Indy Digest: Feb. 5, 2024
When we have this kind of weather, one word comes to mind: moist.
If you don’t like the word moist, well, you’re not alone. According to online publication Mental Floss: “Researchers from Oberlin College in Ohio and Trinity University in San Antonio ran three different experiments to figure out how many people really find the word moist disdainful, and why. They found that around 20 percent of the population studied was averse to the word, but that it didn’t have anything to do with the way it sounds. Rather, it’s the association with bodily functions that seem to turn most people off, whether they realize it or not.”
The more you know …
Anyway, the type of rain much of Southern California is receiving is pretty gosh-darned rare. (Or at least it used to be.) According to the Los Angeles Times:
Rainfall topped 10 inches in some areas of Los Angeles County in two days, easily surpassing the average amount recorded for the entire month of February, according to the National Weather Service.
“And February is our wettest month,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. He noted this storm is “significant.”
As of 10 a.m. Monday, downtown Los Angeles had recorded 5.62 inches of rain over the prior 48 hours. The February average is 3.80 inches.
Here in the Coachella Valley, the airport, as of 4:30 p.m., was reporting just a tenth of an inch of precipitation from this storm. However, to nobody’s surprise, Indian Canyon, Vista Chino and Gene Autry were all closed through the wash—feel free to call them the road-closure trinity—meaning traffic in the western Coachella Valley was a big mess.
We’ve said it before in this space, and we’ll say it again: “Abnormal” weather like this is becoming increasingly normal due to climate change. As the Los Angeles Times reported Friday:
The powerful atmospheric river—worrisome enough on its own—is being supercharged by climate change and El Niño, which together are warming ocean waters, upping the odds of significant downpours and offering a preview of the state’s future in a warming world, experts say.
The incoming storm is feeding off unusually warm waters between California and Hawaii where a significant marine heat wave has persisted for months, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA. …
“As ocean temperatures warm, and as atmospheric temperatures warm, those rates of evaporation of water vapor into the lower atmosphere are going to increase quite quickly,” Swain said during a briefing Friday. “A few degrees of warming of nearshore and offshore water temperatures means that there’s more moisture in that lower atmosphere.”
In other words, extra heat and moisture from the warm sea surface are moistening the atmospheric river storms as they approach California, making them more likely to deliver heavy rainfall.
Moist. You may not like the word—but you’d better get used to hearing it and its associated noun, moisture, a heck of a lot more.
—Jimmy Boegle
From the Independent
Candid Celebrities: A Modernism Week Talk and MAD.KAT Gallery’s ‘Hollywood Cool’ Exhibition Celebrate John Hamilton’s Photos of Hollywood Stars
By Matt King
February 2nd, 2024
John R. Hamilton’s work focuses on “a love of celebrity and the freedom of the American West” via photos of countless celebrities shot from the ’40s through the ’90s.
Sweating Stars: Netflix’s ‘The Greatest Night in Pop’ Covers the Craziness During the Recording of ‘We Are the World’
By Bob Grimm
February 5th, 2024
Netflix’s The Greatest Night in Pop will give you a whole new appreciation of “We Are the World.”
Vine Social: Have You Ever Tried a Cinsault? If Not, That Needs to Change
By Katie Finn
February 5th, 2024
If you don’t know how to pronounce cinsault, let alone know what it tastes like, allow me to introduce you.
The Indy Endorsement: The Cornmeal Cheddar Drop Biscuits at Alice B.
By Jimmy Boegle
February 5th, 2024
The price tag gave me pause at first—$16 for three biscuits is a bit crazy—but, boy, were they good.
The Lucky 13: Xavier Hernandez, Vocalist for He Films the Clouds
By Matt King
February 5th, 2024
He Films the Clouds vocalist Xavier Hernandez gracefully switches back and forth between intense screaming and heart-wrenching singing.
More News
• Keeping with the weather-related news: Most Southern Californians who have to deal with flood-related losses won’t be covered for those losses by insurance. CNN reports: “The typical homeowners’ policy won’t cover loss from flood damage. That is covered by the National Flood Insurance Program, a part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But in California, where drought, not flooding, had been the more common problem until recently, homeowners are about as prepared for flood damage as hurricane-prone Florida residents are for earthquakes. Data from NFIP shows only 52,400 homes and businesses are covered by flood insurance in the eight Southern California counties declared a disaster area because of this storm. That’s less than 1% of 7.7 million households in the affected area with coverage. Those counties have a combined population of more than 22.6 million people, according to the latest estimates from the Census Bureau.”
