Heavy rain flooded California roads and much-needed snow piled up in the mountains as the first atmospheric river hit the state Thursday.
The storm concentrated its energy in the southern and eastern parts of the state after initially hitting the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday, where it disrupted cable car service.
Heavy rain arrived Thursday in Southern California just in time for the morning commute.
Atmospheric rivers, which are long bands of moisture that form over the Pacific, have fueled storms that drenched the Los Angeles and San Diego areas, National Weather Service forecaster Bob Oravec said.
Atmospheric rivers “typically occur in front of cold fronts across the Pacific,” he said. “And when they interact with the topography of the West Coast, you often get very heavy rain along the coast range and also inland through the Sierras.”
As rain fell in San Diego, Ruben Gomez cleaned debris from a storm drain in his parents’ neighborhood on Thursday.
The skyline of downtown Los Angeles is pictured during a rain storm off Long Beach, Calif., on February 1, 2024. AFP via Getty Images
He piled sandbags around their house, which had been flooded by previous floods.
Firefighters had to rescue his parents, both 82, from the home after the previous storm, which was filled with six feet of water.
His father was hospitalized for two days for hypothermia and his mother for a week after she got water in one of her lungs.
A vehicle drives through a flooded road in Seal Beach, Calif., on February 1, 2024. RWFILMSS via REUTERS
“Every hole in the house, I have plugged with plastic and paper to make sure the water doesn’t rise so high anymore,” he said.
They have no insurance and rely on donations from family, friends and neighbors.
He said, he is still grateful that his parents survived and are now safe in his home in an area less flooded.
This image obtained from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows the atmospheric river approaching the West Coast on February 1, 2024. RAMMB-CIRA/NOAA/AFP via Getty Images
This past winter, California was hit by a devastating atmospheric river drought that resulted in massive flooding, massive waves that battered coastal communities and unusual snow that destroyed buildings. More than 20 people died.
This week’s “Pineapple Express” — so called because the plume of moisture stretches back across the Pacific to near Hawaii — will be followed by a stronger storm on Sunday, forecasters said.
The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services activated its operations center and placed personnel and equipment in the most at-risk areas.
A person works to drain a drain, in Harbor City, Los Angeles, Calif., on February 1, 2024. REUTERS
Brian Ferguson, the office’s deputy director of crisis communications, described the situation as a “significant threat to the safety of Californians.”
He said areas from the state border with Oregon south to San Diego and from the coast to the mountains could be affected over the next 10 to 14 days.
“This is really a broad sweep of California that will see threats throughout the coming weeks,” Ferguson said.
A car sits partially submerged on a flooded road during a rainstorm in Long Beach, Calif., on February 1, 2024. AFP via Getty Images
A 100-foot redwood tree fell in the Silicon Valley town of Saratoga on Wednesday, crashing into a car and trapping a girl inside, according to KNTV.
Freed by firefighters, he suffered only minor injuries.
“We were very lucky,” Santa Clara County Fire Department Captain Matt Mokhtarian told the TV station. “Just a few steps in this scenario.”
A utility worker breaks a tree limb in a wood chipper after a branch fell overnight during a California storm in Daly City, Calif., on Feb. 1, 2024. JOHN G MABANGLO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
On Thursday, southern Los Angeles County was hit by flash flooding.
Vehicles plowed through low-lying highways and at least one underpass under a railroad crossing in Long Beach was flooded, sinking one car.
Seal Beach, south of Los Angeles, saw flooding along the Pacific Coast Highway on Thursday that closed parts of the highway at times, with a white van stranded at the intersection.
In nearby Costa Mesa, water rescue teams quickly pulled a person from an overflowing storm drain.
A previously flooded drainage canal allowed water to flow after being cleaned by city workers as the first of two back-to-back storms brought heavy rain to San Diego, California, February 1, 2024. REUTERS
The person was taken to a hospital in stable condition, the Orange County Fire Authority said in a social media post.
Fire authorities also rescued a man who was trapped on a small island in the bottom of the Santa Ana river, surrounded by rushing water.
A paramedic had to be brought down by helicopter to lift the man to safety.
This aerial photo taken on February 1, 2024 shows a section of the Pacific Coast Highway closed from flooding during a rainstorm in Bolsa Chica, near Huntington Beach, California. AFP via Getty Images
Mammoth Mountain ski resort in the Sierra Nevada reported 12 to 14 inches of snow overnight.
Earlier this week, state officials reported that the Sierra’s vital snowpack, which normally supplies about 30% of California’s water, was well below normal.
Heavy snow was also reported in the mountains east of Los Angeles.
A winter storm warning is in effect through Friday morning for nearly 300 miles of the Sierra, from north of Lake Tahoe to south of Yosemite National Park, the weather service office in Reno, Nevada, said.
Snow could fall at a rate of up to 2 inches per hour in some areas, with gusts of up to 100 mph, forecasters said.
The second atmospheric river, expected to move in late Saturday, is already forecast to be the “biggest storm of the season,” according to the National Weather Service.
The worst part of the storm will hit late Sunday into Monday as it stops at Point Conception in Santa Barbara County.
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“This system will likely produce 24 to 36 hours (or more) of continuous rain,” the weather service wrote Thursday in a forecast update.
Heavy rain and, at higher elevations, snow is then expected to hit Southern California from Monday through Wednesday, which could cause landslides and dangerous flooding.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
