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.
This year has been off to a rainy start for much of California, and San Diego is no exception.
With all the wet weather the region has experienced as of late, San Diegans may be surprised to learn that when it comes to the number of (measurable) rain days, these last few months haven’t exactly shattered records.
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.
The Pacific storm that passed through San Diego County on Tuesday and early Wednesday was among the strongest, most widespread systems to hit the region since the rainy season began on Oct. 1.
The system pushed March rainfall at San Diego International Airport to 3.42 inches. The airport averages 1.46 inches for the entire month of March.
The first full day of spring arrived in decidedly wintry fashion in the San Diego area, with a blustery, season-straddling storm continuing Wednesday with widespread rain, whipping winds and potential for more mountain snow.
As of early Tuesday afternoon, the unsettled atmospheric system had generated two-day precipitation tallies of more than 1 1/2 inches along the coast, over 2 inches in the inland valleys, well over 3 inches in the East County highlands and up to four-fifths of an inch in the deserts, according to the National Weather Service.
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.
