When rain storms pummel Sacramento, a city surrounded by levees, crews work all hours of the night to prevent flooding.
They monitor, control and maintain the city’s more than 100 stormwater lift stations, which residents depend on to pump water into creeks, canals, or the Sacramento or American Rivers.
After the driest three years in the state’s modern history, California suddenly has a different problem on its hands: too much water.
An ongoing series of storms drenching the state has forced officials to take measures unfathomable just a month ago, like releasing excess water from reservoirs and pumping surging river flows into storage.
The recent storms allowed California to suspend the drought curtailment orders that had been imposed during the summer. Cities and irrigation districts now are free to capture river runoff that had been unavailable because of the orders. Officials warned that they could fall back into place if the state gets another stretch of dry weather.
An intense cold front will tap into subtropical moisture and take on atmospheric river characteristics as it moves southeastward through the Central Coast on Wednesday into Thursday.
At this time, between 2 and 4 inches of rain is expected along the Central Coast. However, if the front stalls over a particular area, rainfall amounts will be much higher.
Hurricanes have the Saffir-Simpson Scale (Category 5), tornadoes have the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF-3) but now the West Coast has a storm scale of our own with a recent introduction of a new rating system for atmospheric rivers — the causes of a vast majority of our annual autumn and winter flooding damage.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
