Pause Before More Storms

After two days of heavy rain, which brought evacuations, scattered power outages and flooded roads and parks, Californians are able to take a dry breath as the rain lets up temporarily. But in the midst of a week-long spurt of harsh weather up and down the West Coast, the rain won't pause long.

Residents in Northern California are bracing for additional flooding as more Pacific storms move their way. The storms are expected to begin Friday and continue through the New Year's weekend.

In the heart of Sonoma County wine country, residents and visitors alike are surprised by what they've seen. Mary Stuart, who co-owns Vintage Towers Bed and Breakfast in Cloverdale, says tourists are seeing "entire vineyards underwater." And she says it's the first time she's ever heard reports of water up to the top of the grapevines.

The first in what is expected to be a series of drenching winter storms prompted flood warnings and swelled Northern California rivers to their highest levels in seven years.

It's a mess that may have turned deadly. The NTSB is investigating what role the rain and snow played in a lear jet crash not far from Tahoe, Calif., reports CBS News correspondent Sandra Hughes. The pilot and passenger died on impact.

In the San Francisco Bay area, the National Weather Service says as much as six inches of rain could fall on some areas of the North Bay between early tomorrow and Saturday morning.

Clean up also was under way after the latest in a series of storms dumped up to a foot of snow in the mountains of Washington state, reports Hughes. To the south, in Oregon, it was rain that was making the mess.

In Nevada, the first of a series of storms headed for the Sierra and northern Nevada fell a little short of predictions, but still blasted the area with wind, soaked the western valleys and brought out road controls in the Sierra.

After the rain changed to snow, 10 inches accumulated at the Mount Rose-Ski Tahoe resort. Alpine Meadows Ski Resort reported 24-34 inches of new snow since Christmas Day.

Warnings went into effect across the northern half of California after the first storm swept through Tuesday and Wednesday.

"The ground is going to be so saturated that any additional heavy rain on Friday and Friday night will allow those rivers to quickly rise and we could easily see additional flooding problems," National Weather Service forecaster Dwayne Dykeman told KCBS Radio.

Steady downpours and rising rivers led to an evacuation, scattered power outages, and flooded roads and parks. After rivers in Northern California already swelled to their highest levels in seven years, preparations are underway along the already flooding Russian River for even worse conditions next week, CBS' Bianca Solorzano reports. And to the south, in surf territory, the conditions are anything but safe.

"Better safe than sorry, I'm not going to wait until the last minute," said Monte Rio, Calif., resident Janis Hug.

Water district officials in Sacramento closed a flood gate on the American River as a precaution.

"It's been several years since we've had this widespread of flooding, and we're not done," said Rob Hartman of the National Weather Service's California-Nevada River Forecast Center in Sacramento.

The last significant flooding in Northern California was during the El Nino year of 1998 and a year earlier, when three people died after levees collapsed north of Sacramento. The danger is lower this time because there was relatively little snow in the Sierra Nevada to be melted by the warm rains.

More storms are forecast to begin Friday and remain through the New Year's weekend. The next system is expected to spread farther south and bring the potential of mudslides, debris flows and flash floods in recently burned areas of Southern California by Saturday, Hartman said.

That makes float builders at the Tournament of Roses Parade nervous, reports Hughes.

"It can't rain ... because then all this will go to waste!" said Keith Van Stratten.

It hasn't rained on the Rose Parade floats in 51 years, but even if it does, don't expect all this hard work to go to waste. Never in its 116-year history has the parade been cancelled.

Hillsides already were giving way in some parts of Northern California, as the steady rain soaked ground that was saturated. In Modesto, a mudslide led to a pileup that killed a motorist on Monday. In Mendocino County, four homes near Fort Bragg were evacuated after a landslide Tuesday night.

CBS' Manuel Gallegus reports that San Francisco homeowners are on edge over the prospect of new storms. But some realize it is out of their hands. One told Gallegus: "It's like an earthquake. If it happens, it happens."

Rivers were cresting from the Napa County wine country to the far northern coast, including the Russian, Navarro, Scott, Klamath and Eel rivers. They are expected to rise to flood stage periodically through the weekend without causing severe damage.

"We're getting an early start on the rain and snow season, which is good as long as we don't get flooding," said Don Strickland, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources.

The main concern is heavy runoff overwhelming the Central Valley's intricate system of dams, weirs and levees. Housing developments have boomed in valley flood plains in recent years, raising the stakes for water managers who try to empty downstream reservoirs before they overflow with runoff.

Federal and state water managers were releasing torrents of water at the Oroville and Folsom dams, but both reservoirs had plenty of capacity to handle additional runoff.

"We're in good shape," said Jeff McCracken, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. "The system's working everywhere it should. This is a wet storm, but there's not a lot of snow to melt like there was in '96-'97."

The northern Sierra had 226 percent of its normal precipitation for this time of year. Most has fallen as rain, although a weekend cold front is expected to bring snow. Wet, heavy snow at the highest elevations prompted an avalanche warning Tuesday and Wednesday on Mount Shasta, north of the Sierra in the Cascade Range.

The Sacramento River is expected to rise to 27 feet by the weekend, four feet below its flood level. That is still high enough to concern water managers, who plan to open a massive weir north of downtown and divert river water to a vast wetlands.