Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

To be fair, meteorologists and their models actually have a measurable accuracy above basic climatology out a fair number of days. That is to say they add a fair bit of forecast accuracy beyond basic statistical moments.

Stock analysts on the other hand have had zero measurable accuracy over statistical moments over all time.

 

Anybody head from @mk5 today? I was wondering if he got blown or washed away after his video.

BTW, I'm expecting a killer trip report for this lol

 

He was fine a bit after midnight and I think just stuck in the I-10 traffic jams.

 

One of the hardest things to do is predict the weather. The number of data points is infinite. Imagine you’re looking at a wind chart. Those are made of single data points that are observations over long periods of time. They’re effectively “most of the time you can expect”. That blew me away. I have a weather station that’s feeding wunderground. The number of real-time inputs is insane. NWS might use observations from “official” sources like airports for their reports. Satellites can measure more that just cloud and jet stream activity.

So much to look at, so much to analyze. So many models too.

Not any easy task.

 

Yeah, he's fine. Full loop back home on APRS. Just making us suffer as he slowly assembles whatever GIFs he's creating, hahaha.

 

Move further south!

I saw some pictures of the conditions in Ridgecrest. Flooding is bad. Something like 4.5 inches of rain in a day. More than they usually get in a year.

Sounds fun until your roof is leaking (or worse), can’t leave your house, no power, etc.

I’ve been without power for a week-ish post a tropical storm (dubbed a “Superstorm”) and it is miserable.

Dream in your comfy home

 

and further up the road in Del Norte my buddy is camping in his comfy home as power has been preemptively cut for days..no water no cell service no known date for restoration. Not because of a tropical storm, but because the forest is burning

 

Crescent City is a cluster right now....

 

Drone was already inoperable by that point... apparently it isn't as hurricane-proof as I had hoped. In hindsight I'm glad it was out of play. The wind quickly got out of hand, at least in open terrain... we're talking eye-level flying debris, and gusts strong enough to pin you behind your car door, or likely rip it from your grip and bend it backwards if you park in the wrong direction. I was fortunate in most regards, but at some point the winds tore my soft topper open and scattered some of the litter I had collected earlier in the day. Even then I still came home with four dozen Whiteclaw and Monster cans, and like half a Can-Am worth of wrecked parts in the bed. Lost for words there... but evidently someone lost an entire wheel/knuckle/halfshaft/control-arm assembly and was too drunk to notice.

Despite the violent winds and relentless rain... this specific region never got any epic flash flooding. I started out super cautious; hiked in from higher ground and cowered near a canyon rim as several storm cells passed, hoping to see house-sized boulders tossed around like pebbles in the narrows below. But by the end of the day I had seen scarcely a trickle of flooding, and was driving and hiking into even the most sketchy canyons without a concern in the world, glad for the relief this provided from the winds. (Okay, well actually I was still worried about being crushed in a rockfall, so I avoided overhanging cliffs, but flooding was never an issue.)

Looks like the main deluge occurred further to the west. Drove surface streets from Indio to Palm Springs on the way home because the 10 was closed -- massive wrecks in both directions. I saw extensive flooding of roads, parking lots, and even some businesses. None of the gas stations or restaurants were open, heck even the drug stores were shuttered. And I'm not kidding, I pulled into six gas stations, four McDonalds, three Wendys, two Carls Jrs., two Taco Bells, a Del Taco, and a couple local joints... oh and also a Chick Fillet because I forgot it was Sunday, fucking backwater nutjobs, but the rest of these shitholes were supposed to be open. Some were barricaded, some had handwritten notes on their doors or drive-thru menus, but many were just eerily abandoned, like some sort of zombie apocalypse. In fact the only dining establishments that might have been open were the countless Subways littering my route... but who knows for sure, because when you want a proper meal, even a full-blown zombie apocalypse would be better than setting foot in a fucking Subway.

I tell you what, if California is going to have hurricanes, we need some damn Waffle Houses.


His name was Carl...


Her name was Melinda


The extent of flooding in Salt Creek Wash...




The most extreme flooding I encountered in any canyon... pretty lame, but at least I didn't die or need to be rescued?

My wife is adamant that I should have stayed home, and she is usually right. But damned if I didn't have a great time out there.



Edit: Somehow I missed this above:

Y'all are the best!

 

Glad you made it back in one piece!

The Waffle House index is legit. As a cop we always monitored the WHI as storms approached as they would be the last place to close. They would call our dispatch and give us a “last call” a couple of hours before they locked the doors so we could swing by for the last meal or coffee.

 

Some IG footage from the CHP yesterday.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwN0XxbrTPB

How did the Walmart truck get where it is?

 

Looks to me like it was either driving in the #2 lane or parked on the shoulder when the flood came through.

 

I ended up watching the radar and stayed in the High Country... Bummer the house sized boulders didn't get moving.

Here's a few before/after aerials, nothing impressive really
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictur...-extent-of-flooding-in-california-after-storm

 

Really no individual impacts worse that what we've already seen from this past year's atmospheric rivers and typical monsoon storms. It just covered a lot of area so more of these incidents happened at the same time than is typical, especially in the summer.

 

DV Facebook page says the park is still closed. Wow.

 

The website had all roads and trails in RED. Probable impacts for the remainder of the year on many of those routes, based on last year's weather impact.

 

NPS has updated the photo gallery with even more, quite a bit of road damage. In addition Caltrans District 9 has posted more information as well, including mentioning that 127 north of Baker has ten miles of road covered in 1 inch of silt that causes whiteout conditions when driven over (they need to clear all of it before opening the road). Sections of 136 are underwater from Owens lake and LADWP has said it will take about a month to drain. Caltrans is going to grade temporary dirt road bypasses so the communities along 136 can get to Lone Pine. 190 totally collapsed around Centennial and emergency contracts already out, but they say they are going to deal with 190 from Owens to Panamint Springs first before they worry about things east of that. Emigrant washed out and Wildrose Road at the campground looks to be under three to four feet of debris.

This looks like it will take even longer than last summer to get resolved. My best guess, and it is only a guess, is that like last summer an opening to the east (either 190 or Daylight Pass) will be the first.

On the other hand, MNP claims they expect their roads cleared by September 1st.

 

NPS is talking about a time scale of weeks before park begins to reopen:

All paved and unpaved roads in Death Valley have been damaged and are closed. Undercutting of pavement and pavement loss make travel conditions unsafe. Additionally four utility systems were compromised by debris that moved during the flash flooding, dislodging water and wastewater pipes and impacting a well. The full extent of the damage across the park will not be known for a period of weeks, as roads make overland travel challenging in order for park crews to identify additional storm damage impacts, however aerial surveys indicated extensive parkwide flooding impacts.

Park officials say the park will likely reopen in stages. It may be weeks before Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells open. Secondary roads in the park may take months to open. Utility systems also need to be stabilized prior to reopening.

Source: https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/news...ark-remains-closed-all-visitors-evacuated.htm

 

Wow man sounds like an adventure! I’ve been stuck hanging over a huge sand ditch with only my chassis grounded and my back tires in the air and had to build a road under my front tries. Took me all night but I made it.

 

Only because this is a National Park-type thread.