Rain on Larchmont
The past two days have seen some much-needed, long-awaited rain—mostly because the temperature has been down in the mid-70s.
The recent weather—the intensely hot summer and the upcoming rainy season—is all from a ‘super El Niño,’ but this one they’re saying is so immense it’s earned the nickname of a Godzilla El Niño. While whether or not it’s a direct correlation to the climate crisis isn’t possible to prove, studies show it’s probable.
As the heat in summer increases we’ll need an increasing amount of power to stay cool, which plays into the whole energy debate that is at the center of all this. But in the winter the problem in LA is something else entirely—the existing city infrastructure just can’t handle rain. Every time it floods more than a couple inches, entire streets flood and mudslides threaten many areas across the region.
And that’s the thing about the climate crisis—for so many years we’ve been calling it ‘global warming,’ and so the general image that comes to mind is just the temperature is going to rise. But the weather is going to threaten all kinds of infrastructure around the weather, and I don’t think many people appreciate the causes and effects of weather systems (and how much destruction they can bring). Today, I’m enjoying the rain, but tomorrow, we might all be underwater.
