Sacramento, California, Calif., Nevada, and Loss of Power due to the Nevada Winter Storm During the Sacramento-Sacra Ellipticals
It is not known how much the storm will make a difference in the ongoing droughts in California, which began with the driest beginning of the year on record and ended with flooded roads and swelling rivers.
The National Weather Service in Reno, Nevada stated that a winter storm warning was in effect from Sunday to Wednesday for the upper elevations of the Sierra, where as much as five feet of snow is possible.
More than 300,000 homes and businesses in California and Nevada lost power as of early Sunday due to the storm, according to Poweroutage. The US.
“Too many road closures to count at this point,” the weather agency in Sacramento said in an afternoon tweet. Sacramento County urged residents in the unincorporated community of Wilton to evacuate, warning that flooded roadways could “cut off access to leave the area.”
The second wettest day on record at San Francisco’s downtown NWS site is December 31st, the NWS said.
California Highway Patrol and State Route 50 Reopened on Twitter after the December 19 Santa Fe Seismoth’er Unruh Event
The roads are very slippery. so let’s all work together and slow down so we can keep I-80 open,” the California Highway Patrol said on Twitter. Several other highways, including State Route 50, also reopened.
Weather service meteorologist Courtney Carpenter said the storm could drop over an inch of rain in the Sacramento area before moving south. One ski resort south of Lake Tahoe closed chair lifts because of flooding and operational problems, and posted a photo on Twitter showing one lift tower and its empty chairs surrounded by water.
The Sacramento agency released a map of 24-hour precipitation through Saturday morning, showing a wide range of totals in the region, from less than an inch (2.54 centimeters) in some areas to more than 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) in the Sierra foothills.
The Stockton Police Department posted photos of a flooded railroad underpass and a car that appeared stalled in more than a foot (30 centimeters) of water.
Climate researchers have said it’s a lack of precipitation, higher temperatures, and an increase in evaporative demand – also known as the “thirst of the atmosphere” – that has pushed the West’s drought into historic territory.
A multitude of warnings were issued for residents from southern Oregon to southern California, including flood and flash flood watches, high winds warnings and winter storm warnings.
The earthquake that struck on December 20 caused flooding in the county, according to the National Weather Service. A bridge that was temporarily closed last week due to earthquake damage may be closed again if the Eel River, which it crosses, gets too high, officials said.
The Sierra Storm of December 7, 2009: A First Day of Intergalactic High-Energy Winds, Flood Watches, and Flood Warnings
There are expected to be a number of storms coming across California over the next week. The current system is expected to be warmer and wetter, while next week’s storms will be colder, said Hannah Chandler-Cooley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sacramento.
“Strong winds could cause tree damage and lead to power outages and high waves on Lake Tahoe may capsize small vessels,” the weather service in Reno said.
On the Sierra’s eastern front, flood watches and warnings were issued into the weekend north and south of Reno, Nevada, where minor to moderate flooding was forecast along some rivers and streams.
“The storm prompted evacuation warnings across the northern part of the state, it triggered landslides, it closed roads really all over the place,” member station KQED’s Kevin Stark told NPR early Thursday.
The National Weather Service says several rivers started to flood, including the Cosumnes and Mokelumne rivers. There were flood warnings for the south of the valley.
The three communities near the city ofWatsonville were ordered to evacuate by Santa Cruz County sheriffs due to rising creek flooding, while the communities of Paradise Park and Felton were ordered to flee due to the San Lorenzo River flooding.
The National Weather Service (NWS) told residents to stay put as the flood impacts continue to escalate and there were reports of rock and mudslides across the foothills.
Rescue crews spent the weekend helping flood victims with boats and helicopters, as well as responding to trees and cars that were disabled in the flooding.
Calling it “Stormageddon,” the Amador County Sheriff’s Office shared an image of cars up to their doorhandles in floodwaters and said there’s been reports of flooding, mudslides and trees blocking roadways.
Snowfall on I-80 at the Nevada Line and Roads: Reopening Highway 50 after a Day of Flooding from the American River
Hours after a section of Highway 50 was closed due to flooding from the American River, it was reopened just after midnight.
I-80 was partially closed near the Nevada line on Saturday due to multiple spinouts, according to the California Department of Transportation.
In the area, residents were told to avoid travel due to the wind gusts of up to 55 mph that left trees and covered roads with debris.
The county proclaimed a state of emergency, saying the atmospheric river has caused “significant transportation impacts, rising creek and river levels and flooding” in the Wilton area.
Travel could be difficult to impossible in parts of the Sierra Nevada mountains where a winter storm warning is in effect.
The UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab reported 7.5 inches of snow per hour between 4 and 5 pm on Saturday.
The ski resort said on its Facebook page that they are going to work across the mountain since all of the lifts were coated in ice.
The California Highway Patrol reported that driving conditions were dangerous and dangerous with many cars stuck on the I-80 and county roads.
On New Year’s Eve, the California Department of Transportation said dozens of drivers were rescued along I 80 near Lake Tahoe after their cars spun out in the snow. The key route from the San Francisco Bay Area to the mountains reopened to passenger vehicles early Sunday.
