Two waves of wet weather on the way for the West

AccuWeather

Two bursts of rain and snow are headed toward the West Coast this week, with significant impacts expected for Southern California.

Transcript

00:00The West Coast, we've got two storm systems rolling in.

00:02We do. The first one, we're going to see two different waves of the rainfall.

00:07So we've separated things a little bit.

00:09Give you an idea of what to expect here.

00:11First, the first wave moves in tonight.

00:13It's going to last through Friday.

00:15Then we get not even a full break in the rainfall.

00:18It just diminishes a bit before the next wave takes over.

00:21So we start in Northern California, but we end up with significant rainfall for really most of the state.

00:27Strong wind gusts are going to be the concern first thing.

00:30We're talking 40, 50 mile per hour gusts that can cause damage and power outages.

00:34Then Friday night, Saturday night, about 24 hours, where we focus much further south into Southern California.

00:40The rainfall rates can exceed an inch per hour.

00:42So we really start to be concerned about dangerous flash flooding, mudslides, debris flows, especially around recent burn scar areas.

00:49We've already had evacuation warnings in the L.A. area around recent burn scars.

00:54Places like Palisades and Eaton, where those fires were burning last year.

00:59Let's break this down piece by piece.

01:00First, with wave number one, again, starting into Northern California, then moving farther to the south.

01:05We can still see some localized flash flooding with the initial wave.

01:11It just increases as far as the chance as time goes on.

01:13And here's why.

01:15Take a look at the rainfall totals just through Friday.

01:17We're talking one to two inches in L.A., San Francisco, and Reading.

01:21That's significant rainfall on its own, especially in that short amount of time at really what is the beginning of the wet season for California.

01:29But then we add on to that.

01:32But we also get snow, higher elevations, 7,000, 8,000 feet.

01:36We're talking about several feet of accumulation.

01:38But for the passes, we do get a couple inches.

01:41Now, it's a dividing line here south of the line I drew.

01:45That's where it's just snow.

01:46It starts to snow.

01:47It continues to fall as snow to the end.

01:49We get upwards of a foot of accumulation.

01:52But places like Donner Pass, Echo Summit, we start as rain.

01:55Then really into Thursday night, Friday, we switch over to snow.

02:01And that's when we get the couple inches of accumulation.

02:03So either way, make sure you're taking it slow, taking those precautions if you're driving through any of the passes late this week.

02:09Here's the wind I talked about.

02:10It's a short-term threat tonight through tomorrow.

02:1340, 50-mile-per-hour wind gusts for most of us.

02:15That can cause damage and power outages, flight disruptions at San Francisco's airport, for example.

02:21But up into the higher elevations, we're talking blizzard concerns with up to 100-mile-per-hour wind gusts.

02:26A quick look at future radar gives you an idea of how this plays out and how that second wave really moves in.

02:31So wave number one, Washington, Oregon, you get it on the action as well.

02:35But northern California is our focus for those impacts.

02:38Slowly but surely, we get more rainfall farther south into California.

02:41Then as we go through Friday, there's the quote-unquote break I was talking about.

02:46You can see the rain keeps falling, just not as much, before wave number two really starts to move in for southern California.

02:51You can see the rain keeps falling, just not like this

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended