San Francisco, Los Angeles to receive more heavy rain

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

There are more moisture-packed storms are expected to pay a visit to California during the first week of 2023 following an atmospheric river that dropped a historic amount of rain on the San Francisco Bay area as well as heavy snow in higher elevations on New Year’s Eve.

Because of the saturated state of the ground, another atmospheric river during the middle and latter part of the week is likely to lead to more flooding and mudslides in the Golden State, meteorologists warn.

Meteorologists describe an atmospheric river as a plume of rich moisture that extends from the tropical part of the ocean to land and can produce copious amounts of rain and mountain snow should the firehose effect linger.

More rain is coming to much of California this week, forecasters say. A weaker storm, when compared to the one that moved through on Saturday, will roll in across Northern California into Monday night before it reaches Southern California on Tuesday. Rainfall with this storm will be relatively light, ranging from a few tenths of an inch to about 1 inch.

Since this light rain will fall on ground already saturated and with some streams remaining swollen from this past weekend’s storm, some minor urban and small stream flooding can occur. The system from Monday to Tuesday will precede a larger and more disruptive storm later in the week.

A much more potent storm will be waiting in the wings over the Pacific and that system is poised to overspread Northern California late Tuesday night and Wednesday. While this storm may have a less-intense firehose effect from the ocean, compared to Saturday’s storm, it will still unload heavy rain and result in flooding and mudslides.

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