Forecasts for Atmospheric River Storms in the Southern Atmosphere and the Southeast of the United States, with the National Weather Service
The National Weather Service predicted a parade of atmospheric rivers over the next week with heavy rain and mountain snow. Atmospheric river storms are long plumes of moisture stretching out into the Pacific and are capable of dropping staggering amounts of rain and snow.
The weather agency believes that this winter storm will be very disruptive to travel, infrastructure, and livestock in affected areas.
Now, widespread rainfall totals of 2 to 4 inches are expected across the region through Sunday, with isolated areas receiving up to 6 inches. Northern California could see rainfall up to 7 inches, with isolated higher amounts.
A high-wind warning is in effect for much of the Pacific Northwest, where widespread winds of 35 to 45 mph with wind gusts up to 70 mph are forecast or already occurring. In addition, wind advisories are also posted both in the Pacific Northwest as well as many other Western states.
The National Weather Service says that there will be very heavy snowfall in the areas of interior New York and central New England. There is a chance of scattered power outages and dangerous travel conditions.
“Low visibility will create even more dangerous travel conditions on top of snow covered roadways,” the NWS says. The strong winds could cause power failures from the Midwest to the Northeast.
While tornadoes in December are relatively uncommon, they are usually more likely in the fall and winter in parts of the Southeast and Lower Mississippi Valley.
The main threats are expected to be possible strong tornadoes, damaging winds and hail in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Mobile, Alabama. The Storm prediction center warns of a slight chance for excessive rainfall from central Gulf Coast to the southern Appalachians.
As the event approaches, the details regarding the areas most at risk from tornadoes will become clearer.
Power Outages, Trees and Homes Damaged by a Large Snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range: Monte-Rio Firefighter Sergeant Steve Baxman
Winter storm warnings were in place overnight for the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, where an additional foot of snow could fall in the highest elevations before 4 a.m.
The road was closed because of zero visibility from California to the Nevada state line. Chains were used on the rest of I-80 in the mountains.
The U.S. Forest Service issued an avalanche warning for the backcountry in the mountains west of Lake Tahoe where it said “several feet of new snow and strong winds will result in dangerous avalanche conditions.”
A flash flood warning was issued by the weather service on Saturday when a few inches of rain fell on burn scars left by the fires.
As of midday Monday local time, around 39,000 electricity accounts were without power in California, with another 20,000 in Nevada, according to PowerOutage.us.
San Francisco Bay Area officials reported power outages and fallen trees, some of which damaged cars and homes. In Monte Rio, a small town along the Russian River in Sonoma County, firefighters responded to several reports of downed trees crashing into homes in 50 mph wind gusts.
The Monte Rio Fire Department Chief Steve Baxman said there were no reported injuries after four different down trees damaged houses.
“This is our first big storm, we’ve had several years of drought and all these trees were dry. Now they’re filling up with water and starting to topple over,” Baxman told the television station.
Snowfall in Soda Springs, Calif., during the December 1st Day of Decay and after: The Tahoe Ski Resort Getting 7.5 feet of Snow
Sierra locations above 5,000 feet received around 20-45 inches of snow Saturday through early Sunday morning – and another round of lighter snow is on the way.
Soda Springs received 60 inches of snow over the span of 48 hours after a storm blanketed the mountain areas of California.
Mark Deutschendorf, forecaster at the National Weather Service in Reno, stated that the snowpack was more than double what he had expected.
“It looks a lot like Christmas out here,” Deutschendorf said. “It didn’t come with a lot of wind, and it stuck to everything. It’s like a picture postcard.”
He is cautiously optimistic about the precipitation that will help the state get out of its dry spell.
“We’re Buried,” the Palisades Tahoe Ski Resort wrote on its website Sunday, sharing photos of thick snow covering the ski resort in Olympic Valley, California.
“This is definitely a storm to remember. We’ve now received 7.5 feet of snow since December 1st. In just 24 hours from Saturday morning to Sunday morning, we received more than 35 inches of snow, making it the sixth largest snowfall total on record.
