in chronological order. This journey (we could consider it an appendix or addendum) incudes some details that should interest meteorologists and climatologists AND instruct newer students and casual observers. We will make it all the way to the start of 2026 and a break in the stormy weather, ending our photo ops with sunsets, moon rises, flowers, and feathered friends. Finally, our January 2026 epilogue II (a necessary addition) displays images and weather maps showing how the West Coast suddenly dried out as the Midwest and East Coast were experiencing their epic prolonged cold snap. Such connected West Coast/East Coast opposites extremes would play out into February.  

Revisiting Episode One (October-November, 2025): Odd Cutoff Lows Spin Their Moisture Magic

Revisiting Episodes Two and Three (December 9-10): High Pressure, Dry Heat Versus Cold Fog AND Catastrophic Floods Versus Frigid East Coast Connections

Revisiting Episode Four (December 20, 2025-early January, 2026): Atmospheric Rivers Bring More Winds of Change

Follow Us to the End-of-Story Bonus Colors: Rainbows, Trash, Cloud Murals, Sunset, Wetlands, Flowers, Birds, and the Return of El Sol.     

The rain paused and clouds parted just enough by the afternoon of January 1, 2026 to encourage a long walk (the next six photos) at Bolsa Chica Wetlands in Orange County …   

January into February, 2026 (Epilogue II): Yet Another Historic Weather Whiplash

January 2026 brought yet another meteorological shift that will go down in the record books. As if to mimic another movie sequel, a giant high-pressure system formed over California; but this time, it eventually elongated all the way up past the Canadian border. The big storm blocker kept California dry for weeks during the middle of the rainy season and left some Pacific Northwest locations (such as Seattle) with their longest period without precipitation during any January in history. And in what has become a familiar twist of weather pattern whiplash fate, upper-level winds that curved north of the West Coast and into Canada then made drastic U-turns to plunge toward the middle of the continent. These same winds raced south from the Arctic, driving temperatures below zero Fahrenheit into the Midwest, spreading historic freezing ice and snow storms across the continent to the East Coast, prompting deep freeze news stories that lasted through much of January. It was yet another example of how West Coast-East Coast antithetic extremes become connected by high-amplitude upper-level waves that seem to get stuck in place. The following images illustrate some of January’s weather dramas.    

The following photos were taken in mid-January, 2026, as the record-breaking arctic cold snap was freezing the Midwest and East Coast. By contrast, this was Southern California during the same time, a few weeks following those premature heavy rains, and during the unusually long winter warm spell when afternoon temperatures peaked well into the 80s.   

THE END … for now.

The post What a Difference a Year Makes first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

Since this story is only a quick snapshot in early April, 2020, we don’t know how much pain and suffering and destruction COVID-19 virus will finally leave in its wake. But as people (especially the most vulnerable, such as the already ill and elderly) are sick and dying, medical services are being strained beyond their capacities. Mental health experts are urging all of us to reevaluate and differentiate between what we perceive as inconveniences and real problems in our lives.

Our reactions to this pandemic are transforming the state’s people, cultures, landscapes, and economies faster than most could have imagined. How can anyone attempt to describe or predict the final extent of COVID-19 impacts on our state at this stage in the battle? We have an obligation to share at least a few relevant observations here as we continue to consider and research new ways to rediscover the Golden State. You are welcome to fill in the many gaps as we also invite you to explore with us a few iconic landscapes at this pivotal time in California history. All images (unless otherwise noted) were captured from the Malibu hills and coast to Santa Monica and Venice Beach during the first days of the lockdown. They were all taken from legally-accessible sites during early stages of the pandemic response, while adhering to all health guidelines. Some sites have since closed. We are all reminded that public officials are struggling to do their jobs, so be responsible and stay safe.

It is already clear that our state and our Rediscovering the Golden State project, at least for 2020, has evolved into two narratives: before and after COVID-19. The new Coronavirus and our responses to it are rewriting the human geography that we have researched and shared in our publication and our web page.  

An eerie, foreboding quiet has been cast over our city streets and many other private and public spaces, featuring odd AWOL-like human landscapes. It reminds us of those science fiction movies with images of hunkered-down neighborhoods waiting for the terrifying monster to stomp through. This tempts the geographer in us to rename the virus Godzilla-19. Will the monster destroy us or will we destroy ourselves and our communities preparing for and fighting it? After this pandemic spreads so much inconvenience, pain, and suffering, can a new and improved California emerge? If you are reading this after the crisis, you may already have formulated some answers.

