LOS ANGELES — Record rains on New Year’s Eve breached three levees along the Cosumnes River near Sacramento and left tens of thousands of Californians without power Sunday.
Flash flooding along Highway 99 and other roads south of Sacramento submerged dozens of cars near Wilton, where the water poured over the levees. Search and rescue crews in boats and helicopters scrambled to pick up trapped motorists.
“I don’t want to use the term apocalyptic, but it’s ugly,” Sacramento County spokesman Matt Robinson said by phone from a stretch of Highway 99 that he described as a vast lake following the three levee overflows. “We have a lot of stuck cars.”
Downed power lines and trees crashing into homes created further trouble, said Capt. Parker Wilbourn of the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District.
“It was an extremely busy night,” he said.
Electricity remained cut off midday Sunday for more than 35,000 customers, down from more than 100,000 who lost power overnight around Sacramento.
Sunny skies on Sunday offered a respite from the downpours, but another atmospheric river was barreling across the western Pacific and was set to drench California in the days ahead.
Northern California took the brunt of the weekend pounding. Oakland had its wettest day since 1970 on Saturday with 4.75 inches of rain. A mudslide east of Oakland blocked part of Highway 580.
In San Francisco, 5.46 inches of rain fell, making Saturday the city’s second wettest day in more than 170 years, the National Weather Service reported.
The 101 Freeway in South San Francisco was shut down for flooding just as New Year’s Eve revelers were heading out to celebrate, but reopened a few hours before midnight.
While California’s drought remains far from over, the wet weather that closed 2022 has enabled at least a few of the state’s major reservoirs to exceed their historical average water supply.
Water releases from the Folsom and Nimbus dams led state parks officials to warn of safety hazards on Lake Natoma as rapidly rising water levels create dangerously strong currents.
In Los Angeles, where heavy rain fell on New Year’s Eve, forecasters expect rain to return Monday afternoon or evening, followed by a strong Pacific storm with heavy rain and strong winds late Wednesday and Thursday.
In the 48 hours before the rain stopped Sunday before dawn, 1.1 inches fell in downtown Los Angeles and 5.7 inches in the San Gabriel Mountains.
It was a relatively warm storm, so the snow level was mostly around 7,000 feet, with 3 inches falling at Mt. Baldy, said David Sweet, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
A weaker storm will drop up to an inch of rain in the L.A. area Monday night and Tuesday, he said, and then a much stronger one — another atmospheric river — is expected late Wednesday and Thursday.
“This is looking to be an extremely powerful system,” Sweet said.
Two to four inches of rain are expected at lower elevations, and three to six inches in the mountains below the snow line around 6,000 feet, he said.
The storm could also bring winds of 50 to 70 mph, with especially strong gusts north of Los Angeles.
———