High-Speed Transportation and Public Works in the Mid-Atlantic Winds and Storms with a Superstorm on Tuesday. NOAA Weather Service Twitter Alert for Rapid City, South Dakota
Travel will be nearly impossible next week, according to the National Weather Service office in Rapid City, South Dakota.
The South Dakota Department of transportation warned that the roads could be closed in the event of bad weather.
There were a number of winter weather statements issued by the National Weather Service in Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Transportation said in a tweet Monday, “Challenging winter weather could impact travel statewide all week.”
In Anchorage, Alaska, an “unprecedented amount of snowfall” has led to schools being closed for four days and shut down the University of Alaska Anchorage and Alaska Pacific University on Monday.
The area has seen relief to the dry conditions in the past week. Tennessee, for example, went from 96% of the state under drought to being at 46% this week.
There was a nor’Easter in New York and New England on Thursday as the monstrous storm that walloped much of the US brought with it.
Millions of people are under winter weather advisories in the Northeast Friday due to the massive storm system.
According to Hochul, they urge everyone in the affected regions to avoid unnecessary travel tonight and tomorrow. Stay off the road if you can, and keep an eye out for your loved ones.
In anticipation of what will be a week of travel nightmares, United, American, Delta, Southwest and Jet Blue have issued travel waivers for dozens of airports across the country from the South to the Northeast, because in addition to snow covering roadways, low visibility could make air travel dangerous.
A strong storm system bringing heavy rain, mountain snow and hurricane-force wind gusts to much of the drought-parched western United States has left more than 115,000 customers without power as the region braces for more wet, blustery weather in coming days.
About 100,000 homes and businesses in Minnesota, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Virginia and Pennsylvania were left without power on Friday after a storm caused tornadoes in the South and snowstorms in the Midwest.
Plus, dozens of tornadoes were reported across Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma since Tuesday. The deadly storms claimed the lives of three people in Louisiana.
And in parts of the Mid-Atlantic, the storm brought a quarter inch of ice was reported Thursday morning to the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia and Maryland, and about a tenth of an inch had built up in parts of Virginia.
Thousands of people were left without heat in the Upper Midwest because of power lines being knocked down by strong winds.
Snowfall Prediction for the Eastern United States after a Sept. 27 Streak-Induced by a Tornado in Caddo, Louisiana
Meanwhile in Louisiana, Yoshiko A. Smith, 30, and her 8-year-old son, Nikolus Little, were killed Tuesday when a tornado struck Caddo Parish and destroyed their home, local officials said.
A tornado with 140 mph winds was rated an EF 3 by the National Weather Service in Farmerville, Louisiana. At least 20 people were injured, and the tornado tore apart an apartment complex and a mobile home park.
CNN published a version of the article in its weather newsletter every Monday, but because it was not originally posted in the weekly weather newsletter, they have added it to their archives. You can sign up here to receive them every week and during significant storms.
Millions of Americans in a large swath of the country will experience brutally cold temperatures for a week beginning Tuesday as snow begins to fall in several central and northwestern states.
The National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center said weekend “temperatures will be 25 to 35 degrees below average from east of the Rockies to the Appalachians.”
Life threatening cold has pushed all the way to the Gulf Coast and the Mexican border, with below zero wind chills reported as far south as Austin and Atlanta. The Christmas Eve weather in the eastern US is going to be the coldest it has been in decades.
Whiteout conditions are possible even if snow stops because the wind can pick up snow already on the ground and cause low visibility.
There is a chance of power failures as winds could get as high as 50 mph on Friday. This will only exacerbate the storm’s impacts as wind chills will drop to at least 20 degrees below zero, possibly even colder.
The entire northern hemisphere is covered in snow and ice at night. So, you’ve basically got a source freezer sitting up there in the Arctic polar regions,” Greg Carbin, branch chief at the prediction center said. “It’s sort of the Polar Express and the cold air can hold on to those characteristics because there’s a lot of snow cover on the ground, even across the north-central United States.”
