The thousand-mile coast of California is covered in warnings, watches and advisories for rain, flooding and high surf as another El Nino storm moves in from the Pacific.
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The California Highway Patrol estimated there were almost two dozen weather-related crashes in the region by 7 a.m.
Altogether, the storms should bring massive amounts of rain and snow to a very parched state this month, but water managers won’t be able to fully estimate this year’s snowmelt until April 1, when the snowpack is typically at its deepest.
El Nino-fueled storms also brought heavy snow to northern Arizona where Grand Canyon National Park halted all shuttle bus service.
“We need four years like this to recover”, Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles, said in an online chat with locals.
Los Angeles officials have mapped homeless encampments for the first time as they try to contact as many people as possible.
“We’re amateur meteorologists now”, he said. Garcetti emphasized that they will not charge the homeless people, but they will use the required force of law to ensure they leave the area.
Snow continues to fall in mountain areas and motorists are warned of icy conditions above 4,000 feet, including along the heavily traveled Grapevine section of Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles.
Flash flooding and flows of mud and debris are a worry in foothill neighborhoods beneath areas left barren by last year’s wildfires.
Well over 2 inches of rain fell on several mountain areas, including 3.5 inches at the San Gabriel Dam in the Angeles National Forest. Standing water shut down a lane of State Route 101 in Ventura County Wednesday, and mud damaged two homes in Pasadena, officials said. He was treated at a hospital for scraped feet and arms.
San Diego fire-rescue crews responded to 75 calls in three hours.
Several abandoned cars were seen nearly entirely submerged at one flooded intersection.
Despite the potential for problems, the wet weather in California was welcome news for the state suffering from a severe drought. But officials warned residents against abandoning conservation efforts and reverting to wasteful water-use habits.
The seemingly certain prospect of a major El Niño weather pattern in California this winter has increased the likelihood that the historic four-year drought afflicting the state will be broken, but water supply reductions will most likely remain due to historically low reservoir conditions.
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Weve got to keep it going.The current El Nino a natural warming of the central Pacific Ocean that interacts with the atmosphere and changes weather worldwide has tied 1997-1998 as the strongest on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Climate Prediction Center said, citing statistics that go back to 1950.
