Another Atmospheric River Is Coming; Local Schools Need Reading Volunteers–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Jan. 2, 2023

Indy Digest: Jan. 2, 2023

The term “atmospheric river” is fairly new. It was first developed in the 1990s—and we’re going to be hearing the term quite a bit more in California, as yet another atmospheric river is expected to bring more storms later this week.

NPR explains:

Atmospheric rivers are a normal part of the West Coast’s weather pattern, and they’re often the solution to months of warm-weather drought, bringing sorely needed rain and snowfall that packs water away high in the mountains.

“It’s just a narrow area of high moisture that gets transported away from the tropics towards the higher latitudes,” often before a cold front arrives, as NWS senior forecaster Bob Oravec recently told NPR.

For states along the West Coast, atmospheric rivers are “actually responsible for a good majority of the rainfall during the colder season, which is the season when they get most of their rain,” Oravec said.

The precipitation can be extreme: a single atmospheric river “can carry more water than the Mississippi River at its mouth,” as NPR has reported. And forecasters have long warned that the systems’ winds are very dangerous. Five years ago, one of the storms toppled the legendary “Pioneer Cabin Tree” sequoia in Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

The last storm delivered by an atmospheric river made for a gloomy New Year’s Eve in Southern California—while it caused major problems in Northern California. That aforementioned NPR piece says: “San Francisco’s downtown NWS site recorded 5.46 inches of rain on Dec. 31—the second-wettest day at that location in more than 170 years, the NWS said. As of midday Monday local time, around 39,000 electricity accounts were without power in California, with another 20,000 in Nevada, according to PowerOutage.us. … Emergency crews rescued people from vehicles that couldn’t move because of floodwaters. At least one death was linked to the weekend storm, after workers in southern Sacramento County found a person dead inside a vehicle submerged in water near Highway 99, as member station Capital Public Radio reports.”

I was in Reno on New Year’s Eve, where weather forecasters said we should be bracing for rain—and a lot of it, including some in areas where there was a substantial amount of snow on the ground. The city was even offering sand bags for people to brace for possible flooding. But the forecasters were very wrong: Instead of rain, we got snow—about six inches in central Reno, and about a foot at my mom’s place in south Reno. While the snow ruined a whole lot of New Year’s Eve plans (including my mom’s birthday dinner), it was a blessing: It kept the flooding away.

Well, it kept it away for now, at least. There’s another atmospheric river coming our way late Tuesday/early Wednesday. We could see more rain in the Coachella Valley—and Northern California could see more flooding.

The state can certainly use the rain, given the historic drought in which we find ourselves. It would, however, be preferable to NOT receive that rain all at once …

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Our friend DeAnn Lubell asked us to share some info about a very cool local program that is badly in need of volunteers: Read With Me, an effort that since 2004 has helped “local children from limited English speaking environments develop to their fullest potential by learning to read, comprehend and speak English.” Lubell writes:

There are 17 schools representing the Coachella Valley, Tahoe, and Reno in the RWMVP program. In 2015, Cathedral City Elementary School (CCES) in the Palm Springs Unified School District joined the volunteer program. Six enthusiastic individuals stepped up to aid teachers and tutor the students. At CCES the student population is 91% Hispanic or Latino; 99% are socioeconomically disadvantaged; and 44% are English learners.

During the second year of operating RWMVP at CCES, the program doubled from the original six volunteers to 13 volunteers. As more and more of the classroom teachers recognized the benefits of these aides helping them, the program grew to 72 volunteers in 2019. Then COVID hit. … After a two-year hiatus, RWMVP volunteers are welcomed back to the campuses. Recent studies have shown that when students work with RSMVP volunteers, reading test scores are almost 50% higher than those students who did not have the extra help.

Many students fell behind in their studies because of the COVID shutdown and resulting remote learning. RWMVP now needs a bigger volunteer force to successfully meet the challenges of getting students back on track to reading at grade-level. For example, CCES currently has 50 RWMVP tutors, but could use at least 25 more. And that is just for ONE school.  Fully vaccinated volunteers are asked to donate one or two hours a week in a one-on-one mentoring situation or in small groups for eight weeks or more. 

Currently, more than 100 volunteers are needed to fill the gap at all the Read With Me represented elementary schools.

For more information, visit www.readwithmevolunteers.com, or contact Rachel Luiz at 818-427-8129 or readwithmerachel@gmail.com.

• Our partners at CalMatters take a look at some of the more interesting new laws that are now in effect in 2023. A taste: “Shoppers may have noticed that shampoos and other personal care products marketed to women sometimes cost more than very similar versions for men. No longer. With this law, stores will be banned from charging a different price based on gender—and could be in the crosshairs of the attorney general’s office for any violations. Advocacy groups say that ending the ‘pink tax’ is another step in the cause of gender equity.”

• One law that did not take effect on Jan. 1 as planned: A new law that could raise fast-food workers’ wages. The Los Angeles Times reports: “A Sacramento County Superior Court judge has put a temporary hold on a new California law boosting protections for fast-food workers that was set to go into effect Jan. 1. The order comes in response to a lawsuit filed Thursday by a coalition of major restaurant and business trade groups that is backing an effort to overturn the law, called Assembly Bill 257, through a referendum on the California ballot in November 2024. If the referendum qualifies for the ballot, it would block AB 257 until voters have a say. The coalition, called Save Local Restaurants, took issue with the state Department of Industrial Relations’ effort to implement AB 257 on Jan. 1, arguing that because the referendum effort is well under way, it renders the law unenforceable. Implementing the law could set a harmful precedent that threatens voters’ right of referendum, the coalition said. … Also known as the Fast Recovery Act, AB 257 would, among other things, create a worker representative body with the power to raise wages.”

• The Los Angeles Times examines how the successful academic workers’ strike within the University of California system is making waves nationwide: “The UC strike is over, culminating last month in significant improvements in wages and working conditions after 48,000 teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral scholars walked off their jobs in the nation’s largest labor action of academic workers. But the effects of the historic strike still reverberate across the nation, helping energize an unprecedented surge of union activism among academic workers that could reshape the teaching and research enterprise of American higher education. In 2022 alone, graduate students representing 30,000 peers at nearly a dozen institutions filed documents with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. They include USC, Northwestern, Yale, Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”

• And finally … our thoughts go out to actor Jeremy Renner, who’s in critical but stable condition after an accident following the aforementioned storm, on New Year’s Day. CNN says: “Actor Jeremy Renner has so far required two surgeries to address injuries he sustained in a New Year’s Day snow plowing accident, a source close to the actor told CNN. ‘His injuries are extensive,’ they said. … ‘As of now, we can confirm Jeremy is in critical but stable condition with injuries suffered after experiencing a weather related accident while plowing snow earlier today,’ Sam Mast told CNN in a statement. ‘His family is with him and he is receiving excellent care.’ … His family is expected to release a statement Monday evening, the source close to the actor added.”

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