Forecasts for the Northeastern Hetter and Mid-Asymptotic Snowfall and Snowfall Events from the Decaying Censorship Storm
As the storm moves east this week, it stands to make holiday travel difficult, if not dangerous, in many places, with forecasters urging people to be prepared to make changes.
Friday: The storm is expected to become a “bomb cyclone” Thursday evening into Friday. When a storm rapidly increases in intensity, it is referred to as a bomb cyclone, and it lasts for 24 hours.
The areas that have now seen snow are affected by a lot of deep rain on I-95. “You can see some runoff melting, maybe even some flooding.”
The storm is raising the chances of a white Christmas for many people. Some areas were already a given, considering there was snow already on the ground and the cold temperatures keeping it there.
“The probability is normally about 10% that the DC area will have at least one inch of snow on Christmas Day,” Carbin explained. “With the pattern coming together the way it is, I’d be willing to bump that up to a 30% chance and it could increase pretty substantially here in the next couple of days, depending on what scenario comes out.”
More than 90 million people are under winter weather and wind chill warnings. The alerts stretch across 37 states, dipping as far south as the Texas/Mexico border.
Wind chill advisories are in place for Sioux, South Dakota, and Fargo, North Dakota, Tuesday, when the dangers of frostbite are settling in. The wind chill will be 40 degrees below zero, that’s what it will feel like.
A winter storm warning is in place for western Washington. Additional snowfall of up to 2 inches is possible and ice accumulations could reach a quarter of an inch. Precipitation will begin as snow and transition to sleet/freezing rain and then finally to rain. More power outages are likely and travel will be made very difficult.
Thursday will also bring a swath of icy weather for some big cities, including Chicago. Predicting exactly where ice will occur is difficult for parts of the Ohio Valley. If you live in these areas, be aware that freezing rain and sleet can cause power issues and even cause travel delays.
However, water pipes will be at risk of bursting, the weather service said. The wind chill watch is in effect for Amarillo from Wednesday night to Friday afternoon.
“Outdoor pipes will be at risk due to well below freezing temps and windy conditions late this week,” the weather service in Fort Worth said. “Make sure to cover pipes and let faucets drip!”
The latest bulletin from the National Weather Service (NWS) names the cause as a “strong arctic high pressure system,” which swept down from Canada on Tuesday and appears poised to march towards the Southeast on Wednesday and Thursday, leaving a wake of life-threatening weather systems across 17 states.
Hundreds of flights have been canceled so far Saturday morning, as the storm is causing havoc for holiday travelers. That follows nearly 6,000 cancellations and more than 11,000 delayed flights on Friday.
An outage that left 180,000 people without electricity across New England over the weekend was fixed by Monday but attempts to bring more utility workers in ahead of this week’s snowstorm were not helped by snow covered roads.
The Denver weather service predicts that a Category 3 Hurricane is coming through the state early in the next few days and it’s likely to be for many more
Those venturing outside should dress in layers, cover their skin and change into dry clothing as soon as possible. But, experts say, the best prevention by far is simply to stay indoors.
Denver will go from a high of 47 on Wednesday to a low of 14 on Thursday. The city has had cold days in the past, according to the weather service.
As far south as Jackson, Mississippi, Memphis and Nashville, snow could fall on Thursday. Nashville could receive an inch or two of snow, which is not likely for most of the southern cities.
The weather service said that the storm will be a once-in-a- generation event with it’s strength expected to reach the equivalent of a Category 3 Hurricane.
“This is a case in which snow totals may not tell the whole story. Even small snow amounts, when combined with very strong wind gusts and plummeting temperatures, can cause poor visibility and slick spots on roads. The weather service explained that the sudden arrival of these conditions can increase the danger.
The First State of Emergency in the U.S. During the 2021 Winter Storm: President Biden, the PUB Commissioner Peter Lake and the Public Utility Commission
Governors in Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming declared states of emergency. Governors in Indiana, Colorado and Missouri activated the National Guard.
