Californians are bracing for flooding as another “atmospheric river” is set to arrive by Tuesday, following storms this week and last week that brought record rainfall to the San Francisco Bay Area.
On the bright side, however, the portion of the state said to be in “exceptional” drought has now left that category, though California remains dry and much of the state is still officially experiencing drought conditions overall.
An “atmospheric river” is a large band of moisture that forms over the warm, moist central Pacific and falls as rain and snow when it reaches the cool, mountainous California coast. It is a normal winter phenomenon, though this year’s rains have been severe — and have defied predictions of a third straight dry, La Niña winter.
The San Francisco Chronicle noted:
The ominous forecast came true: a “bomb cyclone” off California’s coast brought heavy rain and strong winds to wide swaths of the state, resulting in flooding, downed power lines and trees, blocked roads, mudslides, a battered coast and some fatalities in the larger Bay Area.
The skies have cleared over the Bay Area, but snow squalls remain in the Sierra and — most worryingly — more atmospheric rivers are on the way, bringing continued flood danger.
It added:
According to the map released Thursday morning by the U.S. Drought Monitor, no part of California currently falls under the category of exceptional drought, something that hasn’t been the case since the map released on May 10, 2022. And that update doesn’t include the impact of heavy storms that swept through the Bay Area on Wednesday, downing trees and flooding roadways.
In addition to the removal of exceptional drought from Dec. 27, 2022, to Jan. 3, there was also a reduction across drought categories in California. The percentage of the state in severe drought or worse dropped from about 81% to about 71% during that time. That said, the entire state remains at least abnormally dry.
The storms have also brought large amounts of snow to California’s ski resorts, delighting those who enjoy winter sports and bringing enthusiasts to the mountains statewide, from Lake Tahoe to the San Bernardino Mountains.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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