Recent storms

[Pete Grey]

When you hear of hurricane Florence dropping 30 inches off rain or more we in the UK can think ourselves very lucky, storm Ali is giving us about 2 inches, but with so much of our towns and cities tarmaced over we will still get floods.

[Mortblanc]

I got you a picture here of the infrastructure in Los Angeles built to control the flooding in an area most would call a desert. 18-20 million people living on a spot God intended to grow cactus and avocados.

It was never paradise but they paved it and put up a parking lot anyway.

This is all due to the development of the urban area and the fact that most of the rain that falls in LA happens in one or two days out of the entire year.

Urban sprawl is the same world wide.

Then you add the fact that most urban areas are where they are because the location has good access to water transport. Who would have thought that if you live beside a river you might have an occasional flood!

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt...&type=admk

[Pete Grey]

The flood defence channels are most impressive, i didn’t realise the were so extensive, but aren’t they mostly used for kids racing hot-rods (as in many “teen movies”) in the dry season, ha ha ha.

[Mortblanc]

Driving hot rods in the flood canals is mostly done exactly where you saw it, in the movies.

As for the dry parts of the year, that would be from March till December. California has a Mediterranean type climate where they get their 5-10 cm of annual rain.

Yep, when you hear about California washing away in the monsoon floods that is what they are getting! 5 cm of rain overnight and all the mud in California migrates to the ocean taking houses, cars, swimming pools and lawn mowers with it.

Only thing that will break that cycle is a typhoon about every 100 years.

[Mortblanc]

Come to think about it the perception of the U.S. world wide does come mostly from movies, and in Great Britain from old Top Gear reruns.

[Pete Grey]

(21 September 2018, 16:28)Mortblanc Wrote: Come to think about it the perception of the U.S. world wide does come mostly from movies, and in Great Britain from old Top Gear reruns.

At least your perception of GB is not Downton Abbey.

[MaryN]

Top gear?? What the hell is that?

[bigpaul]

(21 September 2018, 19:52)MaryN Wrote: Top gear?? What the hell is that?

old Jeremy Clarkson tv motoring show.

[Mortblanc]

For those with TV access I believe that it was one of your top 5-6 rated shows for 20 years! They would run it opposite family entertainment like Call the Midwife or Midsummer Murders.

Zenophobic yobos driving 2 million pound super-cars and acting fools on the motorways.

We get the BBC reruns over here about a year late. The entire 20? year series is available on You-tube.

[MaryN]

Oh, a car program. Yawwwwn.