Crisp morning temperatures will make way for sunny skies across Southern California this week, but don’t stash those umbrellas and rain boots away quite yet. More wet weather is on the horizon.
The historic and destructive storms that ravaged California this week have significantly boosted the state’s snowpack and water year outlook after a relatively dry start to the season, state water managers say.
Evidence highlighting the effects of climate change – and its increasing impact on our societies – is indisputable. 2023 saw a flurry of extreme weather events across the world. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recorded 28 weather and climate disasters in the United States alone, topping the previous high of 22 events during 2020.
Southern California is bracing for its biggest storm of the season, which is slated to deliver potentially damaging and life-threatening rain, wind and flooding to the region.
Despite forecasts of heavy rain and possible flooding in the coming days, state water managers are warning that the “snow drought” in California’s Sierra Nevada could remain for the rest of the winter and into the spring.
The water content of California’s mountain snowpack was just over half of the normal average on Tuesday, a modest increase from Jan. 1 but still far below the usual, state officials said.
Southern California may have just experienced a historic amount of rainfall, but more extreme precipitation is headed toward the region. More than a month’s worth of rain fell in a span of three hours in San Diego on Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
For the second time in a month, torrential flooding returned to Southern California this week with El Niño-fueled rains rolling in off the Pacific Ocean. This time San Diego felt the punch. The city, known for weather “the closest thing to perfect in America,” experienced one of its wettest days on record.
Weather officials had been warning Californians about the wrath of El Niño for months — even as some residents had begun to think the typically soaking climate pattern had gone AWOL.
San Diego’s dangerous flash flood on Monday may not be the state’s last such event of the next couple of weeks, as a weather pattern favorable to atmospheric rivers takes shape across the Pacific Ocean.
