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Geology topics

Raymond C. Wilson

Publications and source records attributed to Raymond C. Wilson.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS1999

Map showing locations of damaging landslides in Napa County, California, resulting from 1997-98 El Nino rainstorms

Heavy rainfall associated with a strong El Nino caused over $150 million in landslide damage in the 10-county San Francisco Bay region during the winter and spring of 1998. A team of USGS scientists collected information on landslide locations and damage costs. Napa County was relatively unaffected in comparison to other counties in the region with approximately $1.1 million in damages assessed.

Miscellaneous Field Studies Map↗
USGS1997

Operation of a landslide warning system during the California storm sequence of January and February 1993

From 1986 to late December 1995, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Weather Service operated a landslide warning system for debris flows triggered by intense rainstorms in the San Francisco Bay region. The Landslide Warning System tracked storm systems as they approached the region, determined actual rainfall with a network of radio-telemetered rain gauges, compared the rainfall to thresholds for initi-ation of debris flows, and issued the appropriate public advisories. A series of intense rainstorms during January 1993 created hazards from landslid-ing and flooding over much of California. In the San Francisco Bay region, January rainfall was over 200% of normal, triggering debris flows on natural hillslopes and road cuts across Marin, San Mateo, Alameda, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz Counties. The warning system issued Flash Flood/Debris Flow Watches during the most intense storms on January 13 and 15,1993. Most debris flows in this area were small and widely scattered, so damage was largely limited to several blocked roadways in mountainous areas. Storm damage was much heavier in southern California, where rainfall amounts were over 350% of normal for January, triggering flash floods and many landslides. This damage prompted inquiries about developing a landslide warning system for southern California. A number of elements for a landslide warning system already exist in southern Cal-ifornia, including quantitative rainfall forecasting and a network of radio-telemetered rain gauges. Regional rainfall thresholds for debris flow initiation, consistent with the climate, topography, and geology of the region, remain to be developed. Such thresholds could probably be developed with a modest investment of research effort and resources.

California↗
USGS1997

Broad-scale climatic influences on rainfall thresholds for debris flows: Adapting thresholds for northern California to southern California

A Landslide Warning System (LWS) operated in the San Francisco Bay region until late 1995. The LWS issued public advisories when rainfall conditions reached or approached critical levels for triggering debris flows ("mudslides"). Interest in an LWS for southern California was revived by the destructive landslides triggered by the storms of January and February 1993 and by the debris-flow problems created by the extensive areas burned in large wildfires the following autumn. Although a number of elements for an LWS already exist in southern California, a critical element must still be developed: the “threshold,” a defined set of values of rainfall intensity and duration that predicts debris-flow initiation within a specified region. Although reliable rainfall/debris-flow thresholds exist for the San Francisco Bay region, climatic dissimilarities between there and southern California produce differ-ences in the thickness, character, and behavior of the hillslope materials that necessi-tate adjustment of the thresholds. Of particular importance are the amount and distribution of precipitation, which, along the California coast, are controlled by ele-vation, distance from the coastline, and storm frequency. Storm frequency, in turn, is strongly correlated with geographic latitude. Although storms are less frequent in southern California, with a consequent decrease in mean annual precipitation, average rainfall amounts for individual storms generally equal those of storms farther north. A procedure is developed for modifying existing rainfall/debris-flow thresholds to account for these changes in precipitation patterns. Then, a set of interim rainfall/ debris-flow thresholds is derived for the greater Los Angeles region. As a demonstra-tion, these interim thresholds are compared with data on rainfall and debris-flow occur-rence during January and February 1993.

