A series of storms will usher in a wet holiday weekend across Northern California, threatening to put a damper on outdoor activities and cause driving delays for holiday travelers.
An NBC Bay Area investigation found 30 out of 39 sewage treatment plants located around San Francisco Bay Area are at risk of flooding as sea levels rise due to climate change. Four of those plants could flood with as little as 9.84 inches of sea level rise. That’s an amount that state analysts say is a possibility by 2030. If and when that happens, toilets won’t flush, and in some cases, sewage could back up into homes, whether residents live in the hills or along the coast.
Bay Area water agencies, starved for snow and rain, are encouraged by this week’s storm system.
But managers say it’s too early to say if it will have a lasting impact.
Tens of thousands of Bay Area residents financially impacted during the COVID-19 crisis now face tens of millions of dollars in unpaid water bills, prompting both long-term financial and public health concerns.
That’s the conclusion of a new a report released Thursday by the non-profit public policy organization SPUR, and that looming potential crisis has experts concerned about vulnerable customers.
If Bay Area residents didn’t take time to appreciate Wednesday’s overnight dousing, it seems it’s too late. It’s all we’re going to get until 2021, forecasters say. Following the much-needed downpour that led to Thursday morning’s soaked roadways, an unusually dry holiday season lies ahead.
Rising seas can evoke images of waves crashing into beachfront property or a torrent of water rolling through downtown streets. But there’s a lesser-known hazard of climate change for those who live along shorelines the world over: freshwater in the ground beneath them creeping slowly upward. For many Bay Area residents who live near the water’s edge, little-publicized research indicates the problem could start to manifest in 10-15 years, particularly in low-lying communities like those in Oakland, Alameda and Marin City.
The Bay Area awoke to the pitter-patter sound and pleasant smell of rain Sunday as the first significant storm system of the season moved through the area, bringing much-needed moisture to a largely dry region. Meteorologist Brooke Bingaman with the National Weather Service said that the rain system that passed through the Bay Area over the weekend will give way to dry conditions for Monday and Tuesday before an even wetter system could come through Wednesday into Thursday.
Mild days and sunny skies should linger through next week across the Bay Area, blanketing the region with pleasant winter days while extending the long statewide drought that has fueled this year’s catastrophic wildfires.
The rainfall looks bleak for the San Francisco Bay Area, putting the region on track for exceptionally dry start to rainy season, according to ABC7 News Meteorologist Mike Nicco.
Federal scientists say that La Niña — the phenomenon where Pacific Ocean waters off South America are cooler than normal — is underway this winter.
A commonly held assumption among many Californians is that La Niña means a dry winter is coming, and in years when the opposite occurs, El Niño, a wet winter is considered more likely.
So brown lawns and water rationing are just around the corner, right?
Not necessarily. Looking at historical records, there isn’t a clear pattern. In the Bay Area, La Niña years have been drier than normal only about half the time.
