Posted on 12/28/2005 4:44:57 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - The first in what is expected to be a series of drenching winter storms has prompted flood warnings and swelled Northern California rivers to their highest levels in seven years.
Warnings went into effect across the northern half of the state after the first storm swept through Tuesday and Wednesday. Steady downpours and rising rivers led to an evacuation, scattered power outages, and flooded roads and parks. 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.
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.
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 warm rains melting the early season snowpack in the Sierra, sending flood waters cascading out of the range and overwhelming the Central Valley's intricate system of dams, weirs and levees.
Housing developments have boomed in Central 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.
I hope Californians try to prepare beforehand this year..
They know it's going to happen..
up to 14 inches in some spots possible the next few days as 2 new storms approach per latest local weather on tv.
We should find out who's been praying for rain and send them to Colorado.
Hi CO,, looks like a wet and wild New Year ahead..
Send some to Texas!
Yeah... The stupidly named "Vic Fazio Wildlife Preserve!"
These idiots are scramblin to drain Folsom Reservoir because they didn't build it with enough outlets because the Auburn Dam and Reservoir just upstream was to serve as the flood control element on one of the world's steepest and fastest watersheds!!!
Now they won't finish what they had 2/3rds completed in 1977 mainly do to Democrat Party petty politics!!!
Dang! that'll float a few logs..
Time for a vacation in Phoenix, Corpus Christi, someplace..
Send some to Texas!
I hear ya, what a tragedy.
Let's face it..
If it wasn't flooding, there would be brush fires everywhere..
It's either Hell or Paradise, no in between..
"Send some to Texas!"
No kidding. Even drizzle would be cause for celebration.
Actually, it's been pretty steady and gentle, no gully-washers at all. Of course, now it's totally saturated, so if we do get a good dump it'll do some damage.
I'll be out there with my shovel upon occasion.
I like the storms. They do take a lot of preparation though (not to mention money). Still, it's cheaper than the damage of doing nothing, which is what most people do. It gets tiring bailing out the ignorant and lazy.
As I used to jab all the envirowhackos screaming about all the impervious surfaces created by the evils of malignant development... Saturated surfaces are also "impervious surfaces!"
Not really. There is substantial pulse-dissipation capacity in leaf, duff, and meander not found in pavement, even after it's already soaked. It's the thrity minute deluge that does the real damage around here. Further down it makes less difference.
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