Friday, utility technicians in northern California rushed to restore power to tens of thousands of households after two days of severe winds and torrential rain, even as the region prepared for another round of severe weather over the weekend.
The National Weather Service (NWS) predicted that the next round of heavy showers and strong winds would hit the northwestern region of California late on Friday and spread southward towards the San Francisco Bay Area and central coast on Saturday and Sunday. Southern Oregon was also predicted to be affected.
The approaching storm – another “atmospheric river” of dense moisture moving in from the Pacific – is expected to drop several more inches (cm) of rain on an area already saturated by repeated downpours since late December, reviving the risk of flash flooding and mudslides, according to the NWS.
According to forecasters, slopes and valleys stripped of vegetation by prior wildfires are more susceptible to rock and mudslides.
Upper Lake, California experienced flooding that prompted the closure of multiple roadways.
In addition to heavy rains, up to 2 feet of snow was forecast to fall over the weekend in the Sierras’ higher elevations, where accumulations of 1 to 18 inches or more were observed earlier this week.
On Friday, a large portion of the northern two-thirds of California, the most populous state in the United States, was under flood watches, gale-force wind advisories, and winter-storm warnings, with forecasters urging residents to prepare for the deluge and avoid driving in flood-prone areas.
The foreboding prognosis follows a big Pacific storm that ravaged California for two days with hurricane-force winds, pounding surf, pouring rains, and heavy snow. The northern portion of the state was most severely affected.
Crews in San Francisco remove trees that crashed to the ground during the storm and damaged a BMW.
According to data from Poweroutages.us, as of Saturday morning, approximately 38,000 households and businesses remained without electricity in numerous northern California counties due to the weather.
Strong gusts destroyed trees already weakened by a prolonged drought and inadequately grounded in soil saturated with rain, bringing down power lines and blocking roads around the region. In addition to flash floods and landslides, road travel was impeded by both.
Several blocks in the coastal city of Santa Cruz were flooded by a combination of high waves and runoff from heavy rains, while powerful waves destroyed wooden piers in the adjacent town of Capitola and Seacliff State Beach.
The Capitola Wharf in Capitola, California, was harmed by high waves and severe winds.
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The Mendocino Voice reported that pounding waves burst through the rear doors of the historic Point Cabrillo lighthouse in Mendocino County, flooding its ground-floor museum.
The two-day storm, which ended Thursday night, was fueled by a massive atmospheric stream of moisture from the tropical Pacific and a low-pressure system known as a bomb cyclone that was on the scale of a hurricane.
It was the third and strongest atmospheric river to hit California since the beginning of the week.
Extensive periods of acute drought are predicted to be punctuated by an increase in the frequency and severity of such rainstorms, as a result of climate change.
At least six people have died as a result of the extreme weather since New Year’s weekend, including a toddler whose mobile home was crushed by a fallen redwood tree in northern California.
On January 6, 2023, trash piled up in front of a restaurant in Capitola, California.
From December 26 to January 4, downtown San Francisco received 10.3 inches (26 centimeters) of rain as a result of a quick sequence of storms, the wettest 10-day span recorded there in more than 150 years, since 1858, according to the NWS.
The highest 10-day rainfall total ever recorded in the city’s downtown was 14.37 inches (36.5 centimeters), a record set in 1862 that the NWS predicted would likely endure through the next storms.
The storms have replenished the Sierra Nevada snowpack, a vital source of water for California, but experts believe much more snow will need to fall during the winter to significantly alleviate the state’s severe drought condition.
The meteorological service forecasted that yet another, “likely stronger,” atmospheric river storm was “on the horizon for Monday” as part of a larger pattern that forecasters expect to linger at least through the middle of January.
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