Geography of California

Yosemite Falls, which is fed almost completely by snowmelt, is reflected in a partially flooded meadow as warm temperatures have increased snowpack runoff on April 29, 2023 in Yosemite National Park, California.Photo: Mario Tama (Getty Images)Several popular campsites in California’s Yosemite National Park are closed for the second day, as park officials prepare for potential flooding throughout the area this week. Extreme Weather Events in 2022 | Extreme Earth“Yosemite Valley is under a flood warning as the Merced River…

Image: Rawpixel.com (Shutterstock)It was only about a year ago that Silicon Valley seemed to be at the top of its game — jobs were a dime a dozen and a skillset in tech was highly sought after. Positions in the tech sector like Amazon and Google meant higher salaries, job security, and a plethora of perks.But then everything shifted and layoffs came in a rush with thousands of tech workers left looking for work. Yet, despite the job cuts, job seekers are still drawn to tech companies, meaning getting an education at the…

After a wild winter of more than a dozen huge storms and record-breaking snowfall in the Sierra Nevadas, California’s big flood season is just getting started. Last week, the National Weather Service predicted that the Merced River could flood parts of Yosemite National Park, thanks to a combination of unseasonably warm temperatures and melting snowpack. Yosemite officials announced that the park would close in anticipation of the flooding. The Merced River runs through some of the park’s most popular areas. EarlyMonday…

A dead fish sits in shallow water on the banks of Lake Mead near the Lake Mead Marina on August 19, 2022 in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada. Photo: Justin Sullivan (Getty Images)Human remains unveiled in Lake Mead’s low water levels last year have finally been identified as a Las Vegas man who went missing years ago, local authorities said this week.Yet Another Storm in California | Extreme EarthThe Clark County coroner’s office identified Claude Russell Pensinger, who was 52 when he died. He went missing in…

Police have made an arrest in the murder of Bob Lee, 43, the tech executive and co-founder of Cash App who was found stabbed to death in downtown San Francisco last week.Yet Another Storm in California | Extreme EarthMission Local reports that police were recently dispatched to Emeryville, California, another Bay Area city, to arrest Nima Momeni, who is described as the owner of Expand IT and “a man Lee purportedly knew.” According to the outlet, police have said that Lee’s murder was “neither a robbery attempt nor a…

New, gut-wrenching details have emerged in the death of tech executive Bob Lee, the creator of Cash App: Lee, 43, screamed for help after getting stabbed and approached people in a parked car for assistance. The people in the car drove away.Twitter Verification is a Hot MessAccording to the San Francisco Standard, which reviewed surveillance footage taken after the attack on the former CTO of Jack Dorsey’s Square, Lee was on the sidewalk of the 300 block of Main Street near the Bay Bridge, part of the city’s office-heavy…

People walk up stairs framed by snow in Mammoth Lakes, CA.Photo: Mario Tama (Getty Images)California is breaking records once again. State officials on Monday announced that the levels of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains have reached historic depths, after a season in which more than a dozen major stormsdumped intense amounts of precipitation on the state.Each winter, California’s Department of Water Resources conducts surveys to measure the level of snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas, which provide water to more than 75%…

California has been grappling with storm after storm since November. The state, which was just up until recently plagued by extreme ongoing drought, is now instead at the mercy of too much rainfall all at once. The most recent, still ongoing storm is yet another atmospheric river, a common type of weather event for the West Coast wherein water vapor condensed over the ocean is pulled onshore by air currents and thermal gradients. Beginning Monday and and continuing through Wednesday yet more rain and snow has been falling…

Silicon Valley Bank was the second-largest failure in U.S. history, but one WSJ columnist seems to think that having a minority of board members made up of minorities somehow played a part in its collapsed.Photo: Justin Sullivan (Getty Images)Another bank fails, and the anti-regulation apologists are quick to follow. Tech startup darling Silicon Valley Bank’s utter collapse this past week and the U.S. government’s quick bailout was one for the record books, but one Wall Street Journal writer seems to think that SVB was…

Image: Justin Sullivan (Getty Images)President Joe Biden is striving to reassure Silicon Valley companies that their money is secured after the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) crashed last week. The president said at a White House press conference those with money at SVB would have access to it on Monday and would be paid back in full.The bank, used by many tech startups and venture capitalists closed on Friday when the stock price dropped by a whopping 60% on Thursday, prompting some startup founders to pull their money from…