The declaration will help “ensure that essential supplies, especially propane can be delivered for both commercial and residential needs,” the governor told reporters.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also declared a state of emergency, with wind gusts expected to reach 40 to 50 mph on Friday and minus 10 to minus 26 degrees wind chills expected on Saturday. To have a backup heat source, residents were asked to stay off roads.
“This is really a very serious weather alert here,” said President Biden, speaking to reporters Thursday morning in front of a national map of wind chill forecasts. “This is not like a snow day when you were a kid. This is serious stuff.”
The temperatures in the Rockies plunged at a record pace because of the cold front. The temperature in Cheyenne dropped more than 30 degrees in nine minutes.
The state of Texas was the scene of a devastating winter storm in 2021, where more than 200 people died and the power grid was overwhelmed.
The Public Utility Commission chairman, Peter Lake, said at a Wednesday news conference that the grid is ready and reliable. “We expect to have sufficient generation to meet demand throughout this entire winter weather event.”
The City of Kansas City’s homeless services remained closed during the winter storm, but it’s not going to stay there forever, says Pete
City officials stressed that crews were working around the clock to keep flights moving at the city’s major airports, O’Hare and Midway, both of which serve as hubs for major airlines.
More than 350 pieces of snow removal equipment, over 400,000 gallons of liquid deicer, and 5,000 tons of salt are just some of the things that the hard-working individuals at the city’s aviation commission will have at their disposal.
Hundreds of miles away in Kansas City, the winter weather brought only an inch or two of snow. The homeless services in the city were going to be putTrademarkiaTrademarkiaTrademarkiaTrademarkias were going to be putTrademarkiaTrademarkias were going to be putTrademarkias were going to be putTrademarkias were going to be putTrademarkias were going to be putTrademarkias were going to be putTrademarkia
Some area shelters added beds this week, but still many reported being close to capacity. The City’s streetcar was running on Thursday after the route and platforms were cleared.
“The library is closed. So it’s only this or the bus, or you go into a parking garage, but you’ll probably get kicked out,” said Pete, who said he did not have a permanent place to live and declined to give his last name to KCUR. There’s not much you can do.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/22/1144970060/winter-storm-holiday-travel
Weather-Induced Car Accidents and Road Closures in Montana: What Willemsma and DeWine Could Have Learned
Montana has seen worse winters in the last few years, but this one is nothing new. We’ve been running cattle for a long time, so we kind of know how to get through stuff like this,” Willemsma said.
Hank Willemsma, a rancher near Dillon, where Thursday’s high temperature was expected to reach minus 13 degrees, said he’d be working through the cold to keep hay out for his cattle.
Additional reporting by NPR’s David Schaper in Chicago, Montana Public Radio’s John Hooks in Butte, KCUR’s Savannah Hawley-Bates in Kansas City and NPR’s Ivy Winfrey in Washington, D.C.
All modes of travel – planes, trains and automobiles – were being disrupted: There were hundreds of miles of road closures and flight cancellations were growing rapidly. The Long Beach branch of the Long Island Rail Road was temporarily shut down due to flooding in New York.
“Christmas is canceled,” said Mick Saunders, a Buffalo, New York, resident who was two hours into blizzard conditions that are expected to last through Sunday morning. “All family and friends agreed it’s safer this way.”
And in Ohio, four people have died “as a result of weather-related auto accidents” and several others have been injured, according to Gov. Mike DeWine.
One person died after their Dodge Caravan lost control on an icy road in Kansas City. “The Dodge went down the embankment, over the cement retaining wall and landed upside down, submerged in Brush Creek,” police said in a statement.
Flight Delays and Cancellations in the Dallas Flea Market after the High-Year-Old High-Energy Decay
The agency said the Watch Warning graphic depicts one of the greatest ranges of winter weather warnings and advisories.
Hochul said at a press conference on Friday that he called the storm a kitchen sink storm. “We’ve had ice, flooding, snow, freezing temperatures, and everything that mother nature could wallop at us this weekend.”
For Brian Trzeciak, the storm was “living up to the warnings” at his home in Hamburg, New York. Buffalo’s airport, just to the north, reported zero visibility shortly after noon on Friday.
“My mother lives about 30 minutes away and so does my sister and her family, in the other direction,” he said. All of us are hunkering down in our houses until Monday so we can all be together for Christmas.
More than 1,900 flights were delayed or canceled on Tuesday, and more than 1,300 of them were canceled. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and Dallas Love Field Airport had the most flight disruptions.
Effects of Ice and Wind on Power Lines in the Seattle, Washington, D.C., and NJ, Areas impacted by the Superfluid and Wet Weather Conditions
Some areas will see both extremes. After warming up to nearly 80 degrees on Thursday, the Washington, D.C., region will fall below freezing late Friday, with snow and rain likely on Saturday, the NWS says. There will be strong winds in many places.
Nearly 50 percent of flights going into and out of the airport at Seattle-Tacoma were canceled, after the runways were closed due to the ice. Sound Transit halted all express services due to the icy conditions on Friday.
At least six people were reportedly killed in vehicle crashes, with at least four dead in a massive pileup on the Ohio Turnpike involving about 50 vehicles.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has asked local utilities to reduce their electricity usage because of the cold, WPLN’s Paolo Pfleger reported. Customers in Nashville will experience 10-minute outages every few hours, until the power load stabilizes.
Scott Aaronson, vice president of security and preparedness at the Edison that getting the power restored in weather like this is a significant challenge.
“Sometimes accessing these areas can be really challenging with downed power lines, with downed trees, with very icy roads. … The crews cannot go up in bucket trucks if the wind is over 35 miles an hour. “Because of that, crews will not be able to get out there and get the power back on.”
In New Jersey, heavy rains and high winds downed power lines and sent floodwaters surging as high as 9 feet along the coast. The interior locations along the Hudson River were flooded.
The Northern Sky Forecast for Super-Flooding and Soggy Species on New Year’s Eve and Other Timescales
“So that, unfortunately, really affects anyone who’s got a connecting flight, and we’re going to see a lot of people missing connecting flights with these long delay times,” Bangs said.
All 11 Western states are expecting rain or snow, with the heaviest impacts predicted for California. By mid-afternoon Tuesday, rain, snow, and wind had knocked out power to more than 130,000 customers in Oregon, 28,000 in Washington state, and 22,000 in California.
“While these winds won’t be on the order of the previous/stronger system it really won’t take much to bring trees down given saturated conditions and weakened trees from the last event,” the weather service in San Francisco posted Friday.
“The consecutive dry summers that we’ve had, especially the heat events like the heat dome, that really damages trees and it takes up so much of their energy to fuel their immune systems to fight off pathogens,” Bourgeois said.
The NWS recorded more than two feet of rain at San Francisco’s downtown site, which is the second wettest day in more than 170 years.
The foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, as well as the coastal portion of southern Oregon and the Bay Area are at greatest risk for flash-flooding.
“Say goodbye to the warmth,” the National Weather Service in Los Angeles tweeted Monday. There will be a big fall in temperatures between today and Tuesday. Expect 15-20 degrees of cooling thanks to the approaching storm system.”
That means New Year’s Eve celebrations Saturday will likely be dampened in New York City and Washington, DC. Los Angeles, too, is expected to ring in a soggy new year.
California Flood Watches During the Atmospheric River Showers on Saturday through Sunday, Dec. 2. Forecasts for May 8 – 11
Over 15 million people are under flood watches across much of California ahead of this atmospheric river event which could bring several more inches of rain to the state through Tuesday.
In New York on Saturday, there will be rain and it will add to the melting snow and lead to flood concerns inBuffalo, which is still dealing with the aftermath of its deadly snowstorm. Additional rain is expected early next week.
“The slight risk area mostly highlights places that are already high in soil moisture, burn scars and urban areas,” the Weather Prediction Center said.
An eastbound stretch of Interstate-70 in Colorado reopened Thursday after a nine-hour closure left drivers stranded amid bouts of heavy mountain snow, widespread rain and gusty winds.
