Parts of California were hit by alternating weather patterns known as “atmospheric rivers,” delivering some of the heaviest rainfall in more than 140 years.
Tuesday 6 February 2024 at 06:46, United Kingdom
At least three people were killed in a winter storm that brought near-record amounts of rain and devastating mudslides to parts of California.
Two men were killed by falling trees in Carmichael, a suburb of Sacramento, and in Boulder Creek, south of San Jose, when the storm hit the West Coast of the United States.
Police also launched an investigation into the death of a man who was found under a tree in his garden in Yuba City, northeast of San Francisco.
The storm was the second of what is called the Pineapple Express weather system or Weather stormto hit the state last week.
On Monday, almost all of the South California The area was under flash flood warnings, including the Los Angeles area, where up to 25.4 centimeters (10 inches) of rain fell, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
At one measuring station in downtown Los Angeles, 17 cm (6.7 inches) of rain had fallen by Monday afternoon, nearly half the annual average of 36 cm (14.25 inches).
NSW said the period was the third wettest in more than 140 years.
“We're talking about one of the wettest storm systems to impact the greater Los Angeles area since records began,” said Ariel Cohen, chief meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Los Angeles.
“Going back to the 1870s, this is one of the first three.”
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Los Angeles Fire Chief Christine Crowley said her crews had responded to at least 130 flooding incidents by Monday morning.
About 120 mudslides and debris flows occurred across the city on Monday, and at least 25 buildings were damaged by heavy rainfall or mudslides as of Monday evening, Crowley said.
About 710,000 people were without power across California on Monday evening.
Near the Hollywood Hills, floodwaters carried mud, rocks and household items down the hill through Studio City, damaging at least two homes.
“It looks like a river that's been here for years,” said Kiki Mingus, whose neighbors' homes were damaged. “I've never seen anything like it before.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in most coastal areas of Southern California, while emergency shelters were opened.
Areas of southwestern Arizona were also affected.
President Biden pledged federal assistance.
Atmospheric rivers are weather patterns consisting of relatively narrow columns of moisture that form over the ocean and can produce torrential amounts of rain as they move over land.
In these two cases, the atmospheric rivers were given the name “Pineapple Express” because they originated near Hawaii.