California↗
USGS1997

Normalizing rainfall/debris-flow thresholds along the U.S. Pacific coast for long-term variations in precipitation climate

Broad-scale variations in long-term precipitation climate may influence rainfall/debris-flow threshold values along the U.S. Pacific coast, where both the mean annual precipitation (MAP) and the number of rainfall days (#RDs) are controlled by topography, distance from the coastline, and geographic latitude. Previous authors have proposed that rainfall thresholds are directly proportional to MAP, but this appears to hold only within limited areas (< 1?? latitude), where rainfall frequency (#RDs) is nearly constant. MAP-normalized thresholds underestimate the critical rainfall when applied to areas to the south, where the #RDs decrease, and overestimate threshold rainfall when applied to areas to the north, where the #RDs increase. For normalization between climates where both MAP and #RDs vary significantly, thresholds may best be described as multiples of the rainy-day normal, RDN = MAP/#RDs. Using data from several storms that triggered significant debris-flow activity in southern California, the San Francisco Bay region, and the Pacific Northwest, peak 24-hour rainfalls were plotted against RDN values, displaying a linear relationship with a lower bound at about 14 RDN. RDN ratios in this range may provide a threshold for broad-scale regional forecasting of debris-flow activity.

Conference Paper↗
USGS1997

Effects of El Nino on streamflow, lake level, and landslide potential

One of the most important sources of year-to-year climate variation in the Southwest is the El Niño phenomenon of the tropical Pacific Ocean. El Niño is a natural but largely unpredictable condition that results from complex interplay among clouds and storms, regional winds, oceanic temperatures, and ocean currents along the equatorial Pacific. Under "normal" conditions, the tropical trade winds blow from east to west, Figure 1. Schematic diagram of normal and El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean. From NOAA El Niño website. ponding up warm water in the western Pacific. In the eastern Pacific, the trade winds pull up cold, deep, nutrient-rich waters along the equator from the Ecuadorian coast to the central Pacific. The warmth of the western Pacific results in a particularly vigorous hydrologic cycle there with towering cumulus clouds and tropical storms that "radiate" atmospheric waves and disturbances across vast regions of the globe. Heat and moisture lofted into the upper atmosphere by the clouds and storms are distributed by high-altitude winds across vast regions of the globe. During an El Niño, this situation is disrupted and the trade winds weaken, thus reducing the upwelling of cool waters in the eastern Pacific and allowing the pool of warm water in the west to drift eastward toward South America. As the central and eastern Pacific warms, atmospheric pressure gradients along the equator weaken, and the trade winds diminish even more. These changes in sea-level pressure of the atmosphere are characteristic of the strongest El Niño and were identified as the "Southern Oscillation" of the global atmosphere by Sir Gilbert Walker in the early decades of this century. A chicken-and-egg relation exists between the changes in ocean temperatures and changes in winds (and atmospheric pressure gradients); the two sets of changes reinforce and drive each other but neither is clearly or universally "the" initiator of El Niño. Ocean temperatures and surface winds interact to form the complex process, El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The interactions can be set off by subtle changes in one or the other, by buffeting from other parts of the tropics, or from regions beyond the tropics. Such a complex interplay and its uncertain (and variable) origins are the primary limitations on our ability to predict El Niño. As the waters of the central and eastern Pacific warm, the powerful tropical Pacific storms begin to form farther east than usual (Fig. 1). As the distribution of storms spreads east along the equator, their influence on global weather systems also changes. Most notably, for our purposes, the jet stream over the North Pacific Ocean is invigorated and pulled farther south than normal, where it collects moisture and storms and carries them to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. During an El Niño, the trade winds are too weak to cause upwelling of nutrient-rich waters off the coasts of Ecuador and Peru. Generations of South American fisherman thus have recognized these conditions by the disappearance of their standard catch, commonly during December and January, every three to seven years. Because of the near coincidence in timing between these conditions and Christmas, the fishing communities have called the phenomenon "El Niño", for the Christ child. The geologic record suggests that El Niño conditions have been a part of earth's climate for at least several thousand years. An El Niño event usually lasts for several seasons, and, along with its other effects, represents an interruption of the "normal" seasonal cycle of the tropical climate. After a few seasons, and usually during spring time (in the Northern Hemisphere), the seasonal cycle reasserts itself and the tropical ocean cools back to the normal east-to-west sea-surface temperature gradients. Sometimes the warm El Niño events give way to unusually cold sea-surface temperatures and unusually strong trade winds, a condition now called La Niña. On other occasions, La Niñas may begin on their own, without an immediately preceding El Niño. The effects of the El Niño and La Niña on global climate are, in part, mirror images of each other. For example, drought is a common occurrence in the southwestern United States during La Niña, in contrast to the wet years associated with El Niño.

Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, U↗