Aerial video from CNN affiliate KCRA showed cars submerged past their doorhandles in flood waters from Highway 99 and the Dillard Street area. Chris Schamber told the station many people had been rescued.
Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office warned about the New Year’s Rose Parade, which closed on December 26, 2010, 1pm ET and 2pm ET
With the region drying out on New Year’s Day and no rainfall expected during Monday’s Rose Parade in Pasadena, spectators began staking out their spots for the annual floral spectacle.
In southern California, including Los Angeles, the heavier rain will move onshore overnight and continue through much of the day Thursday. Widespread rain totals of 2 to 4 inches are likely, with greater amounts in the higher terrain.
At least two people died in the storm, including one who was found dead inside a completely submerged vehicle Saturday in Sacramento County, and a 72-year-old man who died after being struck by a fallen tree at a Santa Cruz park, according to officials.
On Monday, snow is expected to fall across the Rockies, northern Plains, and eventually into parts of the Midwest where winter storm alerts are posted.
Parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana are at risk of severe storms on Monday, with damaging winds, strong tornadoes and hail possible. Storms are expected to begin in the afternoon and will last through the overnight hours.
An order for the rural areas of Point Pleasant was issued on Sunday, while Glanville Tract and Franklin Pond were under a warning.
“It is expected that the flooding from the Cosumnes River and the Mokelumne River is moving southwest toward I-5 and could reach these areas in the middle of the night,” the agency tweeted.
People affected by the floods and mud slides in Northern California are warned that the situation could get worse before it gets better.
It’s the third atmospheric river to hit the region since Dec. 26, the office said, adding that parts of the Russian River are now at particular flood risk. The NWS says the storm’s high winds could cause major damage to areas that are already saturated with rain.
Californian Elm Tree Destruction During a Snowstorm and Its Effects on Atmospheric Rivers and the Pacific Northwest
More than 30,000 electricity accounts in California and 20,000 in Nevada were without power as of midday Monday.
On New Year’s Eve, a massive elm tree was destroyed in a storm, and on Sunday, Mary Spencer- Gode and other people looked at the damage on their street.
She told Capital Public Radio that the wind was crazy. “We turned our TV off so we could hear it, and I was sitting in the kitchen, I heard a big ‘woosh’ and kind of the house moved.”
The West Coast’s weather pattern often has atmospheric rivers, and they bring rain and snow to the mountains when there is a warm-weather deficit.
The NWS senior forecaster Bob Oravec told NPR that before a cold front arrives, there’s a small area of high temperature in the tropics that is transported away from the tropics towards the higher latitudes.
NPR reports that a single atmospheric river can carry more water than the Mississippi River at its mouth. And forecasters have long warned that the systems’ winds are very dangerous. Five years ago, one of the storms toppled the legendary “Pioneer Cabin Tree” sequoia in Calaveras Big Trees State Park.
Forecasters warn that the storm could start to affect land on Tuesday night. But they also predicted it would move slowly; as of late Wednesday morning, the system was still approaching the West Coast.
Wind gusts in central California had already reached hurricane force by Wednesday evening as the storm’s heaviest rain and strongest winds slammed into the Bay Area. Peak wind gusts at 85 mph were recorded in Nicasio Hills, and 77 mph in Los Gatos.
“The most intense part of this weather event will occur later this evening and last through noon Thursday,” the NWS office in Los Angeles said. A cold front will entrain the precipitation from a river.
California Flooding with Big Bang Cyclones: a Biggest Disaster in the Last Five-Year War for the State of California
Along with flooding, the risk of mudslides is especially high in sites of recent wildfires, where there’s no longer enough ground cover to absorb and retain moisture.
A so-called “bomb cyclone” over the Pacific Ocean – named because of how rapidly it intensifies over a short period of time – will sling a series of fronts at the West Coast. The fronts are being fueled by a potent atmospheric river that stretches west to Hawaii.
According to the National Weather Service, the storm could trigger more widespread flooding, roads washing out, hillside collapsing, fallen trees, major power outages, “immediate disruption to commerce, and the worst of all, likely loss of human life.”
As wells run dry and reservoirs drain, Julie Kalansky, a climate scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said these storms are desperately needed more than ever to alleviate the drought, despite the hazards they bring in some areas.
They can bring so much water to the state, or they can also be a panacea for the state’s dry spell. “But when the duration becomes too long, they become too strong, they come back-to-back, and the landscape doesn’t get an opportunity to absorb all the rain, it can lead to this flooding.”
A 2022 study authored by Swain found that climate change has already doubled the chances of a disastrous megaflood happening in California in the next four decades – a storm unlike anything anyone alive today has ever experienced.
“We haven’t seen the mega floods, but we have definitely seen hints of increasingly extreme precipitation even in the middle of what has otherwise been a period characterized by a pretty severe and persistent drought,” Swain said.
“We anticipate that this may be one of the most challenging and impactful series of storms to touch down in California in the last five years,” said Nancy Ward, the new director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, at a late-morning news conference about the threat.
