Soaking rain and heavy snow arrive on the West Coast

AccuWeather

A new storm slamming California from Feb. 13-14 can cause mudslides in parts of Southern California, potential tornadoes in central California and deep snow in the Sierra.

Transcript

00:00Let's go and check in right now with Accuweather meteorologist and California expert Ken Clark for more.

00:04Ken, it's good to see you out there. This is a high-impact storm. What are you most concerned about with this one?

00:11Well, the biggest impacts that we're concerned about are twofold. First of all, in Southern

00:15California, the heavy rain that's occurring right now, mudslides and debris flows. There's already

00:19been some debris flows going on. I haven't seen anything exceptional yet, but we still have heavy

00:25rain to go for the next several hours in the burn area, so have to be on the watch out for that.

00:30Always alert for that. We have some severe weather potential up across Central California as well

00:36because of well behind the front now. Showers and thunderstorms are occurring. Thunderstorms,

00:41I can get a little twist going with them, so we're concerned about maybe even a slight risk of a

00:46funnel cloud or a brief tornado and certainly some gusty winds. So we have a lot going on with

00:52this storm right now, and we're not done in Southern California yet either with the heavy

00:57rain. It's not going to be a very good commute this evening heading home from work across those freeways.

01:03And snow levels high enough that most areas in far Southern California seem to be wet as opposed

01:09to snowy for say the grapevine. Any expectations for other areas? There's no problems with snow

01:16in Southern California. Snow levels above 7,000 feet in the higher peaks will get snow, not a lot

01:21of it, but not anywhere near where most people travel. Sierra is a different story. The snow

01:26levels have been lowering there behind the front, and then we'll get down to 4,500 feet or so.

01:31Some major problems getting through some of the passes up there as we go through this evening

01:35and tonight. Other than that, that's about the main snow problems. They need that snow in through

01:41the Sierra, so I think they're glad for it. And as you can see by this graphic, there's ample feet

01:48of snow going to accumulate from this storm. All right, Ken, so whenever we talk about the

01:52heavy rainfall that we're going to be tracking here across Southern California, we always talk

01:56about how dangerous and deadly it can be because of the burn scarred areas pretty much creating

02:01excessive runoff conditions. But how long after this rainfall moves out are we still going to be

02:06dealing with the issues and the after effects of this rainfall? I think we have to be concerned

02:12right on through the night. Even though the heaviest rain is going to be into only this

02:16evening in the burn scar areas, there will be some additional showers overnight tonight into

02:20tomorrow morning, and sometimes it takes a while for the earth to start moving and as well for

02:25landslides. So be concerned right on through tomorrow morning. Thankfully a big drying trend

02:30after that into next week. All right, great insight. As always, AccuWeather meteorologist

02:35and longtime California expert Ken Clark. Thanks again, Ken. You're welcome.

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