2 dead as winter storm lashes California

SACRAMENTO, California - A powerful winter storm system moving across California on Thursday felled trees, knocked out electricity for tens of thousands of people and churned up dangerous surf along the coast as it brought more rain, wind and snow to the already saturated US state.

The storm, one of several that is expected to pound the US West Coast in January, poured water into swollen rivers and dumped fresh snow on the Sierra Nevada. Further rounds of heavy precipitation were expected in California on Saturday and again on Monday.

The storm was powered by two overlapping phenomena – an immense airborne stream of dense moisture from the ocean called an atmospheric river, and a sprawling, hurricane-force low-pressure system known as a bomb cyclone.

Authorities have reported at least two weather-related deaths from the latest storm. A tree that crashed onto a home overnight killed a baby boy, and a 19-year-old woman died when her car skidded off a partially flooded road into a utility pole on Wednesday.

The storm has been particularly disruptive in the Bay Area, where a combination of high winds and saturated land has downed trees, which have smashed into buildings, cars and power lines.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said it was the wettest 10-day period for San Francisco in 150 years, with more than 25cm of rain falling on the city.

Bay Area Rapid Transit, which ferries thousands of commuters each day, had to slow some trains and cancel others because of fallen trees, storm debris and wet weather. There was localised flooding, while gusty winds downed power lines, knocking out electricity to tens of thousands of people.

“This was one of the most powerful winter storms to hit our region in years,” said Ms Megan McFarland, a spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the main utility for northern and central California.

Almost 600,000 customers lost power at some point in the storm, according to tracking site PowerOutage.us, with about 75,000 still without electricity as at Thursday evening.

Flash flood watches and winter storm warnings covered large swathes of the state. Multiple communities across California issued evacuation orders, including an area of San Benito County, south of San Jose, where a failure at a hydropower dam was expected to produce flooding.

And several school districts around the Bay Area cancelled classes on Thursday.

Along the Northern California coastline, huge waves damaged infrastructure and forced people away from the coast.

A tidal surge washed away chunks of piers in the towns of Seacliff and Capitola and led the city of Santa Cruz to close its wharf, said Ms Nicole Coburn, the assistant county administrative officer.

She estimated the destruction would add several million dollars to the US$10 million to US$15 million (S$13.5 million to S$20.2 million) of damage already caused by a storm over the New Year weekend.

Forecasters across the state kept a wary eye on rising rivers. Mr Brett Whitin, a hydrologist with the California Nevada River Forecast Centre, said on Thursday that there were growing concerns that the Russian River might overflow near the small town of Guerneville, in Sonoma County.

Authorities issued evacuation warnings on Wednesday along the river. On Thursday, the rising waters were considered likely to reach flood levels by next Tuesday, according to the forecast centre’s predictions.

As many as 180,000 homes and businesses were without power early on Thursday, according to data by Poweroutage.us.

The storm came on the heels of a ferocious downpour on New Year’s Eve, which had left the ground sodden and waterlogged.

Four other deaths have been attributed to the New Year’s weekend storm that swept northern California - three flood victims found in or near their cars and an elderly man found dead under a fallen tree.

Flooding, fallen trees and power lines left major roadways impassable in Point Arena and Gualala, two small Mendocino County coastal communities about 201.17km north of San Francisco, which have experienced blackouts since Wednesday.

By Thursday afternoon, the rain was beginning to peter out, but its effects continued to be felt.

Mr Matt Solum of the National Weather Service said the succession of storms sweeping in from the Pacific was exacerbating the risk of flooding.

“It’s just the compounding impact of all the storms is what’s going to be the most impactful,” he said. “Typically, we don’t see this many series of storms with this much heavy rain. We are expecting another one over the weekend. And then another several storms potentially for next week. And even possibly the following week as well.”

“Winter storm warnings remain in effect across the Sierra Nevada and Flood watches remain over both central and coastal regions of California into early Friday,” the NWS said.

“As the overall wet pattern remains locked in place over the West Coast, the next surge of moisture to move inland is forecast to enter northern California and southwest Oregon late on Friday.

