Perilous
Times and Climate Change
Series of massive storms threatens Calif. with flooding
By NOAKI SCHWARTZ
The Associated Press
Saturday, December 18, 2010; 6:22 PM
LOS ANGELES -- A series of winter storms bearing down on
California Saturday was threatening parts of the state with
flooding, and officials were posting mudflow warnings in areas
recently affected by wildfires ahead of this weekend's rains.
Southern California will be hit especially hard by the storms, and
officials were preparing for possible mudslides in Los Angeles,
Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
"This is one big mother and it's going to have a lot of waves in
it," National Weather Service spokesman Bill Hoffer said.
The storms could be the largest system the region has seen in the
last decade, the agency said Saturday.
Northern California was expecting 5 inches of rain in places over
the weekend, and officials in San Francisco were distributing
sandbags to residents.
Southern California could see 2 to 4 inches along the coasts and
valleys with triple that in the mountains.
The Central Valley will likely get 1 to 3 inches of rain by Monday
with up to 15 inches of rain in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which
could prompt flooding in streams and rivers, National Weather
Service meteorologist Jim Dudley said Friday.
There already have been reports of flooding across all lanes of
the southbound Interstate 5 south of the Antelope Valley Freeway
interchange in Southern California, the California Highway Patrol
said.
The patrol said Saturday that they'd already seen a fivefold
increase in traffic accidents in Los Angeles County because of the
weather. There were 264 accidents in comparison to 48 the same
time last week.
The wet conditions were expected to last through Thursday morning
with the weather drying up in time for the Christmas holidays.