As of the start of April, how have 40 million people in the most culturally diverse place on the planet reacted to our state shut down? At first, within otherwise seemingly abandoned cities and suburbs during daylight hours, some families could be seen walking and playing together in parks, beaches, and the other open public spaces that have become so precious to Californians, especially as we were blocked out of those meticulously planned private landscapes that were designed to encourage us to spend our dollars. More recently, officials have been closing even our shared public outdoor spaces to keep the virus from spreading, as some became overcrowded with visitors trying to escape their limited confines.

Rural Californians working in primary industries may have, at first, had to make the fewest adjustments to adhere to the temporary COVID-19 protocols. You might not have even noticed pandemic symptoms in some of the state’s more rural and remote communities where annual incomes and the cost of living are relatively low. The big exceptions include communities dependent on tourism and ecotourism, where their streets and hospitality businesses are left empty and severely damaged.

Common sense must rule as geographical and spatial epidemiologists monitor Godzilla’s destruction and work to educate us about the details. Will the monster have its way with California cities as it did NYC? Will the pandemic quickly infect the densest urban neighborhoods and gradually trickle into rural areas? Will it hit certain ethnic groups harder than others? We already know that the elderly are most vulnerable. Will the per capita infection and illness rates be higher in working class or wealthy communities, homeless or prison populations? Will changing seasons slow or accelerate the spread? Did our quick, proactive response slow (flatten) California’s per capita infections and deaths curves compared to many other states and nations, or was there something else about our geography that made us unique? There are too many questions and unknown variables in these uncharted waters during this uncertain spring, but the final maps promise to reveal fascinating mysteries and hidden tragedies.

We already declare many losers in economic geography, particularly in a state where such activities as tourism, transportation, manufacturing, international trade, entertainment, and services (each worth hundreds of billions of dollars) recently fueled our economic engines to soar over $3 billion, more than 14% of U.S. GDP. Sober fiscal realities become clear when you check the economic specifics in Chapter 10 of our publication: our state’s economy is being crippled by this devastating Godzilla. And the catastrophe is spreading faster than at any time in history: note the millions of able workers applying for unemployment.  

Past mistakes haunt us…again. While California was smart to boost its rainy day funds during the last decade of growth that built the 5^th largest economy in the world, the Federal Government debt was allowed to balloon in reckless fashion. The Godzilla-19 crisis promises to quickly deplete our once impressive state surplus, while the nation’s debt will skyrocket to historic and perhaps unmanageable or even unimaginable levels. We will all have enormous debt burdens that could last for generations and it will show in every future decision we make, from building infrastructure, to supporting education, and from funding our parks, to supplying vital social services. It is too late to encourage the discipline that could have built rewarding household and government rainy day funds. The rainy day has arrived.

Other industries, each worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually, are playing key roles in keeping us alive, sometimes literally. The global epicenter of biotechnology industries is in the Golden State, particularly from southern Orange County through San Diego County. Will treatments and cures for the COVID-19 scourge be discovered here? The high technology capital of the world remains in the Silicon Valley and has spread beyond the Bay Area, spilled in to the Central Valley, and leaped into coastal Southern California. These technologies have become crucial in supporting the schooling and working and social networking from home that has kept our economy from crashing, while guarding millions from getting sick. As just one example, it is no surprise that Zoom Video Communications is headquartered in San Jose. Other communications technologies and delivery companies have allowed millions of Californians to purchase and receive vital products without risky human contact. So it is true that if California sneezes, the nation will get sicker. All eyes necessarily turn to our overburdened health care industry.

The crash in service industries that require human contact and the inaccessibility of many technologies to low-income Californians promises to increase inequities, poverty rates, and the already record gap between the rich and poor. Those ubiquitous delivery trucks that have converged on higher income neighborhoods are serving far fewer working class households where there are people who have lost their tips and weekly paychecks and now can barely afford their necessities, much less pay for deliveries. Smaller, struggling businesses are folding or being gobbled up by those with the capital to ride out this unprecedented storm.

