Rain – Nicci Carrera

January 8, 2016 Nicci California Drought

Chronicles of the #CaliforniaDrought 9

It has been raining in California. Is the drought over?

El Nino is coming through, delivering the hoped-for rain. The trees are gulping up life-giving water.

Tennis games are on hold.

Mud puddles abound.

The hills are green.

But is the drought over?

Folsom Lake in the Sacramento Valley gained 28.5 feet in one month. It is up to 25% capacity. (http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Water-starved-Folsom-Lake-is-finally-starting-to-6738359.php) That’s very good news, but…25%? We need more, but no flooding or landslides please.

Ground water is starting to rise in the Sacramento valley, too. But Tim O’Halloran, general manager of Yolo County’s Flood Control and Water Conservation District, says

“…while the recent rains have helped, many more storms are needed to make a dent in California’s four-year drought.”

(http://www.kcra.com/news/groundwater-supply-needs-more-rain-despite-recent-storms/37303478).

The rain is helping, though!

Los Angeles County captured 3.2 billion gallons during this week’s storms as of Thursday afternoon…

San Diego collected about 800 million gallons this week at nine reservoirs as of Thursday morning, city spokesman Kurt Kidman said.

http://news.yahoo.com/rain-pummels-california-see-way-fight-drought-070830101.html

Near and very dear to this heart is Lake Tahoe. I couldn’t find how much it has risen from the recent snowfall. Perhaps it has to melt back into water before the lake will really rise. However in doing a quick search, I found an interesting site with this interesting information. There is only one outlet from Lake Tahoe, the Truckee River dam. The extreme for the period of record (which goes way back) shows 1997 as a high point:

EXTREMES FOR PERIOD OF RECORD.–Maximum discharge, 2,690 ft3/s, Jan. 2, 1997,
gage height, 9.59 ft; no flow for parts of many years.

http://tahoetopia.com/lake-tahoe-water-watch#tc

2015 was one of those no-flow years as shown in this post I did in August, Walking in the Truckee River. So 2,690 ft3/sec to 0. What a wild ride.

February 12, 2015February 12, 2015 Nicci Signs of Abundance Thursday

Signs of Abundance Thursday

From the National Weather Service Monday Facebook post.

Oh, by the way, we have a statistic for you…due to precipitation runoff since Friday Lake Tahoe’s water level has gone up about 4.8 inches. That means that approximately 16 billion gallons of water have been added to Lake Tahoe from the past 2 systems.

The next two pictures are from Harold Jones’ Facebook page.

Lake Shasta before the last storm:

and after:

According to Harold:

The lake has came up 11.88 feet since Friday. With the high inflows the lake will continue to rise for the next several days.

The other good news. Shasta Lake is 35.50 feet higher than on this day last year.

And here’s a news flash that just happened: A Powerball ticket worth $1.4 million (5 of 6 of the numbers) was given away as part of a promotion in the Bay Area. (The giveaway was just a ticket…I would say the promo value of that ticket is now really huge!)

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories-old/ci_27511378/powerball-winner-san-leandro-ticket?source=email

Three other people in other locations had all 6 numbers, and will split $564 million. What would you do with $188 million dollars?

I would set up a foundation. It would be incredibly fun to manage a huge foundation and give away money. I would hire people to do most of the work though, while I write. I formed a plan after I left my first nonprofit job in my late 20s and started to seek work that would provide a secure old age, that I would work at a corporate job until 50, write until 70 and work at a nonprofit organization again after that.

You don’t have to have $188 million dollars to do philanthropy though. According to Giving 2.0 by Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen:

Major gifts may dominate headlines, but the majority of giving still comes from individual households—ordinary people with extraordinary generosity. Even in 2009, at a time of deep recession, individual giving averaged almost $2,000 per household and drove 82% of the $300 billion donated that same year.

If you did win the Powerball, there’s another book that a reviewer said was really good with the specifics: Give Smart: Philanthropy that Gets Results. Reading the description of this book put me in a great mood. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the problem of how to make a real difference with huge piles of money? That would be so fun.

Of course we all know happiness really comes from

within

and from love and friendship:

It’s fun to think about extravagant things one might buy as well. I think it would be fun to have a house on the beach in Santa Monica, maybe like this: