Powerful Storm Soaks the Bay Area After Flooding Wine Country
The New York Times
An atmospheric river that has brought damaging wind, rain and snow to the Pacific Northwest fed a storm spreading as far south as Los Angeles.
A gusty storm drawing torrents of moisture from the Pacific Ocean parked itself on Friday over the San Francisco Bay Area, flooding highways and toppling power lines. Officials warned the region’s nearly eight million residents to be ready for possible floods, landslides and widespread outages.
Heavy winds forced about 450 flight delays or cancellations before noon at San Francisco International Airport, according to FlightAware, a tracking website. Elsewhere in Northern California, rivers and creeks spilled over their banks after back-to-back days of pelting rain. Roads and fields flooded.
The dangerous weather, fed by an atmospheric river from the Pacific, started Tuesday in the Pacific Northwest, killing at least two people in the Seattle area and dumping heavy snow in the mountains. Falling trees triggered widespread power outages, and more than 165,000 customers in Washington State remained without electricity on Friday.
Utility officials said the outages could last through the weekend. The ongoing wind and rain have made it difficult for crews to complete repairs.
The heaviest wind and rain have pounded a region north of San Francisco that includes Napa wine country. Santa Rosa, the North Bay area’s largest city, is expected on Friday to break its record for three consecutive days of rainfall, said Brayden Murdock, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The three-day total could be around 13 inches, far surpassing the current record of nine inches set during an atmospheric river storm in 2021. A few other spots at higher elevations in the North Bay have received even more precipitation, as much as 20 inches, he said.
