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As the restorative wet winter continued to douse drought-stricken Southern California, another storm system brought heavy rain to the region on Monday. Lighter rain is expected to fall Tuesday, enough to snarl the morning commute but fade by early evening. High winds will also rage in the morning, but ease by nightfall. The rain might lead to slick roads with pooling in some areas. The wind could also affect traffic through passes and along some desert highways, according to the weather service. Motorists were urged to use extra caution.

 

The storms didn’t pack the punch of the atmospheric rivers that swept across California in January. But the first of two storms that arrived before sunrise Monday dropped much welcomed rain and snow from the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada down to San Diego County. After years of sustained drought, California’s landscape has been inundated with storm after storm since the beginning of the water year in October.

 

The first of two rainstorms to hit Southern California this week arrived before sunrise Monday, dropping more than an inch of rain in Ventura County and triggering concerns of mud flows in the city of Duarte. The storm is expected to let up this afternoon, said National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Bruno, but a second spell is expected overnight into early Tuesday. Even though the rainfall hasn’t been heavy compared with a series of atmospheric rivers that slammed California in January, it has sparked some concerns about overwhelming burn-scarred hillsides in the San Gabriel Valley.

Water, the lifeblood of California, will be where the state experiences the most severe impacts of climate change. Unfortunately, most water agencies have yet to adjust to this “new normal” and are operating on outmoded assumptions and practices that place the state at risk of water shortages and worse. And while the recent rains may convince some that no action is needed, the science tells a different story.

The bucolic orchards of Sutter County north of Sacramento had never seen anything like it: a visiting governor and a media swarm — all to christen the first major natural gas power plant in California in more than a decade. At its 2001 launch, the Sutter Energy Center was hailed as the nation’s cleanest power plant. It generated electricity while using less water and natural gas than older designs. A year ago, however, the $300-million plant closed indefinitely, just 15 years into an expected 30- to 40-year lifespan.