Large stretches of central California received over half their normal annual rainfall since Dec. 26 until Wednesday morning, while San Francisco International Airport, the city of Oakland and the city of Stockton all recorded 16-day records over the same period, the National Weather Service said. That will add to record-breaking rainfall.ĭowntown San Francisco recorded a phenomenal 13.6 inches (34.5 cm) of rain from Dec. The parade of storms is forecast to continue, bringing even more heavy rain next week, the weather service said. While Wednesday's deluge was relatively minor, with less rainfall and mostly contained to northwestern California, another atmospheric river was expected to drench most of the state this weekend, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. Brett Whitin, a hydrologist with the California Nevada River Forecast Center, said on Thursday that there were growing concerns that the Russian River might overflow near the small town of Guerneville in Sonoma County.MENDOCINO, Calif., Jan 11 (Reuters) - The seventh consecutive atmospheric river since Christmas dumped more rain on Northern California on Wednesday, offering little relief for a state already battered by floods, gale force winds, power outages and evacuations of entire towns. She estimated the destruction would add several million dollars to the $10 to $15 million in damages already caused by last week’s storm.įorecasters across the state kept a wary eye on rising rivers. 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 Nicole Coburn, the assistant county administrative officer. And several school districts around the Bay Area canceled classes on Thursday.Īlong the Northern California coastline, huge waves damaged infrastructure and forced people away from the coast. 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. ![]() Flash flood watches and winter storm warnings covered large swaths of the state. “We are basically in the eye of the storm right now.”Īlmost 600,000 customers had lost power at some point in the storm, according to the tracking site, with about 75,000 still without electricity as of Thursday evening. “We are not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination,” he said. In many places, the intense wind and rain seemed to abate by Thursday morning. “We have the risk of rising tides on our coast, we have risks of snow and avalanche in the mountains, we have flood and debris flow risk in our rural areas, and also flood and power outage risk - and falling trees and lines - in our urban areas.” “This storm is hitting our entire state,” said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. ![]() Further rounds of heavy precipitation were expected in California on Saturday, and again on Monday. The storm, one of several that is expected to pound the West Coast this month, poured water into swollen rivers and dumped fresh snow on the Sierra Nevada. SAN FRANCISCO - A powerful winter storm system moving across California on Thursday sent trees crashing into homes, 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 state.
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