This pandemic offers too many opportunities to reexamine ourselves, our priorities, our neighborhoods, our landscapes, and how we evaluate the issues and solve the problems that confront us, the very topics we have been addressing in this project that has evolved throughout its more than 20 years. We are forced to consider potentially devastating impacts on the most vulnerable populations that include those stuck in poverty without adequate health insurance, more than 100,000 homeless people, and more than 100,000 prisoners in the state. We are startled to see how our living environments improve without the congestion, traffic gridlock, and air pollution that plagued many of our cities when the economy was growing full steam ahead. The pain and suffering brought by COVID-19 offers renewed opportunities to apply geography and “to place California’s human and physical resources, issues, problems, and landscapes in a geographic perspective”, as stated in the last chapter of our publication.

When faced with such a crisis, we are forced to refocus on geographic realities that we have too often ignored. In the long term, unfortunate synergies are growing from local to global scales, such as the effects of climate change, pollution, habitat destruction, the introduction of aggressive non-native invasive species, and our accelerated encroachment into wild spaces. These trends that define the Anthropocene also conspire to produce even more potent future Godzillas than the one we are fighting. And is everyone recognizing the uncanny parallels in our debates about how to handle this crises and more long-term environmental challenges such as climate change? Overreact by investing now and we might save ourselves in the long term at some short-term expense; underreact and we might allow an uncontrolled experiment with unknown consequences to run amok and destroy us. Should we ignore the scientific evidence that commands us to flatten the curve, we risk unleashing an unimaginable wrecking ball into our communities. This Godzilla has reminded us that nature is in charge no matter how we might try to ignore her. And so, as of today, most of our overreactions to this pandemic have turned out to be the proper reactions.

In a state and a world with economies that are fueled by trade and travel and other human interaction, there are many logistical reasons why we can’t erect the perfect barriers such as travel restrictions and quarantines that could quickly end future threats from the outside. But we can work to eliminate islands of inequities that exist in our health care systems, because these may be the petri dishes that nurture the next monster that erupts to produce the next pandemic. So much of our health and survival depends on our ability to – with clearer lenses – rediscover our surrounding environments and reimagine our communities as we view into this new world. Such success will require that we rely on the evidence and science-based decision making that makes us smarter and stronger so that we may better understand these complicated problems and muster the social cohesion required to solve them.    

This is more than our chance to become better prepared to fight an even deadlier biological Godzilla-20 or 21 that epidemiologists warn could attack us in the future. We might use this opportunity to reestablish healthier families and cultures, as the importance of household and neighborhood communication replaces alienation and isolation. Cooperation and community could replace selfish cynicism, tribalism, and hyper-competition for the few remaining scraps. Through it all, our appreciation and love for geography can be rekindled as we become more prepared for future disasters such as that catastrophic earthquake that is in our future. The least imaginative leaders have already forced us to confront moral and philosophical questions about the importance of money and wealth versus life and health, as if they could be neatly separated for conflict. This might be an opportunity to recognize how our economy AND public health are powerfully connected: sick workers operate sick economies; healthy Californians are more productive Californians.

While keeping my social distance in the checkout lines, I have done some rough surveys. Why were so many people hoarding products that are easily restocked by reliable supply chains, even during a crisis like this? After all, farmers must continue to bring their food to markets as it becomes edible. The California Grocers Association reassures us and demonstrates how the supply chain is intact and reliable, so what is fueling this irrational and wasteful panic buying? The other day, I asked the person in front of me why he had filled his cart with so many plastic bottles of water. He blamed it on orders from his wife, but like every other bottled water hoarder I’ve asked, his only answer was that “everyone else was doing it.” Yet anyone knowledgeable about our state’s water delivery systems knows that our inexpensive tap water is usually as good or better quality than plastic bottled water that costs as much as gasoline, except for very few neighborhoods and isolated communities suffering from locally contaminated water (especially groundwater) supplies. Still, companies pushing their bottled water have made fortunes off convincing millions of clueless Californians to waste their hard-earned money to buy something that is already offered to them almost for free, with or without a home filter. Meanwhile, the unnecessary plastic bottle waste piles up in our landfills and on our beaches while consumers drain their wallets to pay for something they don’t need. It’s another Tragedy of the Commons drama that can be eased with some knowledge of geography.

