The catastrophe began with a snowstorm in the Sierra. In early December 1861, upwards of 15 feet of snow fell in California’s eastern mountains. What followed, modern National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers believe, was a series of atmospheric rivers. For 40 days, they kept coming, bringing warm rain and high winds.
Even oyster beds in San Francisco Bay near Oakland were reported to be dying from the effects of the immense amounts of freshwater entering the bay. Full of sediment, it covered the oyster beds. One-quarter of California's estimated 800,000 cattle were killed by the flood, accelerating the end of the cattle-based ranchero society.
Heavy rainfall began falling in California as the longwave trough moved down over the state, remaining there until the end of January 1862 and causing precipitation everywhere in the state for nearly 40 days. Eventually the trough moved even further south, causing snow to fall in the Central Valley and surrounding mountain ranges.
There was some respite, relatively speaking, in the Bay Area. Although the deluge overtook nearly every community there too, the impact was not as prolonged. The state legislature briefly relocated to San Francisco, which saw the upside to its many hills for the first time. From this lofty perch, they witnessed life slow to a halt.
The Great Flood of 1862 was caused by a series of powerful storms that began over the Pacific Ocean. These storms were so strong because local temperatures were higher than normal—the winter of 1862 was unusually warm in California.
Flooding on the Columbia River and the snow in the mountains closed off supplies to the new mining towns on the Salmon River, causing starvation among the miners of Florence, cut off from December until May 1862. In early July, as the heavy burden of snow in the mountains melted, the runoff caused great flooding.
The 1848 discovery of gold in the territory of California prompted 300,000 hopeful prospectors to flood into the region, altering it forever.
December 1861 – January 1862: California's Great Flood Beginning on December 24, 1861, and lasting for 45 days, the largest flood in California's recorded history occurred, reaching full flood stage in different areas between January 9–12, 1862.
2017 California floodsThe South Yuba River at Highway 49 floods after heavy rain on January 9, 2017. The flow is about 25,000 cubic feet per second (710 m3/s), more than 40 times the normal rate.DateJanuary 7 – February 22, 2017LocationCalifornia NevadaDeathsAt least 5 directly1 more row
The flood was caused by two Pacific storms that swept across the Los Angeles Basin in February-March 1938 and generated almost one year's worth of precipitation in just a few days.
What are some possible problems caused by the arrival of so many new settlers in California? Fighting over claims, discrimination, and economic hardship.
The California Gold Rush was sparked by the discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley in early 1848 and was arguably one of the most significant events to shape American history during the first half of the 19th century.
The flood of November-December 1950 in the Central Valley basin was the greatest in most parts of the basin since the turn of the century and probably was exceeded in the lower San Joaquin River basin only by the historic flood of 1862.
The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history and high on the lists of American disasters....1906 San Francisco earthquake.Ruins in the vicinity of Post and Grant AvenueEureka Dunsmuir Chico Truckee Santa Rosa Salinas Bakersfield Fresno Paso Robles Santa Monica IndioTsunamiYes13 more rows
California's deadliest and most-destructive natural disaster in recorded history, a so-called "mega storm," hit the state in the winter of 1861 and 1862.
El NiñoEl Niño-fueled rains began striking Los Angeles in January and intensified. Over the next few months, a relentless string of storms caused havoc, washing away roads and railroad tracks, overflowing flood control channels, causing 17 deaths and more than half a billion dollars in damage in California.
The weather pattern that caused this flood was not from an El Niño type event, and from the existing Army and private weather records, it has been determined that the polar jet stream was to the north as the Pacific Northwest experienced a mild rainy pattern for the first half of December 1861. In 2012, hydrologists and meteorologists concluded that the precipitation was likely caused by a series of atmospheric rivers that hit the Western United States along the entire West Coast, from Oregon to Southern California.
In early July, as the heavy burden of snow in the mountains melted, the runoff caused great flooding. The Boise River flooded from extremely high runoff and is believed to have been four times larger than its largest recorded flood in 1943. Flood waters made the river expand to a couple of miles wide.
In Southern California, beginning on December 24, 1861, it rained for 28 days in Los Angeles. In the San Gabriel Mountains the mining town of Eldoradoville was washed away by flood waters. The flooding drowned thousands of cattle and washed away fruit trees and vineyards that grew along the Los Angeles River. No mail was received at Los Angeles for five weeks. The Los Angeles Star reported that:
However, the series of storms that led to the Great Flood of 1862 averaged precipitation levels that records show only occur once every 500 to 1,000 years. The geographical range of flooding in the state was noted by a traveling geologist from Yale University, William Brewer, who wrote that on January 19, 1862,
Oregon, Nevada, California, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, Sonora, Mexico. The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada, and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains and snows in the very high elevations that began in Oregon in November 1861 ...
Flood damage was so great because the rivers in Oregon were the main routes of travel. The river front was the building site of mills, freight depots, and storehouses for grain and other foodstuffs. Business houses and many residences were near the landings.
Bridges were washed away in Trinity and Shasta counties.
Though Northern California saw some intense rain over the last couple of weeks, bringing rainfall totals for the month of January well above average for many cities and towns, these numbers are still nowhere near the torrents of rain that fell on the West Coast between December 1861 and January 1862, creating what was called The Great Flood of 1862. And much like those that have been hitting California this winter, the cause of the Great Flood was a relentless series of atmospheric rivers that dumped 24.63 inches of rain in San Francisco in the month of January and 66 inches in Los Angeles that year (four times the average), and flooded Sacramento so severely that it was widely called " Lake Sacramento " leading to a raising of the entire city eight to ten feet so that it could remain the state capital.
Sacramento's levees had the effect of trapping floodwater in the city in January 1862, leading to the levees needing to be busted open. The capital of California had to be temporarily relocated to San Francisco on January 23, 1862 as a result of the flood. Though nothing so severe has hit California in the 155 years since the Great Flood, ...
The problem, though, is that such recordings weren't kept for the western United States much before the 1840s, which has led hydrology researchers like Dave Reynolds to have to argue the case for the Great Flood of 1862 being a 200-year flood event, since we really only have about 150 years of good records for California so far.
The storms of December 1861 and January 1862 caused widespread flooding and damage from Canada down to Sonora, Mexico, and this was capped off with early snowmelt triggered by warmer temperatures in the Sierra and elsewhere. The rain started in Washington and Oregon earlier, in November, with warm temperatures triggering quick melting ...