Jan 7 (Reuters) – Another “atmospheric river” of dense, moist tropical air will blanket California on Monday with rain and mountain snow – the fifth weather phenomenon since Christmas – even as the state was rocked by storms this weekend, forecasters said.
The current wave of heavy rain and gusty winds swept across the northwest corner of California late Friday and spread south into the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Coast on Saturday afternoon and will continue into Sunday, said David Roth, a meteorologist at the National Center for Weather Service weather forecast.
“But, oh no, it’s not over,” Roth added.
Another in a succession of storm systems will hit Monday and continue through at least the middle of next week, affecting Los Angeles, Sacramento, up through the San Francisco Bay Area and into Oregon.
“It’s going to get worse on Monday,” Roth said, “We’re talking about 3 to 6 inches (7.5 cm-15 cm) of rain, several feet of snow in the mountains … because the area is so saturated that they could see flash flooding, mudslides, rock slides and avalanches.”
Hills and canyons already stripped of vegetation from past wildfires are especially vulnerable to rockslides and mudslides, forecasters said.
In addition to the heavy rain, up to 2 feet (60 cm) of snow was expected by late Sunday in the higher parts of the Sierras, where accumulations of a foot to 18 inches (30 cm to 46 cm) or more were measured on early this week.
Tens of thousands of homes and businesses have lost power in recent days, and more than 34,000 remained without power Saturday afternoon, mostly in Mendocino County in northern California, according to the tracking site Poweroutages.us.
This is the third and strongest atmospheric river to hit California since the beginning of last week.
Roaring winds uprooted trees already weakened by prolonged drought and poorly anchored in rain-soaked soil, toppled power lines and blocked roads in the region.
An NWS weather advisory on Saturday warned that the cumulative effect of back-to-back heavy rainstorms since late December could push river levels to record highs and cause flooding across much of Central California.
At least six people died in severe New Year’s weekend weather, including a toddler killed by a fallen redwood tree that crushed a mobile home in Northern California.
The rapid succession of storms left downtown San Francisco drenched with 10.3 inches (26 cm) of rain from Dec. 26 to Jan. 4, the wettest 10-day stretch on record there in more than 150 years, since 1871. according to the NWS.
Roth said “this is nowhere near the end” and that storm patterns will continue into mid-January.
Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta Editing by Sandra Mahler
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Add Comment