LOS ANGELES — Record-breaking flooding over three days dumped more than a foot of rain in parts of Northern California, a fire forced the evacuation of thousands of people in Los Angeles County, forecasters issued the first-ever tornado warning in San Francisco and rough seas collapsed part of a wharf in Santa Cruz.
All this extreme weather has hit California in recent weeks, demonstrating the state’s particular vulnerability to major weather disasters.
Heavy storm on Tuesday produced waves that forecasters said could reach 35 feet (10.7 meters) around Santa Cruz. The National Weather Service has issued a high surf advisory until early evening, warning people to stay out of the ocean and away from piers.
For Chandler Price, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego, these extreme weather events are both typical and unusual for a country. La Nina winter, a natural climate cycle that can cause extreme weather across the planet. In California, this means a wetter-than-average northern region and a drier south.
“So far we’ve seen this pattern playing out quite well,” he said, but added: “It’s clear that the tornado in the Bay Area was atypical. … We haven’t seen that before, at least not in a long time.”
A storm and gusts of up to 60 miles per hour prompted a tornado warning in San Francisco that extended into neighboring San Mateo County, which went out to about 1 million people earlier this month. The tornado overturned cars and toppled trees and utility poles near a shopping center in Scotts Valley, about 70 miles south of San Francisco, injuring several people. Tornadoes occur in California, but rarely affect populated areas.
In San Francisco, local meteorologists said straight-line winds, not a tornado, felled trees on cars and streets and damaged roofs.
The storm also dumped significant snow in the northern Sierra Nevada.
F. Martin Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the University of California, San Diego, said climate change means that atmospheric rivers, long stretches of wet air that can produce heavy rainfall, will be responsible for more of climate change. of annual precipitation in California and the periods between these major events will be drier. These storms are essential for water supplies, but can also be dangerous.
“If they’re too strong and too many in a row, we end up having floods,” he said, adding that they cause California’s weather extremes.
During storms around Santa Cruz this week, one man became trapped under rubble and died, while another person was pulled into the ocean. The surf also splintered off the end of a municipal wharf in Santa Cruz that was under construction, sending three people into the ocean. One swam to shore and the other two were rescued.
A series of atmospheric rivers are expected for the rest of the week. Overall, this pattern is not unusual: these storms regularly produce high winds, heavy snowfall in the mountains and torrential rain at this time of year.
“What’s a little unique about this setup is how close together they are, so there’s not much difference between the two,” said David Lawrence, a meteorologist and emergency management specialist with the National Weather Service.
Bad storms also hit the state ahead of Thanksgiving, More than 12 inches of rain will be dumped on Santa Rosa over three record days, according to federal forecasters.
But these storms have not extended far south, creating dry weather in Southern California that increases fire risk.
One of the most recent fires in the state, the Franklin Fire left about 20,000 people under evacuation orders and warnings and forced Pepperdine University students to shelter in place. The fire was fueled by the Santa Anas, the infamous seasonal winds that blow dry air from inland to the coast and push back moist sea breezes.
The bulk of the destruction took place in Malibu, a community in the western corner of Los Angeles known for its beautiful cliffs and Hollywood-famous Zuma Beach. The fire damaged or destroyed 48 buildings and is one of nearly 8,000 wildfires that have scorched more than 1 million acres in the Golden State this year.
The Santa Ana winds, which peak in December, have also contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in parts of the southern state, said Price of the National Weather Service.
“Christmas in eighty degrees (26.7 degrees Celsius) is not entirely unusual here,” he added, but “there were a few record-breaking temperatures in the mountains, which tend to be less affected by the Santa Anas, and so those were a few bit unusual.”
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Phillis reported from St. Louis.
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Associated Press writers Martha Mendoza and Stefanie Dazio contributed to this story.
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