Dangerous conditions Tuesday in Oregon left five people dead, including a 4-year-old girl, after severe weather caused trees to fall on passing vehicles, state police said.
Highway 70 East of Chico was partially closed due to a slide, while Highway 49 had to be closed due to flooding. In El Dorado County, east of Sacramento, a stretch of Highway 50 was closed because of flooding.
Last week, San Francisco experienced its wettest 10-day period on record for downtown since 1871. The forecast for the next few days calls for more rain, with an additional 3 to 5 inches expected.
The California Highway Patrol said a section of U.S. 101 — one of the state’s main traffic arteries — was closed indefinitely south of San Francisco because of flooding. There were Videos on Twitter of mud-colored water in the streets of San Francisco and a staircase in Oakland turning into a waterfall.
Weather service meteorologist Courtney Carpenter said the storm could drop over an inch of rain in the Sacramento area before moving south. One ski resort closed chair lifts because of flooding and operations problems, and posted a photo on social media showing the empty chair tower surrounded by water.
The Sacramento agency released a map of 24-hour precipitation through Saturday morning, showing a wide range of totals in the region, from less than an inch (2.54 centimeters) in some areas to more than 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) in the Sierra foothills.
The California Highways Flood Already: Emergency Preparedness and Flood Warnings During the December 20th Santa Fe Epidemic and Implications for Highway Safety in the Sierra
The photos of the flooded railroad underpass and car were posted by the police department.
This dramatic swing in periods of drought and high precipitation, or weather whiplash, can occur more often and become more intense under a rapidly warming climate. If humans continue to release carbon dioxide, the chances of sudden transitions in California will become much higher.
According to the National Weather Service’s Eureka office, roads began to flood as a result of the 6.4 magnitude earthquake that struck on December 20. If the Eel River gets too high, the bridge may be closed again after last week’s earthquake damage.
It was the first of several storms expected to roll across California over the next week. The current system is expected to be warmer and wetter, while next week’s storms will be colder, said Hannah Chandler-Cooley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sacramento.
“Strong winds could cause tree damage and lead to power outages and high waves on Lake Tahoe may capsize small vessels,” the weather service in Reno said.
On the Sierra’s eastern front, flood watches and warnings were issued into the weekend north and south of Reno, Nevada, where minor to moderate flooding was forecast along some rivers and streams.
Dozens of drivers were rescued on New Year’s Eve along Interstate 80 near Lake Tahoe after cars spun out in the snow, the California Department of Transportation said. The key route to the mountains from the San Francisco Bay Area reopened early Sunday to passenger vehicles with chains.
Aerial video from CNN affiliate KCRA showed cars submerged past their doorhandles in flood waters from Highway 99 and the Dillard Street area. Chris Schamber, a fire captain with the Cosumnes Fire Department, told the station “dozens upon dozens” of people had been rescued.
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and Sacramento County Fire Chiefs notified by the Pasadena Storm on Monday, Dec. 26, 2018, a day after the Rose Parade
With the region drying out on New Year’s Day and no rainfall expected during Monday’s Rose Parade in Pasadena, spectators began staking out their spots for the annual floral spectacle.
A 72-year-old man died in Santa Cruz after he was struck by a fallen tree while riding his bike in the storm, while one person was found dead in a submerged vehicle in Sacramento County.
The emergency crews in the Sacramento County area spent the weekend plucking victims from the flood waters and tending to fallen trees and disabled vehicles, the fire district said.
On Sunday, the community of Point Pleasant was told to evacuate because flooding was imminent and would get worse after the sun goes down.
The new year is a bad one for people in Northern California who have been hit by floods and mudslides.
It’s the third atmospheric river to hit the region since Dec. 26, the office said, adding that parts of the Russian River are now at particular flood risk. The NWS also says the storm’s high winds could inflict severe damage in areas where the soil is already saturated with rainwater.
