A series of unremitting storms for at least 11 days left no part of California untouched — flooding towns from north to south, snowing inland mountains, and turning the Los River away. Angeles often dries up into a raging canal.
At least 17 people were killed in heavy rains that began in late December and continued into the new year. And more rain is expected.
As of Tuesday morning, amid the latest rain, nearly 100,000 residents had been ordered to evacuate or warn, state officials said, and about 220,000 utility customers had lost power. More than 400 public and charter schools have been closed. Hail rained down on San Francisco, which was under a flood warning. In Central California, rescuers searched for a 5-year-old boy who was swept out of his mother’s arms when their car was washed away by rising floodwaters on their way to school.
Severe weather has plagued many parts of the country this fall and winter — deep frosts, hurricane-like snowstorms, tornadoes, fluctuating temperatures. But few places have been as devastated by climate change in recent weeks as California.
The state attempted to clear thousands of fallen trees from roads and repair levees that briefly broke during torrential downpours, only to be filled again. The near-constant rains only added to the effects: The soaked ground and swollen creeks struggled to absorb more water with each new wave of rain.
“It’s been a marathon,” said Paul Horvat, director of emergency services for Santa Cruz. “We’re trying to get up to speed because we know this can go on and on for a while.”
He added: “I’ve never really seen this much rain, one after another in my career.”
The march of hurricanes introduced Americans to another new term in the ever-expanding weather vocabulary: atmospheric river, a stream of moisture that is concentrated at the altitude where airplanes normally fly. This year, those plumes have been pouring in from across the Pacific at a particularly relentless pace.
“Nearly all of California has had a much higher-than-average rainfall total over the past few weeks, with rainfall totals between 400 and 600 percent above average,” said forecasters for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. wrote the Weather.
Since atmospheric rivers began dumping moisture late last month, total rainfall in some parts of the Bay Area has exceeded 11 inches.
There were periods of rest — a bit of sunshine and time for residents to assess damage, walk their dogs or refuel generators — and then, another cataclysm.
Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said: “We’re in the middle of this, we’re not on a downhill trajectory at all. He said officials remain concerned about upcoming storms “just because of the huge amount of water in the creeks and in the landscape.”
In Los Angeles, where the infrastructure notorious fragile in the face of heavy rain or flooding, some scenes have become surreal. On Monday, a sinkhole in the suburb of Chatsworth gulp two cars. And on Tuesday, commuters were able to pass through a pedestrian tunnel at Union Station, where flooded with a few inches of water. However, the metro area continues with College football playoff on Monday at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood – where some fans got wet – and with the televised return of Golden Globe Awards Program on a Tuesday night in Beverly Hills.
In Montecito, where residents were ordered to evacuate on Monday, the air was filled with the smell of mud and the distant low-pitched sound of small rocks rumbling through fast-flowing creeks. Most businesses are closed and the normally busy streets are mostly deserted.
Montecito, a community north of Los Angeles near Santa Barbara, is a popular haven for celebrities, including Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; Oprah Winfrey; and Ellen DeGeneres, who posted a video on Twitter on Monday about a fast-flowing creek behind her house that she says “never flows.”
“We need to treat Mother Nature better because Mother Nature is not happy with us,” Ms. DeGeneres said.
In Gualala, a small town on the north coast, 71-year-old Robin Applegarth had to leave her home after losing power almost a week ago. She said the restore date has been delayed three times already, and more rain and wind are forecast. So she and her husband rented a hotel in Santa Rosa, about 70 miles southeast.
“It’s a very resilient group of people living along the Northern California coast,” Ms Applegarth said. But, she added, “None of us expected it to go on for that long.”
The ripples of the storms created uneven effects. Last week, strong winds and downpours brought chaos to the Bay Area. This week, the beachfront counties of Santa Cruz, Monterey and Santa Barbara, all located between San Francisco and Los Angeles, took the brunt of the impact.
But nearly every community in California has been affected by hurricanes in one way or another. More snow fell in the Sierra Nevada last week. strong wind Downed power lines in Sacramento this weekend. mudslide damaged Los Angeles on Tuesday. Public transport systems in major cities have been growl, and roads were temporarily closed everywhere, from the mountains to the valleys to the coast. In Malibu, one Big rock blocking a canyon path. In Fresno, a hillside collapsed onto the highway. And many sections of Route 101 have been closed turned into a river.
In a state that has suffered from drought in recent years, winter rain and snow can serve an important purpose, providing most of the water for residents and farmers to use throughout the year. But when floods are particularly severe, they can do more harm than good. Storms like these dump so much water, so quickly, that state reservoirs and emergency responders can’t handle it.
Soils are especially vulnerable in places that have been scorched by wildfires or droughts, leaving scars that favor landslides.
The storms are another example of how climate change has turned life upside down in the nation’s most populous state. It has been ravaged by long wildfire seasons and years of drought, both of which have left scars that have left the land uninhabited and vulnerable to landslides.
In an atmosphere heated by fossil fuel combustion, warmer air can hold more moisture. That means storms in many places, including California, are more likely to be wetter and more intense due to climate change.
Over the past two days, more than 1 foot of rain has been recorded across coastal California. And another seven inches of rain could fall in many parts of the state in the next few daysAs another “massive tornado” is forming off the coast of landslide areas in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest on Wednesday, the National Weather Service said.
David Novak, director of the Weather Prediction Center, said Tuesday that the northward shift could disrupt other parts of the state, adding that the storm system is threatening the state. this weekend but doesn’t seem to be as strong.
“Gradually, it looks like we are going to have a paradigm shift that allows the faucet to be turned off,” he said. But even a river with a weak atmosphere with light rainfall can cause problems due to California’s saturated soil.
Forecasts came out Tuesday that hurricane activity in California could taper off after the middle of next week.
All told, experts say, the cost of storm damage maybe up to 1 billion dollars — an ominous start to the new year, especially since 2022 has been one of the worst years on record for large-scale weather and climate disasters across the US, according to data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday.
Report contributed by Kellen Browning, Judson Jones and Jill Cowan.
