Storms like the one we just had here in Northern California are a real learning experience. If you want to understand the hydrology of a place, there is no substitute for being out on the ground when water is flowing.
Our newest Lookout video is a mashup of on-the-ground video, maps, and commentary on things I saw driving around Butte County yesterday. We look at runoff in severely-burned forests within the Park Fire scar, check out high stream flows on local creeks, look at minor flooding in places that flood all the time, and talk about how a relative lack of landuse planning has created hard-to-solve flooding problems in Northern Butte County.
We also interviewed Chico City Manager Marc Sorensen about Chico’s flood control systems, and the politics around maintenance of State-build flood control infrastructure at Five Mile Recreation Area.
And finally, a livestream from Big Chico Creek as flows were dropping on the morning of 11/22/2024.