Frequent Heavy Rain Has Made California a Mudslide Hotspot

[bing101]

https://www.wired.com/story/climate-change-rain-wetter-world-mudslides/

Note this is how some areas are more prone to landslides during storms.

[kalvado]

https://www.wired.com/story/climate-change-rain-wetter-world-mudslides/

Note this is how some areas are more prone to landslides during storms.

So CA problems are drought and rain.

[GaryV]

Gee, maybe people shouldn't perch their expensive homes on the sides of canyons and atop cliffs.

[Max Rockatansky]

I've been waiting for years for people to stop complaining about no rain and switching to "this is too much."

[gonealookin]

I've been waiting for years for people to stop complaining about no rain and switching to "this is too much."

Same thing here at Tahoe with the snow.  Last winter was the huge "holy crap please make it stop!" snow dump with the road closures, collapsing roofs, etc.

Think of this number sequence:  5, 5, 10, 10, 20.  The average is 10.  Two of the entries are half of average and two are exactly average, which means 4 of the 5 are average or below.  Then there's that "20" which messes everything up.  That's kind of how snow years in the Sierra work out: 40% being super dry and 40% just OK, but every fifth year is, as the ski resorts like to say, "EPIC!!!".

[epzik8]

Isn't this just an annual headline at this point?

[Max Rockatansky]

Kinda, but not every year has mass numbers of mudslides and heavy winter precipitation.  I wouldn't even call it common to have two years above average precipitation. 

[triplemultiplex]

Doesn't help that all of the Coast Ranges are made up of sediments scraped off the Juan de Fuca plate as it subducted under North America.  So much shale in the mix.  Makes for unstable slopes.

The whiplash between extreme drought and disastrous, flooding precip seems to have become the norm.

[Max Rockatansky]

But there has always been a whiplash like that.  How quick are we to forget stuff like the Mud Creek Slide happened back in 2017?

[bing101]

Gee, maybe people shouldn't perch their expensive homes on the sides of canyons and atop cliffs.

If only developers considered geological studies in some areas before building in the places that they did.

[Max Rockatansky]

Gee, maybe people shouldn't perch their expensive homes on the sides of canyons and atop cliffs.

If only developers considered geological studies in some areas before building in the places that they did.

Usually the particular buyer base who purchases cliff-side homes is more concerned about views rather than geological surveys.