On Sunday, Sacramento’s Mary Spencer-Gode and other residents gaped at the damage on their street, where the storm toppled a massive elm tree on New Year’s Eve.
She told Capital Public Radio that the wind was crazy. “We turned our TV off so we could hear it, and I was sitting in the kitchen, I heard a big ‘woosh’ and kind of the house moved.”
The Norwest Weather Service is advising Californians on how to prepare for an El Nio-Cascade-Mesh-like storm
It’s a narrow area of high water that gets transported away from the tropics towards the higher latitudes, often before a cold front arrives, as an NWS senior forecaster told NPR.
For states along the West Coast, atmospheric rivers are “actually responsible for a good majority of the rainfall during the colder season, which is the season when they get most of their rain,” Oravec said.
Forecasters have been raising alarms about the storm for days now, saying it could start to affect land as early as Tuesday night. But they also predicted it would move slowly; as of late Wednesday morning, the system was still approaching the West Coast.
Because of its expected longer duration and prodigious amount of moisture, the incoming storm “should surpass the Saturday night storm by at least an inch and likely more in the upslope areas,” the NWS office in Oxnard and Los Angeles said, adding that the rain is expected to taper off Thursday night into Friday.
Along with flooding, the risk of mudslides is especially high in sites of recent wildfires, where there’s no longer enough ground cover to absorb and retain moisture.
A climate scientist in San Diego stated that these storms are needed more than ever to alleviate the dry conditions in some areas.
“They’re two sides of the same coin: they can be extremely beneficial because they bring so much of California’s water supply to the state or they can also be drought busters,” Kalansky told CNN. “But when the duration becomes too long, they become too strong, they come back-to-back, and the landscape doesn’t get an opportunity to absorb all the rain, it can lead to this flooding.”
A study done by Swain in 2022 states that the chance of a megaflood in California will double in four decades because of climate change.
Although we haven’t seen any mega floods, we have definitely seen a lot of precipitation even in the middle of what has been a severe and persistent El Nio.
“We anticipate that this may be one of the most challenging and impactful series of storms to touch down in California in the last five years,” said Nancy Ward, the new director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, at a late-morning news conference about the threat.
Weather experts warned people in their coverage areas on Wednesday that they should prepare to be without power, and for travel to be threatened because of fallen trees and power lines.
The precipitation can be extreme: A single atmospheric river “can carry more water than the Mississippi River at its mouth,” as NPR has reported. The systems’ winds are very dangerous, asforecasters have warned. In 2017, one of the storms toppled the legendary “Pioneer Cabin Tree” sequoia in Calaveras Big Trees State Park.
The woman died in the crash of her car on a partially flooded road in Northern California after it was hit by a utility pole. The driver hit “a patch of standing water and hydroplaned, losing control of the vehicle, before colliding into a utility pole,” police explained.
A young child – about age 1 or 2 – was killed Wednesday after a redwood tree fell on a home in Sonoma County in Northern California, Occidental Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ron Lunardi said.
Flooding Concerns in the City of San Francisco During the Fourth and Fourth Sundays El Nio and La Nia Re-visited
The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management Executive Director said that there have been flooding impacts in the city. “We’re seeing sinkholes on our streets – a few of them. We are seeing mud slides, but at this time they are not significant. But the more rain we get and the less time in between, we know we’re going to see more of those conditions,” Carroll told CNN.
• Also Saturday: An additional 1 to 2 feet of snow threaten to make travel dangerous in areas above 5,000 feet in mountains of Northern and central California, the Weather Prediction Center said.
Even a 40 mph wind can do damage when the ground is so saturated from record rainfall earlier this week and the cumulative effect of the new rainfall expected this weekend.
Solum said that additional rain on already saturated soils would make more flooding concerns. “There will continue to be an increased risk of rock slides and mud slides across much of the state as well.”
Concerns for streams and rivers will be raised by the rain over the weekend. The Colgan Creek,Berryessa Creek, Mark West Creek, Green Valley Creek, and the Cosumnes River all have flood stages in them, and are expected to rise in the coming days.
