San Francisco and the Bay Area contended with monster rains that resulted in flooding throughout the region.
The vast part of California has received much needed rain this New Years weekend. The rainfall has breached records and is threatening some levees in small towns.
Nowhere has the rainfall been more dramatic than in Northern California; the rain has caused for Oakland to become inundated as well as the entirety of Alameda County. Throughout the region, more than 10x the normal number of dispatch calls were made to provide emergency services. First responders were stretched thin throughout, according to a local bay area Fox broadcaster.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/bare-area-rains-trouble-everywhere
In Sacramento county, the flooding of an entire town has led to conflicting advice regarding evacuation orders. On the one hand, the local levee breaking will cause Winton, California to be inundated prompting an evacuation order. However, the same rain has led to some motorists receiving advice to stay at home – the two orders effectively cancel one another out depending on immediate risk.
Curiously, neighboring Yolo county appears unaffected with its mostly plain agricultural lands and well built drainage system. The ‘atmospheric river‘ does appear to snake over the region, but not to the extent necessary to flood the region. According to the NOAA, the atmospheric river is “carrying an amount of water vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River”. Apparently, an atmospheric river is a flowing column of condensed water that can produce large amounts of rain or snow as it descends and warms closer to the surface.
Floods Everywhere
Places like Redwood City, Menlo Park and Palo Alto all had to deal with the issue of excessive rain in their throughways and streets. Redwood City had water reaching several feet with many residents shoveling water throughout residential and commercial zones.
The 101 Floods
In many parts of the 101 freeway onramp, floods made the critical piece of infrastructure unusable. However, earlier today 1/1/22 the roads were once again reopened for normal traffic. Even so, ‘atmospheric rivers’ or rather fairly dense clouds with millions of pounds of water will provide potentially much more water. It should be noted that much of California has suffered from droughts as recently as summer of 22.
The 580 was also affected and CHP continues to monitor the situation.
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