Powerful Western Storms Fueled by El Nino Weather Pattern
The riskiest areas for this week are areas recently burned by wildfires, such as the Camarillo Springs community in Ventura County, Silverado Canyon in Orange County, and the communities near the Christmas weekend brush fire that burned north of Ventura.
A playground sits flooded in Los Angeles after the rains subsided. The Red Cross has opened a shelter.
Tuesday’s heavy rains were just beginning.
(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu). A man stands near crashing waves on the Pacifica Pier in Pacifica, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016.
Officials say San Francisco’s iconic cable cars are back and running after being shut down for most of the day because of rainy weather. “We’ve got to keep it going”, he said. Buses are picking up passengers along the cable-car routes that are not yet serviced.
The basin is a large area in the San Fernando Valley that straddles the Los Angeles River and serves as a flood-control facility when the river expands from a trickle to a torrent during storms.
The next round of El Nino storms will arrive in Southern California late Wednesday morning.
Traffic is also jammed on one side of nearby Interstate 5 because of flooding as well. Experts warn more storms are due in the region as the weather pattern continues.
Hikers walk along a path at the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area near downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016. Persistent wet conditions could put some Los Angeles County communities at risk of flash flooding along with mud and debris flows, especially in wildfire burn areas.
He also said that the heavy rain was a danger to drivers on the freeways and a threat to homeless encampments established along the Los Angeles River.
After all the talk, El Niño storms have finally lined up over the Pacific and started soaking drought-parched California with rain expected to last for most of the next two weeks, forecasters said Monday.
The California Highway Patrol estimated there were almost two dozen weather-related crashes on Wednesday during the morning drive. Coastal California, from San Francisco to San Diego, is under Flash Flood Watches, and a total of eight western states are under winter alerts.
Rain drops bead on a vehicle window below the Golden Gate Bridge Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016, in Sausalito, Calif. El Nino storms lined up in the Pacific, promising to drench parts of the West for more than two weeks and increasing fears… The advisory will stay in place until 8:30 a.m. Friday.
Heavy rain and snow are welcome after four years of drought in California, despite their potential for causing flash floods and mudslides.
“A parade of strong Pacific storms characteristic of a strong El Nino event will batter the state this week and will likely bring damaging flooding by the time the second storm in the series rolls through on Wednesday”, Masters said.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said that no major roads were closed on Tuesday and that the majority of the areas did not lose electricity during the storm.
Motorists in mountain areas were warned that blizzard conditions with wind gusts reaching 60 miles per hour were possible above 4,000 feet.
The National Weather Service said 1.42 inches (3.6 cm) of rain fell at the Los Angeles airport, breaking the old record of 1.32 (3.4 cm) set in 1979.