• Also weather-related: Hurricanes have gotten so much stronger that some meteorologists are suggesting we add a whole new category to the scale. The Washington Post says: “As the planet warms, storms are increasingly surpassing what was once considered extreme, according to research published Monday. Now, two scientists are proposing a new label they say a growing number of storms already merit: Category 6. ‘Climate change has demonstrably made the strongest storms stronger,’ said Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. ‘Introduction of this hypothetical Category 6 would raise awareness of that.’ Wehner and James Kossin, a distinguished science adviser at the First Street Foundation, suggest the Category 6 label could go to any tropical cyclone with sustained winds of at least 192 mph—an intensity that five storms have surpassed since 2013. … ‘Having (Category 5) mean anything above a certain threshold is becoming more and more problematic,’ Kossin said. ‘It tends to understate the risk.’”
• The United States is selling its federal helium reserves, and this could be a big deal. The New York Times explains why: “Helium cools down the magnets used in MRI scanners. It also cools nuclear reactors, is used in semiconductor chip manufacturing, and lifts rockets. Among its most familiar uses, balloons represent only a small portion of the demand. … In 2020, the Bureau of Land Management, the national public lands agency, said it was auctioning the federal system to comply with the 2013 Helium Stewardship Act, which required the government to sell its helium assets in a privatization initiative. The move was meant to remove the government from the marketing process and ‘allow the private sector to further develop this industry to meet the supply needs of the United States, creating a sustainable economic model and jobs for Americans,’ William Perry Pendley, the agency’s deputy policy director, said in a statement. … The Compressed Gas Association, a trade group representing industries that rely on helium, urged the White House in January to delay privatization because of what they called a possible ‘supply chain crisis’ that could disrupt the availability of helium, forcing companies to find substitute providers.”
• Today’s recall news involves two things. First up … vacuum cleaners! ABC News says: “Bissell, a floor cleaning product company, recalled over 140,000 of its Multi Reach Hand and Floor Vacuum Cleaners due to a potential fire hazard, according to an announcement on the United States Product Safety Commission and a separate announcement on the company’s website. According to the USPSC’s release posted on Thursday, the vacuum’s battery pack has the potential to ‘overheat and smoke, posing a fire hazard.’ The announcement said 142,000 units were recalled in the United States. Additionally, about 14,600 units were sold in Canada.”
• Next up: Teslas! Yes, there’s yet another recall involving Teslas, and this may be the dumbest one yet. The Washington Post says: “For the second time in less than two months, Tesla is issuing an over-the-air software update after a safety recall of almost all its vehicles in the United States. The maker of electric cars, SUVs and trucks is recalling nearly 2.2 million vehicles because the font sizes on its warning lights are too small, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said this week. A recall notice on the NHTSA website Tuesday said the font size on the instrument panel for the brake, park and anti-lock brake system is smaller than what is required by federal regulations. The regulations say the letter font sizes must be at least 3.2 millimeters, or 1/8 of an inch.”
• And finally … the Wired headline: “Inside the Beef Industry’s Campaign to Influence Kids.” Really? Yep: An excerpt from the story: “Over the past eight years, the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture (AFBFA) has produced industry-backed lesson plans, learning resources, in-person events, and webinars as part of a program to boost the cattle industry’s reputation. Beef has one of the highest carbon footprints of any food, but AFBFA funding documents reveal that the industry fears that science teachers are exposed to ‘misinformation,’ ‘propaganda,’ and ‘one-sided or inaccurate’ information. The campaign from the AFBFA—a farming-industry-backed group that educates Americans about agriculture—is an attempt to fight back and leave school teachers with a “more positive perception” of the beef industry, the funding documents reveal. … The industry is attempting to influence public opinion by starting with children, says Jan Dutkiewicz at the Pratt Institute’s Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies. Dutkiewicz points out that one of the AFBFA’s objectives outlined in its most recent funding document is to run events that ‘engage educators and students … to increase their understanding and positive perceptions of the beef industry.’”
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