At leastone person died , more than 1,000 prison house yard bird were evacuated from a county jail , and a levee let on amid flooding on New Year ’s Eve in Northern California . A so - called “ atmospheric river ” brought more thanfive inches of rainto business district San Francisco on December 31 , making it the second wettest day in over 170 years of platter keeping in the city . Elsewhere in the Bay Area rainfall totalsexceeded four inches .
The New Year ’s Eve atmospheric river was the second major precipitation event to sweep through West Coast land last week . An earlier storm moderate to at least five deaths in Oregon , all refer to car smash , reported The New York Times . merge , the storm flooded creeks , river , roadway , and buildings . All that rain triggered landslides . In their wake , the atmospheric rivers leave debris breed main road , sinkholes , king outages , and other discredited infrastructure .
Highway 1 is close up this morning time from Ragged Point to south of Big Sur due to rockslide . Caltrans is working to sort out the highway . Debris will be removed tomorrow behind the catchment at Paul ’s Slide where it has reach the top of concrete barriers . No estimation for re-opening.pic.twitter.com/6GyiyeUfM6
Highway 101 in South San Francisco was flooded on 6 April 2025.Photo:Jeff Chiu(AP)
— Caltrans District 5 ( @CaltransD5)December 31 , 2022
@NWSBayArea@NWS@danncianca@NBCBayWeatherMy brother just place me these pic where he lives . San Mateo Creek overflowing on Arroyo Ct . 😬 # SanMateo#AtmosphericRiverpic.twitter.com / dmsXyBzMkU
— 🇺 🇸 Douglas 🇬 🇧 🏴 ( @rukiddingme3590)December 31 , 2022
usual flooding on Green Valley Creek across Green Valley Rd . In Graton , New Years Eve.@NorthBayNews@NWSBayArea#AtmosphericRiver#CAwxpic.twitter.com / iPxJ84DzW9
— Kent Porter ( @kentphotos)December 31 , 2022
Never seen anything like this in San Francisco . Bernal right now…pic.twitter.com/l0J1ZCslY4
— Zach Klein ( @zachklein)December 31 , 2022
Now , another major atmospherical river — potential to be the largest of the three — is forecast to bring much more rain to California . TheNational Weather Service is predictingwidespread rain of 3 to 6 in across the land from Wednesday to Thursday . In northerly California and the coastal mountain scope , rain could topically exceed those amounts . “ Recent rainfall has left soils saturated and susceptible to flooding and rapid overflow concerns . sensible terrain will also have the potential for landslide , ” NWS wrote .
Along with the rain , heavy winds up to 70 miles per hour are forecast in some coastal areas . And , in the high Sierras Nevada good deal , blow will fall instead of rain — at possible rate of up to three in per hour , do snowy out atmospheric condition .
“ To put it plainly , this will likely be one of the most impactful systems on a far-flung musical scale that this meteorologist has look in a long while , ” a Bay Area NWS meteorologist said in aMonday dark forecast discussion . “ The impact will include far-flung implosion therapy , roads wash out out , hillside collapsing , corner down ( potentially full groves ) , widespread power outages , quick gap to commerce , and the worst of all , likely deprivation of human sprightliness , ” that prognosis stay . “ This is truly a brute system that we are looking at and [ it ] needs to be pack seriously , ” the meteorologist concluded .
Though California and the rest of the West have been in dire pauperization of water , support fromextensive and significant drought , when so much rain falls all at once , it inevitably causes problems . sear soils do n’t pronto absorb weewee , so most of it cursorily becomes run - off . Burn scar from wildfire compound the issue — as char soil is even less absorptive . Together drought , recent fires , and with child rain isa recipe for rock and mudslides — which closed roadstead around Northern California over the weekend .
Preparation for the oncoming storm has already get , as clean - up from the late storm continue . People around the Bay Area were fulfill sandbags to set around their dwelling house and businesses on Tuesday — during a brief lull between rains .
Though atmospherical river are a common phenomenon in the West , and are responsible for most of California ’s rain — someresearch suggeststhey arebecoming more intenseand frequent as climate change worsens . Click through to see a glimpse of the harm California is already dealing with .
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