Life-threatening flash flooding, historic rainfall possible across California this weekend
A powerful Pacific storm system is expected to impact southern California beginning Saturday night and lasting through Tuesday morning.
A powerful Pacific storm system is expected to impact southern California beginning Saturday night and lasting through Tuesday morning. While this will be a long-duration rainfall event, the peak rainfall will occur Sunday and Monday.
The storm system will be fueled by an atmospheric river, which will pump moisture into the state of California. The area of heavy rain will be intense at times, and could slow-down or even stall over parts of the state which could lead to the possibility of record-setting rainfall amounts.
While the storm system will impact northern California first (including the Bay Area and Big Sur coast) beginning on Saturday afternoon, the worst of the flooding is expected to be Santa Barbara and southward.
By the time the rainfall completely ends on Tuesday, coastal and valley areas, such as Santa Barbara County, Ventura County and the Los Angeles metro area could pick up a widespread 3 to 6 inches of rain, with locally higher amounts of up to 6 to 10 inches of rain.
The mountainous areas will pick up even more rainfall due to terrain enhancement to the totals. A widespread 6 to 12 inches will be possible in these locales, with locally higher amounts up to 15 inches.
Rating: 5