Heavy rain fell in California on Thursday, flooding some roads and triggering flood warnings as a storm is expected to be followed soon after by a second winter depression.
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Today's downpours are carried away by an “atmospheric river,” a gigantic rain corridor that carries stored water vapor to the tropics around Hawaii.
Significant rainfall fell in Northern California starting Wednesday. According to the US Weather Service (NWS), San Francisco recorded up to 2.5 centimeters of rain per hour.
The south of the “Golden State” and Los Angeles were affected on Thursday morning. Some streets in the city were heavily flooded and a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, popular with many tourists for its stunning coastal views, was closed.
Some sewers overflowed and local television showed cars submerged in water at an intersection.
Up to 45 centimeters of snow is expected in the mountains east of Los Angeles on Thursday.
But the authorities fear above all that there is a threat of a second winter low, which could lead to landslides and significant flooding.
“The biggest storm of the season” could begin Sunday, the NWS warned.
“The exact timing, intensity and amounts of rain are still uncertain, but it is very likely that it will be a severe storm lasting two to three days,” the meteorologists emphasized.
The West Coast of the United States experienced an unusually wet winter last year due to a series of closely spaced storms that brought near-record rainfall.
These disasters claimed more than twenty lives and caused significant damage and power outages.
However, this rainfall allowed California to replenish its water reserves after several years of intense drought.
Historically, California is used to alternating between hot spells and heavy rains, and it is always difficult to link a specific weather event to climate change.
However, scientists have been warning for years that global warming is disrupting the climate and increasing the frequency of extreme events, be they storms or heat waves.