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The more experienced guys here know that  when serious flooding  happens, it renews (to a certain extent ) the river placers in the CA mother lode  country. So although  no one wants to  see property damage  or people hurt, the flooding is of great interest to prospectors. I thought I would start this thread to keep  track of how the big rain that's supposed to be headed our way unfolds. Here in Reno the  flood is not supposed to be quite the equal of what happened  in 2005, which was really not that big of a deal - but I'm more interested in what happens in the mountains because that's what moves gold around.  Flooding is hard to  predict because a few degrees of warming can melt snow ad greatly increase the amount of water flowing through the rivers. in the next few days we shall see what happens. 

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Weather Channel - California and Nevada Will See Heavy Rain and Snowmelt, Possible Flooding and Landslides

"Another multi-day siege of flooding rain and Sierra snow is beginning to ramp up in California and adjacent parts of Nevada, which will result in significant flooding for some locations.

Starting on Saturday and continuing through Monday, a very potent atmospheric river event will aim a fire hose of moisture at the West Coast. The rain combined with snowmelt from rising snow levels will lead to rapid rises on rivers and other waterways. The National Weather Service says that flooding with this event may be the greatest since December 2005 for some locations."

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 All of this predicted high muddy water will make it difficult to study the damage that the dredgers have caused. I'm know I'm an insentient skeptic but we all know there is no profit in normal weather. In '86 some remote land slides in this area, some of them quite large, produced some very nice gold. you can still see the scars on Google Earth.

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Well considering the dredging ban is in full effect I don't see any great benefit to the flooding here in the Southern Sierras where I live. I do see a potential benefit this spring and summer for those that snipe underwater or sluice the local creeks and rivers with bedrock exposure with this storm it may open up many areas otherwise buried in sand a overburden. I do look forward to summer as I enjoy putting on my wetsuit , mask , snorkel and do some ' blocking ' removing slabs of bedrock with a 5 pound sledge hammer, pry bar and chisels to search for gold nuggets. Right now we are experiencing continuous rain we shall see what transpires in the next few days.  

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Wind is blowing pretty strong already in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains and the rain has started, certainly could be a good one tonight.

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I have two feet of snow in my yard on the level here on the Klamath River. It snowed this morning and turned to rain this afternoon. 2005 was the last real high water on the Klamath. I guess we do have the potential for flooding if it rains all week as predicted and especially if the snow pack melts to add to it.

As of right now the river is a bit below normal for this time of year.

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So far in the Chico, CA area we've gotten under an inch from the storm.  I heard reports of the foothills and mountains getting far more than where I live in the valley.  The ground is now pretty saturated and if some of the predictions of 5-10+ inches fall in the high areas and melt snow tomorrow as the temperature rises, then there may very well be some high enough water to clean out the sediment and vegetation that has built up in the creeks where I snipe.  I live right next to a levee in the valley, so I really don't want too much flooding to go on.  Just enough localized stuff up high to churn things good for us miners .:biggrin:

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Very light rain so far today. But the ground is super saturated here in the gold fields of the bay area. Made for very muddy park hunting today. The wind is picking up as I type....

strick

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