No más; Weather weary Bay Area residents warned of new atmospheric storm
SAN FRANCISCO -- After enduring the blows from 11 atmospheric rivers since Dec. 26, it's a forecast weather weary San Francisco Bay Area residents simply do not want to hear.
State water officials were warning that as many as two more atmospheric rivers could douse the already sodden West Coast in the next week.
"Fortunately there's a few days in between, but that's pretty significant," state Climatologist Michael Anderson said during a briefing on the state's weather forecast. "Two storms to hit withing a seven-day period. And so we will see some impacts associated with the fact that we're still moving water from the first storm through the system while that second event comes ashore."
Anderson did note that the exact timing and magnitude of the storms is not certain yet, and the state may only see one storm system over the next week.
But for residents like former KPIX reporter Maria Cid Medina and her husband Justin, even one more is one too many.
"We basically did not sleep all last night knowing that there was going to be heavy rain all night, so every hour, we were waking up my husband would go and check the hallway to see if it was flooding, because we didn't know if this was going to work," Cid Medina said, pointing to a row of sandbags along the home.
Despite their efforts, water still flowed under the house.
"I shot up out of bed and saw water just gushing down onto the first floor," describing the moment her mother-in-law alerted her to flooding inside the home.
It hasn't had a chance to dry out from Sunday's storm, which flooded the bottom floor. Fans are running nonstop.
Tuesday's high winds made matters worse.
"I get a text from my husband that a tree went down and took down part of our fence, so on top of the nightmare that we're going through with the flooding in the house, now part of our fence is down," she said.
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They are not alone. The parade of potent storms have left power outages, downed trees, damaged vehicles and homes, flooded rivers and evacuations in their wake.
And "winter is not over with yet."
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"The Climate Prediction Center's 6-10 (March 20-24) Day Precipitation Outlook paints a 80-90% probability of above normal precipitation across the entire San Francisco Bay Area and Central Coast," the National Weather Service said, "Stay tuned as winter is not over with yet."
According to DWR officials, 13 rivers across the state are expected to flood due to this week's storm while the state plans to monitor another 32 for potential flooding.
On a positive note, the storms that have pelted the West Coast over the last six weeks have replenished many of the state's largest waterways and storage facilities.
According to Molly White, the chief of water operations for the State Water Project, Lake Oroville is at roughly 75 percent of its total capacity, accounting for 116 percent of its historical average storage at this time of year.
A handful of the state's other reservoirs, including Lake Sonoma, the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County and Lake Don Pedro in Tuolumne County have surpassed 100 percent of their historical average storage levels for this time of year.