And spatial epidemiologists can tell you that riding your bike or walking with your family on the beach or a mountain trail is perfectly safe as long as you keep your safe social distance. Especially during these times, everyone can benefit from decreasing stress hormones, blood pressure, and heart rates in open and natural environments that can strengthen our natural immune systems and quell our nature deficit disorders. Enjoy neighborhood walks, find a garden, but keep your safe social distance. Still, there is pressure to close all of our calming public spaces during this crisis at the expense of our freedom to stay physically and mentally fit. Conflicts and debates quickly erupt as medical experts tell us there is no threat to anyone who observes proper social distancing in open air environments, while these activities often result in enormous improvements to our physical and mental well-being. What do you think is healthier personal and social behavior?…remaining cooped up behind four walls, or walking along an open trail in fresh air under an open sky with or without your family, while maintaining safe social distances?…disconnected inaction or engaged participation? A little bit more knowledge about diseases and our need to connect to our surrounding environments would help us make better choices.

Geography helps us understand why particular public parks and trails were forced to close after selfies and social media over-advertised them as escapes from the Godzilla drama. Parts of Marin County to Pt. Reyes, Newport and Laguna Beach, and other popular local, state, and national parks and nature trails adjacent to our largest urban areas were overrun and then first to close when the hordes were crammed dangerously closer than the social distance required. This heaps greater burdens on the fewer public spaces remaining open until they are forced to close under a cascading negative ripple effect. Unintended consequences take over. One- or half-day journeys to the open, expansive, calming places have been thwarted by closures sometimes encouraged by wealthy locals who are fortunate to live adjacent to the resources, but who might fear the crowds more than the virus. Tragedy of the Commons revisited.

We are challenged to imagine more sustainable ways of reacting and how we might eventually reopen our state and our lives, especially as this crisis carries on for months, particularly when the curve is finally falling. When the threat eases, more effort can be made to warn potential visitors about overcrowded open spaces so they can be avoided. Officials might coordinate with local volunteers to direct, disperse, and educate visitors along one-way loop trails and other outdoor experiences that encourage social distancing so that all parks and beaches might reopen. Alternating parking days permitting only odd or even license plates or birth years could cut crowds at other public areas. There are many other examples as simple as this one smart sign that read, “Our public parks are open. Please maintain safe social distance.”, until even that park was later closed. If you think these ideas are unworkable, here’s a chance to propose your own solutions instead of sitting back, watching, and complaining.

A wave of volunteers, cooperation, and social cohesion will be required to avoid dangerous congregating in our cherished open spaces so that we can conquer this monster. Our path toward freedom and sanity will require a bold vision and strategy, a labor-intensive effort that we haven’t seen in many decades. It will necessitate unprecedented coordination between local, state, and federal agencies and officials. But we cannot let this attack from nature further disconnect us from our physical geography, from what is really vital to our health and survival, the natural world that nurtures us. Without these herculean efforts, we may become the latest victims living through our five stages of grief over our many losses within our manufactured Tragedy of the Commons in a sort of Godzilla Meets the Twilight Zone landscape and culture.

Visiting any store, business, neighborhood, or public place during this crisis, you can’t help wishing that the late screenwriter, Rod Serling, could have lived to witness real people behaving as the characters in the stories he once imagined for us, the stories that could make us look in the mirror and love what we could be or hate what we have become.

You can see that there are many new and urgent reasons why we will be sharing more of our own stories about the Golden State to inform and to explore with you while we are all fighting together and finally recovering from this Godzilla-19 monster. It is a perfect opportunity to imagine how we can open a new door and live up to our potential to become the state we want to be. And as Rod Serling once declared, you unlock this door with the key of imagination. Stay tuned.

This snapshot story ends with the late Maya Angelou’s words that seem more relevant than ever: “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

The post COVID-19 Attacks California first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.

How might our environment influence our mental and physical well-being and performance? The sometimes mysterious power of place and space reminds us that the natural and built environments that surround us exert great influence over our brains and bodies. Our successes and failures in fields such as planning and architecture, and our efforts to build healthier and more efficient living and working communities, shape our perceptions of and interactions with our environment as they impact the quality of our everyday lives.

Who hasn’t asked how their lives would be different if they had been born and raised in a different place? This is one of the many reasons we occasionally compare and contrast California with distant and different places; we not only learn more about the other, but we learn more about ourselves and our places in the world. And so in our stories, to satisfy our curiosity about our similarities and differences, we must advance far beyond superficial tourist industry and social media pressures that encourage people to simply “post envy-inducing photos of their glamorous getaways”; instead, we appreciate the substantive learning experiences offered by these distant landscapes and cultures, we understand the powerful connections to California, and we recognize the rapid changes that are transforming all of us and our landscapes.  

