A new storm system battered Northern California on Friday with torrential rain threatening millions Dangerous flood conditions The snow from previous storms is also melting. Flood advisories or warnings have been issued by the National Weather Service for areas around the San Francisco Bay, Central Coast, and Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. Southern California generally experienced light rain.
the atmospheric riverThe Pineapple Express, known as the “Pineapple Express” because it brought warm, subtropical moisture across the Pacific Ocean from near Hawaii, was melting the lower portions of a massive iceberg built into the California mountains by nine rivers in the atmosphere early in winter and then fueled by blast storms. Arctic air.
Meteorologists said that the mass of ice in the highlands is so massive that it was expected to be able to absorb rain, but snow is expected to melt at elevations of less than 4,000 feet.
In Santa Cruz County, a rain-swelled creek destroyed part of Main Street in Sockwell, a town of 10,000 people, and isolated several neighborhoods. County officials said crews were working to clear trees and other debris and find a way for people to cross the creek.
The county authorities asked the city’s residents to stay at home. To the southeast in Watsonville, officials ordered people in low-lying areas to evacuate.
Heather Wingfield, a teacher who runs a small urban farm with her husband in Sockwell, said she and her neighbors were, for the time being, trapped in their homes as Pitts Creek meandered through what was once Main Street.
“It’s horrible,” she said. “We hope no one has a medical emergency.”
In the San Francisco Bay Area, flooding blocked parts of several major highways, including Interstate 580 in Oakland, disrupting travel.
Reuters/Nathan Frandino
As the storm approached, Governor Gavin Newsom declared states of emergency for 21 counties in addition to previous declarations for 13 counties. President Biden on Friday He agreed to Newsom’s request To declare an emergency to authorize federal aid.
The California Department of Water Resources also activated a Flood Operations Center.
Evacuation warnings have been issued in advance to various hillside and mountain communities prone to floods and mudslides. An evacuation order has been issued for a small number of Central Coast residents who live under a dam near Oceano in San Luis Obispo County.
Water releases for flood control purposes were under way or planned for some reservoirs that had been depleted during three years of drought and were filling with unusual winter rains and snowfalls.
The launches were scheduled to begin late Friday morning from the state’s second-largest reservoir, Lake Oroville, which collects water from the Feather River in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada in the northern Sacramento Valley.
The lake level has risen about 178 feet since December 1st. The outflows are intended to ensure that there is room for heavy runoff.
Ted Craddock, deputy director of the state’s water project, on Thursday expressed confidence in the 1960s-era Oroville Dam, where thousands of people had to evacuate in 2017 after heavy runoff collapsed from the main stream and the emergency spillway began to erode.
“The spillway has been rebuilt to modern standards, and we are very confident that it can pass the flows coming into Lake Oroville,” he said.
Forecasters have warned that traveling through the mountains could prove impossible during the latest storm. At higher elevations, the storm was expected to dump up to 8 feet of heavy snow over several days.
California’s Sierra Nevada Glacier, which provides about a third of the state’s water supply, makes up more than 180% of the April 1 average, when it was historically at its peak.
Another atmospheric river is already under forecast early next week. A third appears to be forming over the Pacific Ocean, and possibly a fourth, state climatologist Michael Anderson said.
Anderson said California appeared to be “on track for a fourth year of drought” ahead of the series of early winter storms. “We are in a very different situation now,” he said.
Large amounts of snow have fallen in the Sierras and other mountain ranges, and residents are still struggling to extract it days after the previous storms.
In the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, a late February storm reached blizzard status. Roofs collapsed, cars buried, and roads closed.
This week, firefighters and paramedics began providing prescription medication to residents who still can’t leave their homes, said Fire Capt. Steve Consildi, a San Bernardino County Emergency Response spokesperson.
On the far north coast, Humboldt County authorities staged an emergency response to feed hungry cattle stranded by snow.
Cal Fire and US Coast Guard helicopters started Throwing hay bales on the cattle In remote mountain fields last weekend, then the California National Guard was called in to expand the effort.
“We have had unprecedented weather over the past two weeks and have received several reports of livestock dying because ranchers cannot get to their cows due to impassable roads,” said Sheriff William Hounsal. “These cattle are an economic engine, they’re starving and giving birth now. So all of those things require some drastic action.”
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