Continuous showers/ storms lead to more issues across California

The state of California remains under a state of emergency caused by continuous widespread showers that have lead to devastating flooding and debris flows. A debris flow; otherwise known as a landslide, occurs whenever saturated loose soil begins to rush downhill bringing with it mud, trees, and at times large boulders the size of cars.

For the past several weeks, showers and storms have been nearly continuous and conditions remain the same. Heavy showers continue across much of northern California with snow in northeastern parts back towards Reno, Nevada. Rescue efforts for many residents have been underway from trapped cars in floods to devastating debris flows.

In the past seven days, some areas have seen near record rainfall amounts even though much of the state was just seeing extreme drought conditions just under a week ago. Many areas have exceeded the 6" range of rainfall, but some areas in far northeastern California are nearly up to 15".

There are still multiple low pressure systems in line to continue to spur heavy rains throughout the next week. A system moving in Tuesday is expected to bring the heaviest rainfall totals while another system will move in suit by Thursday.

With these next several systems, a majority of the northern half of California can see an additional 6" of rainfall with some isolated areas seeing up to 10" more. With many wildfires occurring this past fall and summer, thousands of acres of lands are prime candidates for more debris flows as there is nothing to anchor the saturated soil down. This means issues will continue to poor down on already rain drenched areas providing no relief to already potentially life threatening situations.