Source: Yahoo News
California Storms : More Than A Drizzle.
The West Coast fortified for extraordinary flooding as heavy rains from an atmospheric river were forecast to spread over California beginning on Sunday, in the latest series of storms to hit the state this month.
A less intense storm moved over California’s northern and central coast on Saturday night, initiating the period of rain for the country’s most populous state. Forecasters predicted that it was a predecessor to a more forceful storm on Sunday that was expected to bring the high magnitude of precipitation.
Brian Hurley, a senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service, said “Sunday night and Monday alone, we’re looking at areas three to six inches of rain down the coast south of the Bay Area to Santa Barbara.”
The narrow bands of moisture that were bombarded over the West Coast by winds in the Pacific have been named the Atmospheric river.
They are responsible for California’s heaviest rains and floods.
The system has already been regarded as a potential rainmaker even in mountain communities, Mr. Hurley proclaimed, some areas above 6,800 feet, such as Mammoth Mountain in the Sierra Nevada, could get covered under more than four feet of snow.
On Saturday, California’s Office of Emergency Services announced that it had stationed two swift water rescue teams, in six counties in wait for the storm, among other emergency workers.
San Francisco and San Jose are the bay area cities, expected to be affected the most by these storms and to receive between one and two inches of rain, as per the Weather Service’s San Francisco Bay Area office.
The system could bring hail and thunderstorms and wind gusts of 30 to 45 miles per hour to the parts of the Bay Area and the Central Coast on Sunday, the Weather Service said.
Moving south, the likelihood of flooding was high in the coastal communities of Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties that lie in the northwest of Los Angeles.
The National Weather Service in Los Angeles commented that the region could anticipate two to five inches of rain, with up to eight inches in the mountains accompanied by damaging wind gusts from 40 to 60 m.p.h. at higher elevations and 20 to 40 m.p.h. elsewhere. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles encouraged residents to make preparations and to make the roads off-limits during the rain on saturday.
A part of the Don Ricardo Drive neighborhood that brags views of downtown Los Angeles, a few workers on Sunday chose to climb hillsides to put out sandbags behind homes. A good portion of the street was still caked with mud that had descended from the hill from the last storm.
Matt Jewett, a land-use consultant, had to bear the destruction of his residence when intense rain led vegetation and mud to crash through the house on Feb. 11. His house has been declared uninhabitable by the authorities.