Rainfall is predicted to reach 2 to 4 inches on the coasts and in valleys, while mountains could see up to 10 inches of rain, with heavy snow at high elevations. The increased risk of flash flooding and mudslides is why people are being advised to show particular care in areas that have recently burned vegetation.
People living in the coverage areas were warned on Wednesday to prepare for potential power outages and for travel delays due to high winds, fallen trees and power lines.
In an area stretching for hundreds of miles along the coast, National Weather Service offices from Los Angeles to Eureka, Calif., and Medford and Portland, Ore., alerted people to the threat of damaging winds, with peak gusts expected to top 60 and 70 mph in some areas.
Rainfall rates over one inch per hour are possible, which could unleash flooding and mudslides on an already saturated region hit with a different storm that brought deadly floods just last weekend.
Statewide Emergency Preparedness for a California Bomb Cyclone Flood-Fooding Powerful Wind in Santa Barbara, California
The governor of California declared a statewide emergency, clearing the way for aid to be spread quickly to those affected by the storm.
State officials said that firefighters and rescue equipment were in place near burn scar areas across seven counties, and five other counties with flooding concerns.
The area of Montecito in Santa Barbara, California, had a mudslide in the summer of last year that killed 23 people and wreaked havoc on more than 100 homes.
Das Williams, the first district supervisor in Santa Barbara County, appealed to people to obey the order to leave. For those living in the red zone, we should have learned that it is better to evacuate and comply with the order rather than play it safe.
Officials in Monterey County also started setting up evacuation points and emergency shelters ahead of the storm’s arrival, according to the sheriff’s Facebook page.
The department of transportation said that the road was closed in both directions from Ragged Point in San Luis Obispo County southward to south of Big Surrender in Monterey County.
London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, said that floods are always inevitable as the city was under a flood warning.
San Francisco fire officials said they rescued a trapped family Wednesday night, sharing images of a crew working to remove a large tree that was on top of a sedan.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/weather/california-bomb-cyclone-flooding-powerful-winds/index.html
Oakland City Council Devoted a Local Emergency During a High-rise Fallout from a Downtown High-Edge, in the Presence of a Falling Glass
And earlier in the day, there were reports of falling glass from a downtown high rise in Fox Plaza, though no injuries were reported. “It is unknown at this time if this is wind-related – highly possible though,” the San Francisco Fire Department said in a tweet.
Across the bay, Oakland city officials declared a local emergency Wednesday, bracing for storm damage on Oakland roads, flooding and potential threats to public safety.
Pacific Gas and Electric reported that the storm caused widespread outages and damaged its equipment.
There have been power lines knocked down, causing roads and highways to be blocked. In San Francisco, a tree fell directly on a car, briefly trapping a family inside (more on that below).
Aaron Johnson, vice president of PG&E’s Bay Area region, said hundreds of crews are staged around the region, including some from Southern California Edison who are also aiding in the response.
However, the storm is expected to saturate roads and down trees which may make it difficult for crews to access areas experiencing outages, Johnson said.
A meteorologist said in a video on the website of the power utility that the storm would be ranked up there with one of the storms she has seen.
The intense weather was brought on by a “potent Pineapple Express,” the National Weather Service warned this week, using the term for an atmospheric river that brings moisture-rich low pressure waves from around the Hawaiian Islands to the Pacific Coast.
Santa Cruz County, Calif., Super-Falling Bay Area Rainstorms and Loss of Sea Lion Sculpture in the Aftermath of a Treefall
In San Francisco a tree is snapped off at its base and thrown onto a Honda sedan, trapping a family in a car next to a library. Firefighters who used chainsaws to rescue the family reported that the occupants were OK.
“Fallen trees are everywhere in the Bay Area with this current storm,” BART — or Bay Area Rapid Transit — stated, noting that trees had taken down power lines used by transit trains.
At least two deaths have been linked to the bad weather. In Sonoma County, a tree fell on a home in the small town of Occidental Wednesday night, killing a child believed to be under 2 years old, according to local newspaper The Press Democrat.
About 50 miles east-southeast of that tragedy, a 19-year-old woman died after driving onto a partly flooded road in Fairfield, Calif., on Wednesday morning. The driver’s vehicle hydroplaned and hit a utility pole.
Emergency officials are urging people to stay off the roads. Along with the storms, the roads were strewn with broken trees and power lines. At higher elevations, some highways have closed due to whiteout conditions.
Officials in California’s Santa Cruz County are seeing “significant damage” from the storm, adding that enormous waves and high tides have damaged piers along the coastline.
In Sausalito, rough conditions dislodged the city’s landmark bronze sea lion sculpture from its base; officials say it “is still attached by several bolts” and can be repaired.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/05/1147102968/california-storm-weather-pineapple-express-atmospheric-river
The Storm Parade: A Weather Shower in the Northwest Suburabular Seyfert 1 Region, Including a Wet and Windy Day
“People can see isolated thunderstorms as the rain and snow will continue into the afternoon and evening,” the NWS office said.
“Meteorologists call it the storm parade, which is a reference to the fact that we have a series of atmospheric rivers back to back,” Stark said. We are looking at a number of storms this weekend and into next week.