“Rainfall could become hazardous and lead to scattered instances of flash flooding over the coastal ranges of northern California.

“Additional rainfall amounts of 3 to 6 inches, with locally higher totals, are possible and could exacerbate flooding concerns throughout what has become a very saturated region.”

While it is hard to draw a straight line to these storms from human-caused climate change, scientists say a warmer planet brings more unstable weather, with more powerful and wetter events as well as longer, hotter dry periods.

California – and much of the western US – is in the grip of a more-than two-decade drought.

The parched landscape – which has been ravaged by fires – is particularly vulnerable to flash flooding and mudslides, with burn scars denuded of the trees and vegetation that would ordinarily keep hillsides intact.

The San Francisco Bay area, state capital Sacramento and the surrounding region were still recovering from extensive flood damage, including levee breaches along the Cosumnes River, when the new bout of showers hit.

Meteorologists say the rains of the last few weeks and the storms expected over the coming few weeks will help alleviate the drought, though several years of above-average rains are required to reverse a long-term trend.
NYTIMES, AFP, REUTERS

A massive Pacific storm unleashed high winds, torrential rains and heavy snow across California for a second day on Thursday, knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and threatening much of the state with flash flooding and mudslides.

 At least two fatalities have been reported since Wednesday, one of them a toddler killed by a fallen redwood crushing a mobile home in northern California. 

And while the extent of flooding and property losses was less dire than many had predicted by the time the storm began tapering off late on Thursday, forecasters warned that more was soon to come.

The deadly storm was powered by two overlapping phenomena

- an immense airborne stream of dense moisture flowing off the ocean called an atmospheric river, and a sprawling, hurricane-force low-pressure system known as a bomb cyclone.

The blast of

extreme winter weather

marked the third atmospheric river - and the strongest - to strike California since early last week, with at least two more back-to-back storms forecast over the next several days.

The next storm was expected to arrive late on Friday, posing a renewed threat of flash flooding and mudslides in places now saturated from repeated downpours, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.

The most vulnerable areas remained those in hillsides stripped bare of vegetation from past wildfires. 

The San Francisco Bay area, state capital Sacramento and the surrounding region were still recovering from extensive flood damage, including levee breaches along the Cosumnes River, when the new bout of showers hit.

The latest storm doused San Francisco with about 2 inches (51mm) of rain and the coastal mountains north and south of the city with 5 to 7 inches, according to meteorologist Rich Otto at the NWS Weather Prediction Centre in Maryland. 

Snow accumulations of a foot (0.3m) to 18 inches or more were measured in the Sierras, the weather service said.

High-wind advisories and gale warnings were posted up and down the state, as uprooted trees, already weakened by drought and poorly anchored in rain-soaked soil, knocked down power lines and blocked roadways. 

Hazardous surf warnings were in effect for the state’s three northernmost coastal counties – Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte – where three-storey waves pounded the shoreline and crashed over beaches. 

Farther north at Noyo Harbour in Fort Bragg, professional urchin diver Grant Downie said he moved his boat out of the water ahead of the storm as a precaution.

“The boat, insured or not, I feel safer with it on the truck getting hit by a tree than sinking in the water,” he said.

Crews in San Francisco spent the early morning hours cleaning up debris from felled trees that blocked roadways. The city’s fire department rescued a family trapped when a tree fell across their car.

Authorities advised Sonoma County residents near the Russian River between the wine country towns of Healdsburg and Jenner to evacuate their homes as the rain-swollen waterway neared flood stage. 

Evacuation warnings were also issued in oceanside towns such as Santa Cruz. Officials shut down a 55-mile stretch of Route 1, a scenic coastal highway, due to flooding and debris.

In Santa Barbara County, homes were ordered evacuated in three areas where hill slopes were left denuded by wildfires. 

For Californians, the latest storms vividly illustrated the consequences of warmer sea and air temperatures wrought by climate change, producing atmospheric river storms with increasing frequency and intensity in the midst of extreme, multi-year drought. 

While the Sierra snowpack, a major source of California’s water supply, was left at well above average for this time of year by the storms, much more will need to accumulate through winter to markedly diminish the drought, experts say. REUTERS