SANTA BARBARA, California — A Pacific storm that battered California's coastal areas and tied up motorists was poised to pound the southeastern part of the state through Friday, creating flooding threats in a vast area stretching from San Diego to the Mojave Desert and even into parts of Arizona.
As millions of Californians rushed to finish their holiday shopping or prepared to hit the highway, the National Weather Service issued flood warnings for low-lying urban areas and the deserts.
Showers and thunderstorms could drop up to 1.5 inches of rain throughout the day, but the real concern was that some areas could be drenched with half to an inch of rain in just an hour. , causing streams, creeks and rivers to flood, the weather service said.
On Thursday, motorists were stranded in their vehicles on flooded roads northwest of Los Angeles.
Rain showers flooded areas in the cities of Port Hueneme, Oxnard and Santa Barbara, where a police detective carried a woman on his back after the SUV she was riding in became stuck in knee-deep water.
Between midnight and 1 a.m., the storm dumped 3.18 inches (8 centimeters) of rain on downtown Oxnard, surpassing the average of 2.56 inches (6.5 centimeters) for the entire month of December, according to the National Weather Service.
Hours later, at Heritage Coffee and Gifts in downtown Oxnard, manager Carlos Larios said the storm had made no dent in their Thursday morning rush hour despite “gloomy” skies.
“People are still coming in for coffee, which is surprising,” he said. “I don't think the rain will stop many people from going out.”
By afternoon the rain and wind had subsided and residents ventured outside to view the damage. No serious damage or injuries were reported.
Sven Dybdahl, owner of olive oil and vinegar store Viva Oliva in downtown Santa Barbara, said he had trouble finding dry routes to work Thursday morning, but most of the heavy rain and flooding cleared shortly before 11 a.m.
He said he was grateful that the weather is only expected to be an issue for a few days at the end of the holiday shopping season, otherwise he would worry about how the rain will affect his store's bottom line.
“It will have an impact, but fortunately it happens quite late,” he said.
“This is a truly dramatic storm,” climate scientist Daniel Swain of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in an online briefing. “In Oxnard in particular, there were overnight downpours that preliminary data suggest were likely the heaviest rain events ever recorded in that part of Southern California.”
The storm tore through Northern California earlier this week as the center of the low-pressure system slowly moved south off the coast. Forecasters described it as a “cutoff low,” a storm cut off from the general west-to-east flow that could last for days, increasing the amount of rain.
The system produced variable rainfall bands rather than general, widespread rainfall.
Meanwhile, Californians were gearing up for holiday travel and finalizing Christmas preparations. The Automobile Club of Southern California estimates that 9.5 million people in the region will travel during the holiday season.
The Northeast was hit by an unexpectedly strong storm earlier this week, and some parts of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont were still digging out rain and wind damage. Parts of Maine along the Androscoggin and Kennebec rivers were especially hard hit.
At least seven people in East Coast states have died in the storms, with deaths reported in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and Maine.
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Antczak reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporters Stefanie Dazio and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.