CALIFORNIA'S BIG DAM IS FILLING
The rains came, the winds came, the flooding came, and the snow came--all of these things were expected in the first storm of California's winter season. The next big storm should start adding water to California's natural dam: the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Snow should start falling in the Sierras which will freeze to form the California's snow pack. This is important to the Californians, since the snow pack is California's drinking water, recreation water, dam's water, and water for crops. If we do not get this snow pack built up, we will be hurting. As an example, our electric bills will be very high because we need water to run dams that make our electric.
The same dams that make our electric holds back the water we use for drinking: the water goes through the dams and makes the electric; then stays in lakes that holds the water until we use it for drinking and agriculture. This procedure takes place all year long.
We still use the same water--snow pack--for recreation purposes: skiing, water skiing, boating, fishing,etc. Because the snow pack will build and just sit there, we found a way to enjoy it, until we have to use it to survive.
During winter time, when the snow builds up the snow pack, we found a way to travel across the snow and have fun doing it. This is by putting on our feet two long sticks and sliding across the snow, which we call skiing.
As an example, if you have extra time, while visiting Foster City, you can drive up to the San Francisco Bay Area's closes ski resort: Dodge Ridge Ski Resort. Here you can ski all day, leave when they close, around 4:00p.m., and be back in the Bay Area, around 7:00p.m., for dinner. But if you want to spend several days in the California's snow country, you can go to lake--Lake Tahoe, where there is skiing, gambling and night clubs on the Nevada side: all this because of the California and Nevada's Sierra Nevada Mountains dam.
For your information, the storms that hit the San Francisco Bay Area take about twelve hours to reach the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the fast storms about nine hours. One year, while working on the National Ski Patrol, we timed five different storms and this was the average that we came to. When many storms reached us from the west coast, they remained in our area about the same amount of time that they stayed in the Bay Area--we could never figured out why. But when the storms came over, east to west, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, they were hard, fast, hitting storms, which, usually, left one big mess to clean up.
So, therefore, from now on, the storms that hit California are going to build up the state's biggest dam--The Sierra Nevada Mountains.