Our population of approximately 7.7 billion people on this Earth continues to grow in ways that challenge us to solve problems, use resources more efficiently, and improve our quality of life. Even as many of the 40 million people in California struggle to solve problems associated with crowding and congestion, we might learn from other places where these problems are far more serious. Here, we take you to Cambodia and Thailand, parts of Southeast Asia where a rich and powerful empire once ebbed and flowed for nearly 600 years, but where horrific conflicts and war brought widespread devastation during the last century.

These regions have been recovering with rampant growth in their cities and a dramatic infusion of people and money from other parts of Asia. Though changes have been slower to impact smaller rural settlements, patterns of unbridled development are crowding major urban areas with economic opportunities, traffic chaos and gridlock, and appalling pollution that can overwhelm the senses, forcing us to ask what can be done better. Californians might learn from a land where rules are bent or even absent within an atmosphere of historical (and sometimes current) foreign intervention, conflict, corruption, and dictatorship, but where most people are working hard to survive each day to improve their lives and communities.  

Our ties with Southeast Asia have become far more obvious and relevant and practical to Californians during the last several decades. We have already considered in our book and as a story on this web site the largest concentrations of Vietnamese people in the world outside of Vietnam, particularly in the burgeoning Little Saigons of Orange County and San Jose. Our book also surveys the more disadvantaged Hmong population that settled mostly in the Central Valley from the Southeast Asian highlands, especially around Fresno (the largest concentration), Merced, and Tulare. Both of these groups originally escaped as refugees in the chaos, destruction, and death that followed after the United States ended its involvement in the Vietnam War during the 1970s. The largest Laotian populations outside Southeast Asia are also scattered across California.

Here, we focus on the Cambodian populations and communities that were established when refugees from the war and the brutal killing fields that devastated Cambodia fled to California since the 1970s. And though Thailand was impacted very differently by that war, various Thai immigrant streams, especially since the 1980s, have created their own communities in our state. All of these Southeast Asian groups have established their largest concentrations outside of their homelands right here in California. Here we take you to parts of Southeast Asia and then show you how Southeast Asia has come to California as we consider how growth and development change our sense of place in both places. We were recently reminded of our powerful connections when the new Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak crippled Southeast Asia and then rippled through these businesses and communities in California in 2020.

It is easy to contrast physical Southeast Asia from the Golden State. Though you will find scenic sea stacks rising above some California surf, you will not find the steep limestone towers that form islands surrounded by mangrove habitats so commonly highlighted in Thailand’s tourist brochures. And though visitors continue to flock to California’s sunny south coast attractions, our Mediterranean climates are relatively cold compared to the tropical coastlines of Cambodia and Thailand.

Located around just 10 degrees north of the equator, these places are much farther south than Cabo San Lucas and about the same latitude as Costa Rica and Panama. And so, in contrast to California, their beloved coastlines and crowded cities never get cold as high pressure over Asia dominates their hot and sunny low sun season “winters”; their humid and sticky monsoon season floods their “summers” with heavy rains into September and October. Temperatures near 90 F during the day and the 70s F late at night are common in January, though it is cooler to the north. Warm tropical waters hug their coastlines where you can find coral reefs and other environments never experienced around our cold California current.

Their agricultural products reflect these physical differences. Rice production rules in both Cambodia and Thailand, with an abundance of rubber, sugar cane, coconuts, and what Californians might consider other exotic tropical fruits. You will find some of these fruit trees at local nurseries within diverse Southeast Asian communities that have emerged in Southern California’s coastal plains, but they will often require special attention and a lot of water in our Mediterranean climates.

Though more compact Cambodia has a much smaller area and population, its population density is nearly the same as elongated California. Today’s population has grown to over 16 million and the median age remains relatively young: about 25.6 years, though fertility rates and percentage population increase has slowed since the 1980s. And though only about a quarter of Cambodia’s population is considered urban, this might not be evident in the busy congestion of Phnom Penh or even Siem Reap.

