Bay Area Storm: As rains return, California assesses destructive toll of atmospheric rivers

As stormy skies returned Friday, California officials said that the relentless rains that have eased years of punishing drought have come at a terrible cost, already ranking among the Golden State’s deadliest natural disasters — with more rain on the way.

“We’ve now experienced multiple large and damaging storm systems and there are more on the way,” California Office of Emergency Services Director Nancy Ward said in a Friday news briefing. “We’ve experienced destructive flooding of homes and infrastructure, levee breaches and overtopping, mudslides hurricane force winds in many of our communities, and even had a tornado touch down in Northern California. But let me emphasize, we are not out of the woods yet. The threat to communities remains, and waters will continue to rise even after these storms have passed.”

David Lawrence, a meteorologist and emergency response specialist with the National Weather Service Western Region Headquarters, added that over the last 18 days, the state has seen a statewide average of just over 9 inches of rainfall.

“That is a remarkable number,” Lawrence said. “Some locations have seen their average annual rainfall already occur in just the last 18 days.”

Lawrence said that while the weather service did not expect Friday’s downpours “to be overly significant,” another set of storms arriving Saturday “will bring widespread heavy rainfall in some locations, very heavy mountain snowfall as well, in addition to gusty winds up to 50 to 60 mph.”

“Not only could that rain produce additional flooding — and certainly we’ll see some major impacts to travel in the mountains — but those winds could also blow over trees and bring additional power outages,” Lawrence said. “We do see an additional one or two storm systems for early next week before hopefully we do finally get at least a very brief break in the weather toward the latter portions of next week.”

Authorities ticked off the statewide toll to date from the remarkable deluges since Christmas that have fallen on a state that had been parched after a series of dry winters.

• 6,000 Californians under evacuation order
• More than 20,000 still without electric power
• More than 60 major road closures, at least 32 of which are ongoing
• Seven waterways still under watch for major flooding
• Emergency declarations in 41 of California’s 58 counties
• 19 confirmed deaths — a figure that would rise to 20 if a 5-year-old boy missing since being swept away by floodwaters Monday in the San Luis Obispo County town of San Miguel isn’t found alive.

“These storms are amongst the most deadly natural disasters in the modern history of our state,” Ward said.

Authorities urged people to avoid travel over the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, heed precautions and not drive over flooded roadways.

Ward said her office is coordinating with authorities in Monterey, Santa Cruz and Merced counties “whose regions we expect to continue to be vulnerable to these next two or three storm systems, and to include the possibility of a complete cutoff of the Monterey Peninsula.

Monterey County communications coordinator Maia Carroll said Friday the Salinas River already flooded rural roads farm fields near Chualar, causing temporary closures Thursday.

But it will remain a threat through the weekend to potentially flood and close access to Highway 68 between Salinas and Monterey and other major roadways, possibly even Highway 1. If all those roadways have to be closed, the Monterey Peninsula, home to some 54,000 people in Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel and Pebble Beach, could be isolated, perhaps for days. Carroll said ambulances and other emergency equipment have been positioned on both sides of areas where roads might have to close just in case.

“It depends on Mother Nature when we can exhale,” Carroll said.

Cindy Messer, lead deputy director at the California Department of Water Resources, said the Salinas is one of seven rivers and waterways under flood watch around the state. Others include the Sacramento River at Ord Ferry, the Navarro River at Navarro in Mendocino County, the Russian River in Guerneville, Bear Creek at McKee Road in Merced, and the San Joaquin River.

The silver lining, Messer said, is the relentless downpours have eased the state’s withering drought. Overall, statewide reservoir levels remain at about 75% of their average for this time of year, she said. That’s because the largest reservoirs were so low they take a lot of water to fill.

Lake Oroville was at about 47% of its full capacity, Shasta Lake at about 42% of its capacity, Folsom Lake at 42% of its capacity and lastly San Luis reservoir at 40% of its capacity.

“We’ve had an amazing amount of rainfall,” she said.

