flood

Apr 07 2011

Wet March for Big Creek – floods and landslides

March was a big rain month. Highlands Peak weather station measured 12.27 inches. Most of it fell over a block of time when it rained 14 out of 16 days.

The creek got very high. Probably about 6 feet on the staff gauge, although the gauge broke off at some point and so we can only estimate it until the fisheries scientists download their electronic instrument.

Local resident, Steve Harper, asked me if he could check out the flood and took some video of the rushing water heading out to the ocean. You can see his video here.

After the flood was over, we discovered that we now have a beach.

This doesn’t happen often. Usually we have a very rocky, boulder beach with a little sand at the north end. Perhaps there was a large slide up the canyon somewhere in the watershed. The sediment would have been delivered to the cove and pushed back onto the beach by the ocean waves. So there you have it, suddenly a beach appeared. The harbor seals love it!

Along with rain and mud, you get slides. The highway between Rocky Creek and Bixby Creek fell into the ocean. There was another road-closing slide south of Limekiln State Park which cut Big Creek off in both directions. Feynner had his work delivered onto our own road in a huge pile of mud and trees. This slide was about 40 feet tall and 30 feet wide. It took three days to fix the road but you can see he still had a smile on his face.

Oct 15 2009

First storm of winter 2009. Mining Ridge gets 22 inches

I looked at the blog record for storms of 2009 and found the “first big storm of 2009” entry. During that storm in February, the creek went from 1.8′ to 2.8′ with just 2-3 inches of rain. We got 9 inches that month at the Highlands Peak weather station.

Well, on October 13 alone, we recieved 9.6 inches at Highlands Peak and 5.3 at Whale Point. The NOAA rain gauge on Mining Ridge reported 22 inches fell from 3am the 13th to 7pm the 14th. This seems outrageous but no word yet if that was inaccurate. The level of the gauge pool at Big Creek went from 1.4′ to 5.5′. Big Creek was dark chocolate color while Devil’s Creek was milky brown. All over the banks of the creek was foamy bubbles. Here is a profile of the creek level over four days spanning the storm.

This storm originated as a cyclone off the southern tip of Japan and made it’s way across the Pacific to hit the California coast. The temperature during the storm was about 58 degrees F and even went up to 62 just after the rain stopped. The maximum wind gust at Whale Point was 46 mph and at Highlands Peak was 62 mph. The top of one of the cypress trees at the Gatehouse broke off. It was impressive to see that any of the alders and willows even had leaves at all afterwards.

Here’s a picture of the beach at 7am on the morning of the 14th.

The weather on the 14-15th was sunny and humid. There was a swarm of termites hatching everywhere. The phoebes, bluebirds and bats had their fill.

Feb 18 2009

First big 2009 storm

Here’s what the creek looks like after a week of off and on rain plus three solid days of heavier rain in the Big Creek watershed. The creek height was 1.78′ at the guage pool on 2/14, 1.98′ 2/15 at noon then 2.2′ at 5pm on the 15th. After a whole night of wind and rain the gauge pool was at 2.9′ 8am the 16th. Here are some pictures of the muddy flood. Go to http://ucreserve.ucsc.edu/bigcreek/weather/ to see our weather data. The wind had been gusting around 50 mph for two days. By the middle of the 17th the creek as starting to clear a bit and by the end of the 18th I could at least see the bottom again and the gauge was reading 2.6 feet. We got a total of 4.2 inches between Feb. 12 and Feb. 18.

Big Creek at the confluence 2/16

Big Creek at the old gate on the interpretive trail 2/16

Devils Creek above the bridge to Redwood Camp 2/16