At least two people were killed when a bomb cyclone slammed into California on Tuesday, bringing destructive wind gusts, heavy rain, flash flooding and mountain snow.
A driver was killed by a falling tree near Portola Valley in unincorporated San Mateo County, according to a report from KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco.
The California Highway Patrol said the man was in a work van traveling along Alpine Road near Interstate 280 when a eucalyptus tree fell onto the vehicle, according to KTVU.
And in the East Bay’s Contra Costa County, officials said a large tree fell onto a car that was traveling in Rossmoor. The driver of that vehicle received minor injuries, but the passenger died in the incident.
Heavy rain that has been falling on already-saturated soil has caused numerous reports of flash flooding and landslides, while strong winds brought down trees across the region, knocking out power to more than 250,000 utility customers, according to PowerOutage.US. The majority of those outages were in the San Francisco Bay Area.
By early Wednesday morning, that number dropped to about 130,000 customers.
Strong winds gusting as high as 65 mph in San Francisco were responsible for blowing out windows in skyscrapers in the city’s Downtown Financial District and blew over vehicles on the Bay Bridge on Tuesday. Oakland, right across the bay from San Francisco, reported a peak wind gust of 74 mph.
Storm’s impacts to wind down Wednesday
This latest storm pushed into California and the West Coast on Monday night, bringing heavy rain and hurricane-force wind gusts that lasted throughout the day on Tuesday.
The storm also spawned a few intense thunderstorms, which prompted the National Weather Service to issue a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for over 2 million people in the San Diego area on Tuesday afternoon.
More showers and storms are expected across Central and Southern California on Wednesday, but those will begin to subside as the storm spins away from the region during the day on Wednesday.
While the heavy rain fell in the lower elevations, heavy snow was reported in the higher elevations in the Los Angeles area, as well as in the Sierra Nevada, which has already seen more than 50 feet of snow this season.
Lake Tahoe has now reported its second-snowiest winter on record, and two of its 10 snowiest months of all time have also been reported this season – January and March.
Rain will wind down as Wednesday continues, but Flood Watches remain in effect through the afternoon as rivers continue to rise from the deluge of rain in the Golden State.
Most of the Flood Watches are in effect across Central California, including Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield. In Southern California, the Flood Watches are in effect from Santa Barbara through Los Angeles, Temecula and San Diego.
Several inches of rain have fallen over the past few days, and an additional inch or two is possible from the San Francisco Bay Area south through Los Angeles and San Diego.
Snow stops on Wednesday
The bulk of the heavy snow will also begin to wind down Wednesday, but several winter weather alerts remain in effect through at least the afternoon.
Winter Storm Warnings remain for the southern Sierra Nevada and higher elevations in the Los Angeles area.
Winter Weather Advisories will remain in effect for the northern Sierra Nevada, including the Lake Tahoe area north into Susanville.
The highest elevations could see an additional foot or more of snow, but most areas can expect to see an additional 3-5 inches by the time the storm moves out of the region.
Rain, snowpack helping with California’s drought
According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor update released on March 14, only 36% of California remained in drought. That’s now the lowest drought coverage in the Golden State in nearly three years, since April 2020.
Relentless atmospheric river storms have been slamming the West, including California. In December, 98% of the Golden State was experiencing drought conditions. But as storm after storm brought rain and snow to the region, conditions have drastically improved.
The rain has also been incredibly beneficial for the state’s reservoirs, which were running dry until the onslaught of storms that started in December.
A welcome dry break in the offing for California
Once California weathers this current storm, the state should finally get a decent break from rainy forecasts.
Drier weather looms for the rest of the week once the storm exits Wednesday with the next chance of significant rain holding off until at least the middle of next week.