Six-hour rain totals from the National Weather Service as of noon Friday showed just under half of an inch had fallen in San Francisco and San Mateo between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m. Oakland received one-quarter of an inch, and Walnut Creek had one-third. A one and one-half inch downpour occurred over the Santa Cruz Mountains while San Jose was virtually dry with just one-tenth of an inch.

Here are the past 6 hour precip totals for this morning #CAwx pic.twitter.com/4oEfsWfY2b

— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) January 13, 2023

The weather service projected between a quarter and one-half of an inch of new rain in San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland on Friday night. On the coast in places such as Half Moon Bay and Pacifica, forecasts showed half of an inch of rain paired with wind gusts reaching 30 mph. Projections were lower in the East Bay, with Livermore and Walnut Creek expected to reach no more than one-quarter inch of rain Friday night.

Weather service meteorologist Eleanor Dhuyvetter said Saturday is a bigger concern, but those storms aren’t expected to be among the strongest the Bay Area has seen in the new year.

Even so, “with things just so saturated right now, it really doesn’t take much for some of the flooding issues, and that’s kind of the impacts we’re seeing.”

Saturday forecasts called for wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour and an inch of rainfall in downtown San Jose. In Oakland, rain totals could be as high as one inch with 24 mph winds, and San Francisco could see three-quarters of an inch with 21 mph gusts.

Sunday could be even more moderate, with no more than one-quarter of an inch expected in urban centers. But the rain was predicted to linger, with forecasts showing wet conditions lasting into Thursday.

Soil saturation could still present problems throughout the region with trees falling and mudslides and sinkholes damaging roads.

Power outages, many caused by falling trees, were still afflicting thousands of customers in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties. Tracking site poweroutage.us Friday afternoon showed 3,665 out in Santa Cruz County and 1,589 in Santa Clara County.

Caltrans closed highway 92 in both directions from highway 35 to Pilarcitos Creek Road Thursday after a massive sinkhole opened up. As of Friday, there was no estimated time of reopening for the key roadway.

On Friday night, Santa Clara County staff issued new evacuation warnings to watershed areas near the Uvas Reservoir, Pacheco Pass River Basin and intersection of Highway 101 and Bolsa Road “due to the weather conditions and potential risks of flooding to the general public and property.”

Those areas under evacuation warning risk include Pacheco Pass River Basin for those living in the areas of:

• El Toro Road south of Highway 152 to Bloomfield Avenue
• Lovers Lane between Shore Road and Highway 152

Watershed Areas of the Uvas Reservoir including those living:

• South of Uvas Reservoir including Thousand Trails RV Park and Uvas Pines RV Park
• South of Sycamore Drive and Watsonville Road
• Homes south of Lions Peak
• South of Day Road and Geri Lane
• Watsonville and Highway 152

Highway 101 and Bolsa Road:

• South of Hwy 152, East of Highway 101
• South of Pacheco Pass (Highway 152) and east of Highway 101
• South of Luchessa Avenue and east of Thomas Road
• East of Santa Teresa Boulevard to Castro Valley Road
• North of Castro Valley Road to Luchessa Avenue
• North of Highway 25 between Highway 101 & Bloomfield Road
• West of Bloomfield Avenue between Highway 25 and Pacheco Pass (Highway 152)
• East of Highway 101 to Pacheco Pass (Highway 152)

Residents and visitors “should gather their household members, pets, personal items, important documents, prescription medication, change of clothes, non-perishable foods, water, extra batteries, flashlights, and phone chargers” and “prepare to evacuate to a safe location,” staff said in a statement.

Along the Central Coast, the weather service issued high surf warnings and a coastal flood advisory, citing a combination of high tide cycles, strong winds and heavy rain runoff.

In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the weather service issued a winter storm warning set to last from 4 a.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Tuesday, advising travel could be “very difficult to impossible,” and to expect one to two feet of snow at the Tahoe Basin and three to five feet above elevations of 7,000 feet. By Friday afternoon, chain control checkpoints were in place on Interstate 80 and Highway 50.

Staff writer Rick Hurd and George Kelly contributed.