Weather officials are hoping for more rain by Thanksgiving after widespread rain across California over the past week resulted in at least one death.
Atmospheric river storms dumped record rain in Northern California this week, but the rain weakened as it moved up the coast into Southern California. Weather officials said light rain was expected to fall across the region starting Monday and continuing into Tuesday.
“The biggest concern this week is people traveling for Thanksgiving,” said Dylan Flynn, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “If you leave on Wednesday, you have a better chance of staying dry.”
Another round of wet weather targeting the Central Coast region could bring rain, possibly 1 to 3 inches, on Monday, Flynn said. This would essentially be the same amount of rain that the region saw over a six-hour period during the atmospheric river’s current two-day period.
“If you spread it out, it’s going to have a lot less impact,” Flynn said. “Overall, this is like a more typical winter event compared to what we’ve experienced.”
The actual Thanksgiving Day and Wednesday “are going to be depleted,” Flynn said.
Flynn said the system’s impact on Northern California this week was “unprecedented,” citing a record 12.47 inches of rain in Santa Rosa over three days. Flynn said officials have never experienced so much over such a period of time in more than 120 years.
“Statistical analysis shows that this amount of rain in downtown Santa Rosa is actually only expected to occur once every thousand years,” he says. “It was very unprecedented. We’ve never seen it before and we definitely don’t expect to see it often.”
Flynn said the atmospheric river was stationary and sat over the North Bay for several days before it started moving and affected other parts of the Bay Area, but it took 48 straight hours of moderate rain. said. When the system finally started moving south, a flash flood warning was issued for San Francisco, which Flynn called “pretty unusual.”
Weather officials also witnessed the fastest flooding ever seen on the Russian River near Guerneville. Flynn said the area typically floods in late winter, usually in February.
Officials have confirmed that at least one driver has died after being recovered from a car found in floodwaters. According to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, a bystander reported a car submerged in water near Mayes Canyon Road and Highway 116 around 11:30 a.m. Saturday. Authorities were able to extricate the man from the vehicle, but he was pronounced dead. He died at the scene.
Flynn said all major rivers are currently below flood stage, with only a few streams still overflowing.
“The big story is what happened last week and how we’re recovering from that,” he said.
Precipitation totals in the Los Angeles area on Saturday were mostly less than a tenth of an inch, with some mountain areas getting as much as a quarter of an inch, said Mike Wofford, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. That’s what it means.
Wofford said the next chance of rain in the Los Angeles and Ventura area will likely be Monday night into Tuesday, with most rainfall amounts expected to be less than a half-inch. Temperatures are expected to be in the low to upper 60s with mostly cloudy skies.
“Sometimes we get a little drizzle, but that’s not normal for us. Most of us just expect it to be sunny and 72 degrees every day, so it’s different from that, but not that much.” There is no impact,” Wofford said. As we get closer to Long Beach and into Orange County, the rain will become lighter, with the expected amount of rain probably less than a quarter of an inch, he said.
The rain is expected to end after Tuesday, with the possibility of rain returning next weekend.
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