A powerful weather system from the Gulf of Alaska brought more wind, rain and snow to northern California, reeling a state already battered by months of storms.
The National Weather Service said the storm was expected to pull a plume of Pacific moisture into California as it tracked south, but the rainfall was not expected to be as intense as the atmospheric rivers that impacted the state in recent weeks.
Still, forecasters warned of heavy snow in coastal mountains and the Sierra Nevada, where accumulations up to 4ft (1.2 meters) were possible.
After a dozen previous atmospheric rivers and blizzards fueled by arctic air, the water content of California’s Sierra Nevada snowpack is more than double normal overall, and nearly triple in the southern Sierra.
But the onslaught also has brought severe damage across the state, including buildings crushed by snow, flooding of communities and farm fields and homes threatened by landslides.
Crews on Monday tore down a historic pier in Santa Cruz county that was in danger of collapse. The 500ft-long (152-meter) wooden pier at Seacliff State Beach was severely damaged by big surf in January. Built in 1930, the pier connected the beach to SS Palo Alto, a grounded first world war-era steamship known as the “cement ship”.
On the positive side, the storms have brought much-needed water. The state’s two largest reservoirs, Shasta and Oroville, have risen above their historical averages to date after being significantly depleted.
Cities and farmers that rely on the Central Valley Project, the federally managed water system, got a big boost in their allocations on Tuesday. The increase in supply means that many providers of irrigation water supplied by the CVP will see the amount they can draw jump from as little as 35% of their contracted total to 80%. Providers for city and industrial uses will be allowed 100% of their historic use instead of just 75%, the bureau said.
In southern California, the Metropolitan Water District is bringing water from the north to fill its huge Diamond Valley Lake, a reservoir that had diminished to 60% of capacity after three years of drought. It is expected to be full again by year’s end.
“God gave us a lifeline,” the MWD general manager, Adel Hagekhalil, wished he had said on Monday as officials watched water pour into the reservoir.
