Anyone here being impacted by the storms? Lots of flooding around us on New Years Eve, with some stores still closed after they were flooded.
Fortunately we’re on top of a hill so are OK, but I’m not looking forward to tomorrow’s storm or what looks like at least two more weeks of near continuous storms after that. While it should break the drought, there could be serious damage across the state lasting weeks or even months.
I live on the San Mateo County coast. We had what looked to be raw sewage running down the street at the bottom of the hill my house is on. And I had to drive through a big pond of water that was about 2 feet deep and 500 feet long. Otherwise, just a big storm like the kind we used to get 20-30 years ago.
Even with all the rain that’s fallen and still expected to fall, I wouldn’t consider the drought to be broken.
We are welcoming the rain down in San Diego County but, it is a lot of rain that we have not been accustomed to for a long time.
People down here DON’T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE IN THE RAIN and lose their common sense! For some reason, brainless people don’t read, nor understand when low-lying areas flood even with the plethora of signs posted and warning barriers. They cross those areas ANYWAY and put Emergency personnel at risk, to save those fools’ lives who attempt to cross barricaded flooded areas!
Thankfully, most of the rain has fallen during school breaks and holidays, so people have stayed out of it.
I would also agree that we don’t appear to be out of the drought yet, given the look of the reservoirs. They’re not back at their original levels but it’s looking better.
I think the spigot could be turned off for a couple of days! Hoping we don’t get mosquitos! Hate those things!
I’m also in San Diego and although there has been a lot of rain in places we have not been impacted where I am a couple of miles from the coast.
I remember very wet years here in San Diego in the early 80’s and the El Nino year we had in 97-98 when D1 was in kindergarten. My kids wore rain coats and boots to school for many days the winter of 98 when we had a lot of rain.
The good side of this for H and I is all of the snow we are getting in the mountains of the west. We were in Mammoth 2 weeks ago between storms and we had 4 days of excellent skiing. We are planning our ski road trip for next month to Lake Louise, Big Sky and Jackson Hole to so we are hoping that the snow continues to fall.
To put it simply, this will likely be one of the most impactful systems on a widespread scale that this meteorologist has seen in a long while. The impacts will include widespread flooding, roads washing out, hillside collapsing, trees down (potentially full groves), widespread power outages, immediate disruption to commerce, and the worst of all, likely loss of human life. This is truly a brutal system that we are looking at and needs to be taken seriously.
(The source for that is currently here, though the link seems to update dynamically, so if future folks are looking, the update is FXUS66 KMTR 030614 and timestamp is 1014 PM PST Mon Jan 2 2023)
We did a bit of extra grocery shopping (including additional cans in for our earthquake supplies) last night.
We do not live in an area that typically has issues with flooding. I am glad we are getting rain and hope this helps with the drought. I usually play tennis 5 or 6 times a week, so, so far, the biggest impact has been courts too wet to play on. Which negatively affects my mood.
I read “The Dreamt Land: Chasing water and dust across California” by Mark Arax a few years ago. Really recommend it for understanding water in California. One thing he said that rang so true to me (I’m a 4th generation Californian even though I don’t live there now) was that the weather pattern is drought and flood. But that Californians tend to think that droughts are over for good every time it rains and the floods will never happen again when the sun comes out. Climate change is, of course, playing havoc with weather patterns, but floods have always happened in California, alternating with drought. And we just ignore the extremes and build in unsustainable ways during placid times. I hope this next storm doesn’t cause the damage that it might.
We had several friends and neighbors flooded, and my husband actually dug a channel through our yard to divert water away from our house that was pooling near the foundation.
I worry about areas that burned during the last two years, which is much of the state! Burn areas will slide as there’s nothing to hold the soil in place. There have been devastating mud slides in previous years, Montecito, Ventura, Malibu, etc… We’re fine where we are unless one of these old dams gives way in an earthquake or something, then all bets are off.
Marin County here…my rain gauge registered just shy of 10 " in the last week. That’s going to be the factor in the next storm…our ground is just saturated. we’ve already had some mudslides. Then throw in big winds and downed trees…yikes.
Officials stressing to have emergency kits ready. All our phones/ipads/kindles and extra battery packs are all charged; two thermoses maxed with hot water for tea; sun umbrellas, lawn furniture, any outdoor thing that can launch has been taken in; gutters cleaned, rain spouts in place to keep water away from house. We are on a hill, so not as worried about rising bay.
Goskid drove back from Tahoe today and I met part way to hand off some packages that he had sent to our house. Since I had made the trek to Costco and grocery store today, also gave him a food care package. Got a text from him, saying thanks…because his Whole Foods near Nob Hill in SF was bare.
We’re in the Bay Area and all are WFH for the rest of the week. I’m actually surprised school hasn’t been cancelled, just going to needlessly send cars onto the roads. We have all the batteries charged. The local creek was at street level last weekend. I think it will overflow tomorrow.
I’m not in California but I see they are calling this storm a Bomb Cyclone. That is what they called our midwest (and beyond) storm before Christmas - I don’t recall this term much if ever - is it odd that there are two in such a short time??
I’m “impacted”, but not as one might assume based on news reports. My area of coastal, southern CA has had between 1 and 2 inches of rain so far this year. We’ll probably reach 2 inches by the end of the week. We average under 10 inches of rain per year, so that’s a large portion of the annual rainfall in the first week of the year.
I usually spend a good amount of time outside with my dog. I’ve had to cut back, including on things like dog parks or running in sports fields, and also have been caught in light showers a few times. One positive is being able to substitute natural rain for artificial, improving drought and water levels. I haven’t turned on my sprinklers yet this year, and probably will not until the latter half of the month.
We are in Marin County and so far it’s been rainy but not too bad. We live at sea level and there’s a seasonal creek behind our house that leads to the bay. It’s fullish, but not threatening.
My DS26 went to school this morning without incident. There is often flooding in the marshy areas around his school, so I’m sure we will see that again.
We recently remodeled our backyard and haven’t been able to use it as much. We also have a roof leak that is urgent to repair, which sucks but a part of homeownership.
My daughter is supposed to fly back to LA for school on Saturday, so we’ll see how that goes.
We have high winds and surf predicted for this evening. It’s sunny right now, with some clouds. Problem with our topography is a lot of eucalyptus trees. Short roots, extremely tall mature eucalyptus that topple over the roadway. That’s going to be the issue.
Palm trees can handle the wind and rain. Those eucalyptus can’t.
This latest storm doesn’t seem to be as bad as predicted. A little windy at my house but hardly at cyclone levels, and not nearly as much rain as the storm from a few days ago.
Palm trees can handle the wind and rain. Those eucalyptus can’t.