After two days of strong winds and heavy rain, utility workers in Northern California had a hard time getting power back on for tens of thousands of homes on Friday. The area was also getting ready for more bad weather over the weekend.
The next round of heavy rain and strong gusts was expected to hit the northwest corner of California late Friday before moving southward into the San Francisco Bay Area and central coast on Saturday and Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.Another area to be affected was southern Oregon.
An area already saturated from continuous downpours since late December would likely receive more rain from the approaching storm, another “atmospheric river” of dense moisture moving in from the Pacific, the NWS said. This will increase the likelihood of flash flooding and mudslides in the area.
Forecasters say that hillsides and valleys that have been burned by wildfires in the past are particularly susceptible to mudslides and rock slides.
In higher elevations of the Sierras, where accumulations of 46 centimetres or more were observed earlier this week, up to 60 centimetres of snow were anticipated to fall over the weekend in addition to severe rains.
On Friday, most of the northern two-thirds of California, the most populous state in the country, was under flood watches, gale-force wind advisories, and winter storm warnings. People were told to get ready for the storm and not drive in flood-prone areas.
The foreboding prognosis follows a powerful Pacific storm that devastated California for two days with hurricane-force winds, pounding surf, pouring rains, and heavy snowfall. The state’s northern region was most damaged.
According to information from Poweroutages.us, 60,000 households and businesses in multiple Northern California counties were still without electricity as of Friday morning as a result of the weather.
Howling gusts tore down power lines and blocked roads all over the area, uprooting trees that were already fragile from the protracted drought and inadequately grounded in rain-soaked soil. Flash floods and rock slides also impeded road travel.
high waves
In the beachfront city of Santa Cruz, high surf and runoff from torrential rains combined to flood numerous blocks, while strong waves tore away wooden piers in the neighbouring town of Capitola and the nearby Seacliff State Beach.
The ground-floor museum of the historic Point Cabrillo lighthouse in Mendocino County was flooded by pounding waves farther north, according to a report in the Mendocino Voice newspaper.
The two-day storm was caused by a huge flow of moisture from the tropical Pacific and a bomb cyclone, which is a widespread low-pressure system on the scale of a hurricane. The storm ended Thursday night.
Since early last week, it has been the third and strongest atmospheric river to hit California. According to research, these rainstorms will become more frequent and intense, punctuating long stretches of catastrophic drought.
Since the New Year’s holiday, at least six people have perished in the harsh weather, including a toddler in Northern California who was murdered when a redwood tree fell on his mobile home and crushed it.
The quick sequence of storms dumped 26 centimetres of rain on downtown San Francisco from December 26 through Wednesday, making it the wettest 10-day period there in more than 150 years, since 1871, according to the NWS.
The downtown area of the city got the most rain in 10 days ever recorded: 36.5 cm. The NWS said it was likely to stay that way through the coming rains.
Although the storms have replenished the Sierra Nevada snowpack, a vital source of water for California, scientists predict that much more snow will need to fall this winter to significantly alleviate the state’s dire drought situation.
For better or worse, the weather service predicted that another atmospheric river storm, this time “possibly stronger,” was “on the horizon for Monday,” as part of a “broader trend that is likely to last at least until the middle of January,” forecasters said.
Reuters
