It never rains in California
But girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours
-Albert Hammond
A fierce winter storm fueled by a raging atmospheric river was thrashing Californians on Sunday with intense downpours, leaving hundreds of thousands without power and threatening treacherous flooding and hurricane-force winds.
As Yahoo News reports, up to 37 million people, about 94% of the state’s population, were at risk for life-threatening floods from the storm, Accuweather meteorologists warned. The atmospheric river − like a river in the sky − is the second to pound the state in recent days, but forecasters said this storm would be the season’s most potent, particularly in Southern California.
The National Weather Service issued a rare hurricane-force wind warning for the Central Coast: Wind gusts up to 92 mph were possible from the Monterey Peninsula to the northern section of San Luis Obispo County.
San Francisco officials sent out alerts about flooded and blocked streets, fallen trees − including a large one that brought down power lines − and a hillside landslide. About 100 miles down the coast in Monterey County, the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament was postponed until Monday, when weather conditions don’t look favorable either.
The storm was expected to head south and hit the Los Angeles area with downpours, flash floods, and high-elevation mountain snow Sunday afternoon into the evening, then to pound Orange County and San Diego on Monday and Tuesday. Los Angeles and Orange were among eight Southern California counties were Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency.
“All systems are go for one of the most dramatic weather days in recent memory,” the National Weather Service said Sunday.
The first storm in the “Pineapple Express” soaked the state with 1-6 inches of rain Wednesday and Thursday. The new storm is laden with even more moisture, forecasters said, setting up dangerous and deadly conditions in already-saturated regions. Some of the rainiest areas could pick up a foot or more of rain in only 48 hours, Accuweather said.
A Pineapple Express is the best-known nickname for an atmospheric river, which occurs when the source of the moisture is near Hawaii. When a Pineapple Express hits land in the western U.S. and Canada, it triggers heavy rain and snow. In California, it can lead to several inches of rain in a day.
By lingering over large parts of California, the storm was drenching terrain that was already saturated from the atmospheric river-driven system that hit much of the state Wednesday and Thursday, increasing the chances of flooding.
“The core of the low pressure system is very deep, and it’s moving very slowly and it’s very close to us,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Los Angeles-area office. “And that’s why we have those very strong winds. And the slow nature of it is really giving us the highest rainfall totals and the flooding risk.”
Heavy rain is expected in Southern California through Tuesday and there’s a chance for showers through Friday, making mudslides and debris flows likely, forecasters say. “Even if the rain does start to let up on Monday morning, just the sheer amount of rain overnight will cause lingering flooding issues into the morning hours,” Kittell said.
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