California suffers a “relentless parade of cyclones”

California It suffers the scourge of an “incessant parade of cyclones”, according to the meteorological services, which will unload new torrential rains this Thursday after floods and landslides that have already left at least 19 dead.

The forecasted storms will move towards the northern part of this state on the west coast of the United States, warned the National Weather Service (NWS).

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Other states on the Pacific Northwest coast will be affected early Saturday, he added.

“The heaviest rains are expected to affect northwestern California over the next two days,” according to the NWS.

Torrential rains from the previous days on already waterlogged soils led to power outages, extensive flooding that washed away cars, uprooted trees and cut off major roads.

In some places there were levels of precipitation that had not been reached for 150 years.

In Aptos, a small town just over an hour’s drive south of San Francisco, residents were trying to recover from flooding in recent days.

A view of a flooded street after a bomb cyclone in Rio del Mar, California, USA. (Courtesy fo Twitter/@GaryLeeDance/via REUTERS /)

“It’s probably the worst flood I’ve seen since I moved here in 1984,” Doug Spinelli told AFP.

The city creek “was running so hard, (…) there were tree trunks carried by the river, almost one every thirty seconds,” said this neighbor.

“It was incredible to see the amount of debris and wood carried by the torrent.”

More than 35,000 homes and businesses were without power early Thursday morning, according to the specialized site PowerOutage.us.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has warned that although the storms in the coming days will be less powerful, they will be just as dangerous.

“This place is saturated. Now a more modest amount of precipitation can have a bigger impact (….) on the ground,” she warned, stressing that the forecast calls for conditions to continue through at least January 18.

A view of a flooded street after a bomb cyclone in Rio del Mar, California, USA. (Courtesy fo Twitter/@GaryLeeDance/via REUTERS /)

a missing child

In parts of Washington state, avalanche warnings were in effect as the storm brings wetter, heavier snow to the mountains.

“Dangerous and large avalanches are expected to occur naturally during this wet and snowy weather event that will affect us on Thursday,” the Northwest Avalanche Center (NWAC) said.

So-called “wet plate avalanches” are of particular concern, as wetter snow piles on top of lighter, fluffier snow, making the blanket unstable.

“Traveling to the mountains this weekend is strongly discouraged! If you must travel, plan to be at your destination before 4pm on Friday,” the NWS said.

In a vast area from San Francisco to Oregon, a flood warning was in effect.

The warnings come as the region recovers from storms that killed at least 19 people in California.

In Paso Robles, in the center of the state, a five-year-old boy was still missing after the car in which his mother was taking him to school was swept away by the current on Monday. His mother survived.

Fallen trees lie in the street after a bomb cyclone in Rio del Mar, California, U.S. (Courtesy Twitter/@GaryLeeDance/via REUTERS/)

The investigation is still ongoing and “we will continue (…) until we find it,” Tony Cipolla, a spokesman for the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Services, told local media.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the death toll from the storms includes people trapped in floodwaters in their cars, residents crushed by falling trees, a couple killed in a landslide and people swept away by waves.

California is currently experiencing “an endless rush of atmospheric rivers,” not seen since 2005, according to weather services.

Formed by water vapor from the tropics and traveling to discharge waterspouts on the West Coast of the United States, these “rivers of the sky” are rarely as frequent.

Although it is difficult to establish a direct link between this series of storms and climate change, scientists often explain that warming increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

Last week’s storm had already knocked out power to tens of thousands of subscribers and caused both flooding and landslides. It came just days after another deluge fell on New Year’s Eve.

Paradoxically, however, all this rainfall will be insufficient to replenish California’s water reserves, and it would take several winters with above-normal rainfall to offset the drought of recent years, experts say.

Source: Elcomercio