• 9 months ago
Storms are still continuing through the Southwest, but the worst is past in Southern California. Here's a wrap-up of what happened.
Transcript
00:00 About an hour ago, you were dealing with a lot of heavy rainfall and now north to San Diego.
00:05 Reid, what are the impacts you're seeing there now?
00:08 Well, we did have very heavy rain early on today and that triggered numerous flash flood warnings.
00:14 But the good news is that now the sun is out. We just had a double rainbow here at Dana Point.
00:19 And now you have blue sky. I do see some convection further up the California coast, probably up near the Malibu area.
00:26 You can see the tops of those clouds there off to the north.
00:29 But the good news is that the sun is out here at Dana Point.
00:33 Those flash flood warnings have been allowed to expire, but the runoff continues to flow into the Pacific Ocean.
00:39 That's the San Juan Creek area right there.
00:41 And you can see a lot of that runoff coming in from all the Santa Ana Mountains,
00:46 which are the taller mountain range just inland from the coast here in Southern California.
00:50 And you can definitely see that runoff from all the floodwaters.
00:54 And we had about an inch per hour rainfall rates earlier today.
00:57 And about two to four inches over the higher terrain.
01:00 So definitely not as much as we had over the previous couple of days.
01:04 But definitely some very impactful rains again here for Southern California.
01:07 And how have people responded to that?
01:11 Have you seen a lot of people out and about or crews out and about trying to work to kind of mitigate the damage?
01:16 Certainly a lot of crews are out today, especially across the Los Angeles Metro,
01:23 up in the Santa Monica Mountains where we had over a foot of rainfall out there.
01:27 You definitely saw a lot of crews that were cleaning up some of those mudslides and landslides
01:31 that impacted the steeper terrain up above the Beverly Hills area.
01:35 And out here you see a lot of sandbags as well.
01:38 So there was a lot of preparation underway here in California ahead of this Atmospheric River event.
01:44 But 12.63 inches in that 24-hour period is a very substantial amount there at UCLA.
01:51 Just incredible rainfall totals that fell over the last 48 to 72 hours.
01:56 All right, Reid, thank you so much for that update.
01:59 Again, as we follow this story with that intense rainfall that we've been dealing with in Southern California.
02:05 And let me just tell you that the numbers are very striking too.
02:08 As we open up the big board, we've got that on our list.
02:11 I mean, just look at some of these areas here.
02:13 Populated places like Bel Air, where we do have a lot of communities intertwined among the mountains.
02:19 And then off towards the south side, we have a lot of the golf course with many homes around it.
02:24 15 plus inches of rainfall.
02:27 That's what we're talking about as these Southern California mountains squeezed it out.
02:31 Next door to the east, Beverly Glen here, also dealing with some substantial rainfall too.
02:36 So no surprise that some of these numbers here are very, very high.
02:40 And when this comes down in a matter of three days, you're talking about five inches on average a day.
02:46 It is really just too much to handle.
02:48 The storm system is trying to push its way out.
02:52 And we will have some of that moisture pulling its way on through to the, as it works its way off towards east.
02:59 Meanwhile, here, let's take in on the storm reports, because we do have several of them.
03:04 We've had a lot of funnel clouds talked about in north into the Central Valley there of Southern California.
03:10 So we are dealing with some of those reports still coming in at this point in time.
03:13 Meanwhile, the flooding reports are still a problem too.
03:16 San Diego River is at 10.2 feet.
03:19 So that's going to be a concern as we hit that flood report, that flood stage.
03:23 And there's more concern with some of that rain that's still coming down as we go into the evening hours.
03:29 Elsewhere though, again, we are trying to see things quiet down.
03:32 Let's talk about it though, that flooding risk mostly confined to Southern California.
03:36 That's been the greatest risk that we've had over the past couple of hours.
03:39 And that's going to wind down as we head into tomorrow morning.
03:42 So tomorrow, our story is the storms moving out.
03:46 It's moving off towards east.
03:47 And while it does so, it's going to have some wind.
03:50 It's going to have some higher elevation snow.
03:52 And beyond that, there's a little wave pushing into California.
03:56 So San Francisco, you still have some wet weather for you.
03:58 Los Angeles, showers for you.
04:00 Phoenix, we're also looking at showers.
04:02 The core of this storm system as it pushes across the four corners will produce some more intense snows towards the Wasatch.
04:09 And even as you work your way farther east into Colorado, we do have some of that snow for some of the ski resorts.
04:14 Flagstaff, it is looking like it's going to be a one to two foot snowfall for you.
04:19 So congratulations if you're a snow lover there as we look at the AccuWeather wintercast,
04:23 which you can find anytime on AccuWeather.com or on the AccuWeather app.
04:28 Of course, as this storm system continues to pull out, there's a little bit more energy that dives through on Thursday.
04:33 And then that's departing across the southwest.
04:36 So we watch this with time.
04:37 The next few hours, still getting a lot of that moisture, still getting some of those mountain snows.
04:41 If you watch into California, San Francisco, you get a secondary short wave.
04:45 So there's a bit of energy here, just a small piece, nothing like the big storm pushing into California.
04:50 But that produces even more rain for some and more mountain snow.
04:54 A couple more inches at some of these passes.
04:57 We're looking at four to eight at Donner Pass.
04:59 Just from that little impulse of energy there pushing its way on in through Wednesday into Thursday,
05:04 Mammoth Mountain can expect another two to four inches.
05:07 But the worst of it wrapping up as we head into tomorrow, and that has been through Southern California,
05:12 where we have seen that extensive rainfall that has led to the risk for deadly flooding.
05:18 So the big concerns there.

Recommended