You are now in San Diego County category.

San Diego woke up Monday to brief heavy rain as winter storms buffeted California and brought flooding and heavy snow to the north. Radar at the National Weather Service office in San Diego showed a large area of rain spreading over San Diego county at sunrise. Drivers were warned to expect delays and minor flooding. Rainfall totals are expected to be light to moderate in the San Diego area, from a tenth of an inch along to coast to half an inch in the mountains. Highs will be in the mid 60s along the coast and low 60s farther inland.

 

Although gold might be California’s most famous natural resource, water is by far its most important. Without freshwater, California’s agricultural economy would collapse. Unfortunately, California’s freshwater availability is highly variable from year to year and 100 percent dependent on one season’s input, winter.

Decades of planning for dams that could capture storm runoff in parts of Northern California has yet to lead to the building of such structures, a situation a Central California congressman hopes to change with a new bill that would cut through existing legal requirements and environmental regulations. Republican Congressman David Valadao is the bill’s sponsor. His district includes the farms visible along Interstate 5 from Bakersfield north for 160 miles. Those farmers want water, and his new bill, HR 23, is designed to streamline the dam approval process.

The monster storm that has beaten Northern California for the past few days was less fierce in Southern California on Monday. Nonetheless, the early-morning rains sparked freeway accidents, snarled traffic and left a man missing and feared dead after he and a companion were washed away in a flood-control channel in the South Bay. The storm is just the first of three rain events forecast for the area before the end of the week

Rising floodwaters have triggered actions to protect the city of Sacramento. For the first time in a decade, the floodgates of the Sacramento River will be opened Monday morning, releasing a wall of water downstream into the Yolo Bypass. The National Weather Service warned farmers in the river valley region to have livestock and farm equipment moved out of the way. The California Department of Water Resources last opened the gates of the manually operated weir, built in 1916, in 2005.