Hope this does not happen to lakes Mead and Powell

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arizona, climate, weather

Those of us in Arizona and all over the intermountain west fear this.

Water levels in the Cerro Prieto reservoir, near Guadalupe in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo León, have been declining for years. But a persistent and deepening drought over the past two years has brought the reservoir, built in the 1980s, to its lowest point yet. In July 2022, the reservoir dropped to 0.5 percent of its capacity of 393 million cubic meters (318,000 acre-feet).

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150123/a-reservoir-runs-dry?fs=e&s=cl

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Willow Lake in Drought

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arizona, drought, prescott az, willow lake

We are having extreme and severe drought in much of Arizona. On 11/28/2020 I was at Willow Lake in Prescott, Az photographing wild birds. I took these iPhone photos of the lake itself, or should I say the lake as a shadow of itself. This year the summer rains, which we ‘zonies call the monsoons, failed. As of today we have gone over 100 days with no measurable rainfall – our state record is 160 days.

This area is generally a shallow lake. It is the area of Willow Lake that is just north of the cottonwood trail and across Willow Creek Rd from Embry-Riddle University. The deeper part of the lake which is near Rt 89 still has open water.

Valentine’s Day is Arizona Statehood Day

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arizona, Arizona statehood day, Valentine's day

From the Prescott Daily Courier:

1. Arizona turns 105 years-old this year

2. It took Arizona 56 years to gain statehood

3. Congress wanted to combine Arizona and New Mexico and admit it as one state, but people living in the territory of Arizona voted against it 16,265 to 3,141

4. Arizona officially became a state on Feb. 14, 1912

5. Which also happens to be Valentine’s Day

6. And Oregon’s birthday

7. President William Howard Taft signed Arizona into statehood

8. Arizona’s first governor, George W. P. Hunt was present for the signing in Washington D.C.

9. Arizona only had 200,000 residents at the time of statehood

10. Arizona was the 48th territory to become a state, making it one of the youngest states in our country’s history

link: http://www.dcourier.com/news/2017/feb/14/10-things-about-arizona-statehood-day-feb-14-1912/

 

High Desert Landscape

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arizona, high desert, landscape

Taken though the windshield of a car going north on I-17. You can see almost forever. This is in the high desert north of Phoenix Az.

Prescott Internet, 911, Telecom Back in Service

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arizona, az, internet outage

Our internet, 911, some bankings, ATM’s, some telephones were offline for around 7 hours today. Much of northern Az was affected including Prescott, Flagstaff, Cottonwood. The cause was intentional sabotage. A fiber optic cable that is inside a tunnel in far north Phoenix was cut, and that is the only connection. Just as a major wreck on I-17 can halt most vehicular traffic in northern and central Az, this halted most data traffic. The culprit has yet to be identified. Vandal? Criminal? Terrorist?

Here’s the latest news article I can find: http://news.yahoo.com/outage-halts-internet-cell-northern-arizona-230621745.html

To us it was a minor nuisance. We (thankfully) did not need to call 911. We did not need to use an ATM or bank services. I went to a couple of stores for small purchases but I had enough cash on hand. Our Verizon phones functioned, with 4G internet access and text messaging working.

Some thoughts on this outage:

1. The telecom system was designed for efficiency, not reliability. One fiber optic link is more efficient than 2, nice until that one is not in service for an extended time. That cable is a single point of failure. There is no backup, no redundancy – these are costly and thus inefficient.

2. It is amazingly easy for someone with bad intentions and a little knowledge to take down a major utility used by many people and businesses with a few hand tools.

3. This is what a systemic failure cascade looks like, in real time.