Mudslides

silversand wrote:
I often have these premonitions, like camping out on a slight terrain rise of 30 feet I found using flood simulation software, on the bucholic desert flats tens of miles wide in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, the Quartzsite BLM, or at the base of Santa Catalina Mountains; and overnight, an unusual monsoon hits, and we wake up on an island completely surrounded by something like the Niagara River (but a roiling dark-brown sludge of water, tree limbs, boulders, flowing at 40 or 50 miles an hour)...standing on the roof of the Outfitter Caribou.

But this COULD happen and it's something to keep in the back of one's head while looking for a camping spot in the boondocks. At least on your island, you'd have food/water/shelter :-)

From the news out here. no drivers were killex or injured on the roads hit by the mudslides.

I often have these premonitions, like camping out on a slight terrain rise of 30 feet I found using flood simulation software, on the bucholic desert flats tens of miles wide in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, the Quartzsite BLM, or at the base of Santa Catalina Mountains; and overnight, an unusual monsoon hits, and we wake up on an island completely surrounded by something like the Niagara River (but a roiling dark-brown sludge of water, tree limbs, boulders, flowing at 40 or 50 miles an hour)...standing on the roof of the Outfitter Caribou.

With the crazy unprecedented (in modern times) climate we have been experiencing, the Southwest back-country has been less enticing for us to explore, and the Southeast coast gives me weather nightmares now.

The watery silt may have nearly covered that rig during the apex period of the overland flow. Subsequent rains probably washed the silty film off the exposed parts of the rig, when the overland flow subsided (thus the clean-looking exposed surfaces). Extrapolating the buried part of the rig, probably ~~20% of the truck camper is buried under the silt/mud.

This begs the question: how and where did the occupant(s) get out/go ???

Imagine the scenario: being overtaken by the muddy/silty/boulder infested/tree limb suspension 500 feet, 1000 feet, 1 mile wide?! Water gets heavier to wade through when its made up of say, 20, 30, 60% mud/silt/rock/shredded tree limbs !

Unfortunately, the Southwest surface morphology and land cover is all wrong for any sustained and uncharacteristic precipitation (basically sand, silt, rock, and absolutely no humus (natural compost) or broad-leaf forest). So, when the Southwest gets this uncharacteristic rainfall (like it has in fall of 2015 and will be getting into 2016, because of big/macro changes in the Pacific Ocean dynamics), you see huge swaths of mineral soil, with almost no organic content, turn into up to several mile wide raging mud flows, with millions of tons of broken tree limbs, boulders, and silt scrubbing entire valley floors. In a tight canyon situation, the whole bottom can turn into a roiling muddy white water (brown water).

Given the above uncharacteristic climate, it is imperative that when out in the back-country, you understand just what areas can be suddenly turned into something like the Colorado River, but 20 or more times as wide. We have modeling software that can simulate various overland flow situations based on various precipitation scenarios, and project the results onto a terrain (digital terrain model with flood-water drape). Also, the Government produces flood maps for the desert, showing more-or-less where and how wide decadal precipitation events can inundate.

It was the openning video on the 6 pm EST NBC evening news last night... from a heliocopter ot a drone... It was still wet mud in the picture that I saw.

I didn't catch the details.... was it parked? were there occupants? was the driver trying to cross a wash area?

The camper might not be hurt that bad.... ????

Thanks for posting it...

Sleepy

well the good news is "the Brophys held"