A strong late-season Pacific storm that brought damaging winds and more rain and snow to saturated California has been blamed for two deaths and forecasters said additional flooding was possible Wednesday in parts of the state.
Tuesday’s storm blasted the San Francisco Bay Area with powerful gusts and downpours, pounded Sacramento — the state capital — with intense hail and set rainfall records in Southern California.
A major key to shaping weather patterns worldwide is found in the tropical Pacific Ocean, far from any mainland. Known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, this climate phenomenon is the pattern that can create significant differences in average ocean temperatures and often plays a pivotal role in how global weather patterns unfold.
With the ever-changing climate and increasingly dry summers, California faces water challenges, despite this year’s bountiful snowpack. At the February meeting of the California Water Commission, Heather Cooley, Director of Research at the Pacific Institute, explained how increasing water efficiency, water reuse, and stormwater capture is essential to building and enhancing California’s water resilience.
Atmospheric river-fueled storms have hammered the network of hundreds of levees in coastal counties near the San Francisco Bay — from the agricultural fields of Monterey County to urban places like San Leandro, Walnut Creek and Richmond to more rural parts of the North Bay. At least two major levees, in Salinas and Pajaro, have failed since New Year’s Eve.
The levee breach along the Pajaro River, which divides Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, left the entire town of Pajaro in a deluge of water.
Situated in the Sonoran Desert near the Arizona-California border is the tiny rural town of Cibola – home to roughly 300 people, depending on the season.
Life here depends almost entirely on the Colorado River, which nourishes thirsty crops like cotton and alfalfa, sustains a nearby wildlife refuge and allows visitors to enjoy boating and other recreation.
Even on the heels of an unusual winter of intense rain, wind and snow, the storm that slammed California on Tuesday came with some surprising conditions.
The storm was marked by powerful winds in the Bay Area and other parts of Central and Northern California that downed trees, created treacherous commuting conditions, broke windows in downtown San Francisco and caused power outages.
More than a dozen atmospheric rivers in succession prompted people to think: The California drought is over! The levees are breaking, hundreds of people are being displaced by the raging waters, rainfall is breaking records, and story after story suggest we are headed out of the decade-long drought that has devastated agriculture and wiped out the state’s water reserves. Whew. Dodged a bullet.
One part of that story is true. By mid-March, two-thirds of the state was officially out of drought.
Tiny pieces of plastic shed from food wrappers, grocery bags, clothing, cigarette butts, tires and paint are invading the environment and every facet of daily life. Researchers know the plastic particles have even made it into municipal water supplies, but very little data exists about the scope of microplastic contamination in drinking water. After years of planning, California this year is embarking on a first-of-its-kind data-gathering mission to illuminate how prevalent microplastics are in the state’s largest drinking water sources and help regulators determine whether they are a public health threat.
Snow is forecast every day this week in the heart of the Colorado Rockies, and snowpack levels have climbed to nearly 150% as warmer spring temperatures near.
It could be the winter we remember as one of the bright spots in a drought that defined the past two decades in the Colorado River Basin.
As wet weather has continued to impact California, some reservoirs across the state are being managed with scheduled releases of water to prevent flooding, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
After 14 atmospheric rivers hit back-to-back this winter, reservoirs began filling quickly. Though most of the major reservoirs aren’t full yet, several are significantly higher than they have been historically. This is especially true in Central California at the Don Pedro, Camanche and Oroville reservoirs, KTLA sister station KRON reports.
