First El Niňo storm hits Modesto – a wet week ahead

The first of four El Nino-powered storms will be here soon (any minute now, I promise), with the heaviest rain hitting California on Tuesday.

The severe lack of rain had even prompted Governor Jerry Brown to implement water conservation measures, demanding a reduction of 25% in drinking water use, so as to lower pressure placed on the severely depleted water supply. In strong El Nio years like this one, warmer storms line up across the mid-latitudes of the Pacific, flowing one after another along the sub-tropical jet stream from Japan, across the north of Hawaii, to California. This storm will be the weakest across Southern California with only a light rainfall expected. Heavy rains and winds this week are just the start of what is expected to be a long wet winter.

The first in a series of storms will douse the Southland today ahead of a much stronger system, which will arrive Tuesday and threaten to unleash torrents of mud and debris over slopes denuded by wildfire, forecasters said.

El Ninos in the early 1980s and late 1990s brought about twice as much rain as normal, Patzert said.

Residents near those areas were urged to monitor weather reports and consider stockpiling sandbags. El Nino conditions often bring significantly wetter weather to California in January, February and March. Those much needed rains, however, come with the potential for flooding and debris flows in areas scorched by wildfires. The weather also caused mudslides, flooding and high surf.

Last month, the Los Angeles City Council allocated $12.4 million for emergency relief to get homeless people off the streets before potentially disastrous storms approach.

“We want as little damage and destruction and as little death as possible”, Garcetti said.

They will make themselves felt today, Tuesday, Wednesday and, if a fourth storm materializes, on Friday or Saturday said National Weather Service meteorologist Curt Kaplan.

With these storms, rains will fall in coastal and inland areas, while snows will fall in the inland mountain ranges, particularly in the southern Sierra Nevada.

In recent weeks, the system has generated unusual weather across the USA with unseasonably high temperatures in the northeast, uncommon winter tornados in the south, and a deluge of snow across the west.