El Niño and La Niña forecast patterns put out by the Climate Prediction Center give guidelines on what the overall forecast can be during a seasonal time period.
“During a La Niña, typically the Pacific Northwest sees wetter than normal conditions and Southern California sees drier than normal conditions,” Marybeth Arcodia, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University said. The jet stream has a wavier pattern and has been pushed farther north. I believe it.
“Atmospheric rivers typically form during the winter months and can occur during El Niños or La Niñas,” Arcodia said, noting their strength, frequency, and landfall location can be influenced by the larger patterns in the Pacific.
The State of the State: Forecasting the Northern Hemisphere’s Large Ice Storm on Monday and the Impact on Highways, Power, Communications, and Interstate Highways
The entire season is not meant to be forecast on a day-to-day basis, says Michael Tippett, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University. This is why researching the patterns is so important.
There is something unexplained that is not explained by the patterns. This could help us understand why one year is different from the other.
State climatologist Michael Anderson told a news briefing late Saturday that officials were closely monitoring Monday’s incoming storm and another behind it and were keeping an eye on three other systems farther out in the Pacific.
The city’s communications infrastructure, cellular and internet, is underground so “as we get more inundation from the rain, we’re seeing more failure around those, what we call lifeline systems” for power and communication, said Carroll.
The risk of excessive rainfall in the state on Monday is a Level 3 out of 4 as a result of this. A Level 4 out of 4 “high risk” notice may become necessary for Monday if the forecast guidance continues to increase rainfall totals, the prediction center wrote in their discussion Sunday morning.
The storm could dump as much as 5 feet of snow on the Sierra crest. The weather service stated Waves up to 4 feet were on Lake Tahoe.
“Overall, there is high confidence (60-80%) that this wetter-than-normal pattern will continue through the next couple of weeks,” the weather service in San Francisco said. It is not known how much rain we will get above normal, but it is certain that the continuation of saturated soils will pose a hazard into the third week of January.
The ice storm stretching from Texas to Tennessee will continue through at least Thursday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
The NWS said that road conditions would get worse as the day wore on, with sleet and freezing rain falling across north and central Texas.
With icy and snowy conditions on roads across the state Tuesday morning, a number of accidents have already been reported. The Austin Fire Department said at least one person had died in a crash and that there was a spike in multiple-car pile-ups.
“As we mobilize the resources Texans need to stay safe, I encourage everyone to remain weather-aware, check DriveTexas.org before traveling, and heed the guidance from local officials,” Abbott said in a statement.
National Weather Service Predictions of Anomalously Warm High Temperatures and High Wind Conditions for Students and Students in the Los Angeles, Cascade Mountains and Central and Eastern US
Many colleges and schools in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas were going to switch to online learning on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
The Pacific Northwest has the potential for gusts of up to 60 mph while the Cascade Mountains can see as much as three feet of snow. Seas just offshore will be as high as 20 feet, bringing large, breaking waves to coastal areas, causing beach erosion.
“This amount of snow will result in the passes needing to be closed for a period of time which will impact traffic getting to and from Los Angeles,” The National Weather Service office in Hanford, California said.
There is a great deal of snow in southern Wyoming, and there is strong winds that will cause blinding conditions. The weather service also warns of wind chills falling to 25 degrees below zero.
As it alerted people to the winter storm, the NWS also predicted “even more anomalously warm highs in the East, with numerous record high maximum temperatures possible.”
The winter storm and record high temperatures predicted by the National Weather Service may make you feel like you’re in the summer.
The term the NWS Climate Prediction Center and many forecasters are using to describe the overall weather pattern is “anomalous” — for the unusual cold and warmth that people will experience.
In the East, people living in areas ahead of the storm can be forgiven for wondering if winter is already over, as they watch early blooms emerge. The temperature in the central and eastern US were expected to be 20 to 30 degrees warmer than normal on Monday.
“Highs Tuesday will be similarly above average for most locations, including 70s expanding northward into the Mid-Atlantic as the clipper system passes through,” the NWS said.