For a second day on Thursday, a powerful Pacific storm pummelling California with high winds, drenching rain, and heavy snow, knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and obstructing traffic with flash floods, rock slides, and downed trees.
Since Wednesday, there have been at least two reported deaths, one of whom was a toddler who was killed when a fallen redwood in northern California crushed a mobile home.
By the time the storm started to taper off late on Thursday, the extent of the flooding and property losses was less severe than many had anticipated, but forecasters warned that more was still to come.
Two overlapping phenomena, an enormous airborne stream of dense moisture from the ocean known as an atmospheric river and a vast, hurricane-force low-pressure system known as a bomb cyclone, together produced the storm.
Since early last week, California has been hit by three atmospheric rivers, the most powerful of which was the blast of extreme winter weather. Over the coming days, at least two more back-to-back storms are expected.
The National Weather Service (NWS) warned that the next storm, which was due to arrive late on Friday, would pose a new risk of flash flooding and mudslides in areas already saturated from previous downpours. The hillsides that had been burned by wildfires in the past were still the most at risk.
Post Your Comments