 |
| Satellite image of storms lined up in the Pacific Ocean, headed toward the West Coast a couple days ago. |
This will also continue for at least another week, though the storms might be just slightly weaker than what came through Monday and Tuesday. But the systems will still be destructive. Not exactly what California needs at the moment.
While southern California has been getting hit pretty hard with rains and storms over the past couple weeks, northern and central California has taken the brunt.
But things certainly escalated in southern California on Tuesday. Mudslides surrounded homes in Studio City. Streets were seriously flooded in places like downtown Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, as the Washington Post reported.
Although it is the rainy season in usually dry southern California, rainfall amounts were impressive. The Washington Post said.
Rainfall totals included 2.73 inches in downtown Los Angeles, 5.27 inches with 48 hours in Bel Air; 4.03 inches in Pasadena and 4.58 inches in Beverly Hills.
The intense moisture in the air coming off the Pacific Ocean was forced to rise up the slopes of southern California mountains. When air is forced to rise like that, heavier rainfall is inevitable. But the moisture content of the air was so intense, rainfall amounts in the hilly terrain of southern California was off the charts.
Nordhoff Ridge in Ventura County had 16.9 inches and San Marcos Pass in Santa Barbara County had 16.57 inches.
"'As far as we know, this is a historical record for the amount of rain in that location,' said Eric Boldt, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles, said at a news conference Monday," per WaPo.
Atmospheric rivers have always hit California in most winters. But this onslaught is the most intense in years, if not decades. San Francisco has had more rain in 15 days than in any two week stretch since the 1800s.
 |
| Cars swallowed up in a big sink hole on a California street. Photo via Getty Images |
Authorities Tuesday asked the 10,000 residents of ritzy, celebrity-strewn Montecito, California to evacuate as flooding and mudslides increases. Tuesday's flooding in Montecito came on the fifth anniversary of a calamitous mudslide and debris flow there that killed 23 people.
On top of it all, a line of rare for California severe thunderstorms roared ashore early Tuesday morning between San Francisco and Santa Barbara. The thunderstorms produced wind gusts to 69 mph in San Francisco and 54 mph in Sacramento.
Also-rare tornado warnings were issued for Stockton and Modesto, but it's unclear whether any twisters touched down.
Here are some videos that give glimpses of the kind of week California has been having.
Video from KCAL of a car caught up in one of the many mudslides that have closed roads:
Not long after the above video was made, a truck tried to make it through the mud slide. It went about as well as you'd expect:
Reporters for KCAL weren't having a great time with the mudslides, either:
As the BBC reports, authorities are telling all 10,000 people in the posh town of Montecito, California to leave:
Beginning of this video is most dramatic as it shows a mud and rock slide in action along a California road:
No comments:
Post a Comment