In contrast, Thailand’s population of about 70 million is not only greater but considerably denser than California’s, as growing urban populations have recently surpassed rural settlements there. These cities are home to the growing industrial and service industries that are attracting job seekers. Thailand’s economic evolution and growth that has brought millions out of poverty continues far ahead of Cambodia, but both countries have been sources of economic migrations that have produced new enclaves in California during recent decades.

The rate of change especially in Cambodia and Thailand urban areas is breathtaking, literally. Recent rampant growth and development and an infusion of wealth and people from China and India has created unimaginable congestion and pollution in the cities. Each beach town and cherished coastline or island is discovered and then overrun within a few years. (The new Coronavirus outbreak of 2020 temporarily calmed the crowds, but devastated the region’s tourist industry.) Dangerous air pollution chokes the cities when that capping high pressure dominates during the “winter” dry season.

There are obvious signs of hardworking people running the treadmills toward what they hope will be new economic opportunities. Moms and dads are seen commuting in chaotic traffic on the front and back of one scooter, sandwiching two babies or kids on the same seat between them, all without helmets, scenes unimaginable in the Golden State. Street and open market food vendors compete to offer their delicious meals for what seem to be mistakenly low prices compared to California standards. At night, especially in Thailand cities, the infamous multi-billion-dollar sex industry emerges along their raucous walking streets, fueled by desperate workers and the tourists who seek them. All of this among the gritty dust of the dry season or in the mud and floods of the wet season. Through it all, many people remain friendly and optimistic, while some hear and wonder about stories, real and imagined, of life in a place called California.

And so, the largest number of people in the world from Thailand and Cambodia has settled in California. And they have brought far more than their revered recipes to the Golden State. The Thai community in Southern California is around 100,000, largest in the world outside Asia. Centered along Hollywood Blvd., you will find the world’s first officially designated Thai Town.

According to the Thai Community Development Center there, the most recent immigrations (since the 1980s) include people who are not refugees, but economic immigrants. These more recent immigrants are mainly poorer and less educated and skilled. Have they found better opportunities and lives in California? The Center writes: “All peoples have a basic right to a decent standard of living and quality of life. Yet, in the Thai and other disadvantaged communities, people are living in substandard housing and lack access to basic health services, education and quality employment.  Since its establishment, Thai CDC has addressed the multifaceted needs of Thai immigrants.” Many, particularly within second or third generations, have found success and the California Dream and have become established leaders, sometimes after dispersing into surrounding communities.

Cambodia Town in Long Beach is home to the largest concentration of Cambodians (around 20,000 of the more than 100,000 in California) beyond Cambodia. It is clustered in a diverse neighborhood on the east side along Anaheim Street and is also known as Little Cambodia or Little Phnom Penh.

Large migrations of Cambodian refugees to the United States occurred when they somehow escaped the war’s devastating bombings and the killing fields of brutal Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge during the 1970s. An even larger wave of refugees (that had survived the destruction and chaos of this war and genocide that claimed millions of lives) flowed in after the Khmer Rouge was defeated around 1979. These people who had experienced unthinkable hardships and torture were originally distributed across the country until they clustered in California communities that included Long Beach and others in the Central Valley. Immigrants continue to struggle along with today’s second and third generation Cambodian Americans who are searching for and sometimes finding their own far-too-elusive California Dreams.

As in many other ethnic enclaves in the state with their families, organizations, restaurants, shops, and other businesses, community leaders work to improve today’s opportunities and quality of life. From their web site: “Cambodia Town Inc. is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that spearheaded the campaign to designate a 1.2-mile stretch in Long Beach as “Cambodia Town”. Cambodia Town’s mission is to use Cambodian cultural customs and traditions to improve the social and economic well-being of residents and business owners in Central Long Beach. By preserving the Cambodian heritage, we give hope and a strengthened identity to our youth, and by empowering the community we promote the revitalization of our neighborhoods.”

Today, community members look back to a country with the longest-serving (since the 1980s) prime minister in the world, sometimes labelled a dictator by the opposition. This might lead some to wonder if the only things Cambodia and California have in common are their first letters and their people who dream to live better lives, whether in a struggling Cambodia or here, in competition for part of that California Dream. 

We hope our abbreviated attempts to show how California meets Southeast Asia will help you better understand the Golden State as it also opens a clearer window to view our diverse communities and our world.

The post California Meets Southeast Asia first appeared on Rediscovering the Golden State.