California faces rounds of rain into Friday

AccuWeather

A slow-moving storm will usher rain across California through the end of the week, and for some areas, it will be the heaviest rain since Hurricane Hilary.

Transcript

00:00 You know, we always say it never rains in Southern California.

00:04 It pours, you know, like the song.

00:06 But it's not just Southern California, but really the whole Golden State we're watching

00:09 for right now.

00:10 Let me show you.

00:11 We'll start with San Francisco, where you'll notice that in a given December, at least

00:15 to this point, December 20th, we should see about two and a half inches of rain.

00:20 We've had just about half of that, given an inch and a quarter or so in the month of December.

00:25 And honestly, most of that has been the past 48 hours in San Francisco.

00:29 You'll notice San Francisco a couple days ago looked more like San Diego.

00:32 A big fat goose egg here on the board.

00:35 Zero rainfall into San Diego so far in September or December, I should say, where we've generally

00:41 seen about an inch to this point.

00:43 But we're about to give even more rain back to the Golden State here.

00:47 And it's a problem-solution kind of situation.

00:49 Let's just talk about this first.

00:51 San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Sacramento, there's rain in your active weather exclusive

00:54 forecast as our storm comes in to the California coast here.

00:58 Now, first of all, that rain has started in Northern California, which is why we've seen

01:03 an increased amount of rainfall in San Francisco, for example, into the Bay Area, even in Sacramento

01:07 as well.

01:08 But that has led to a lot of flooding in the Sacramento Valley and even as you're getting

01:12 into the Bay Area itself.

01:14 Now the thing is, this rain is going to start drifting through today further south along

01:18 I-5 and then along the coast.

01:19 Ready?

01:20 Watch for your rainfall.

01:21 Just going to let it play out for a second.

01:23 Yeah, you see that little area of yellow?

01:25 This is right as you're getting into Santa Barbara, Ventura, and even heading down toward

01:28 LA and San Diego, we are looking at increased rainfall today, tomorrow, and Friday.

01:34 Increased rainfall to the point that flooding is once again a concern.

01:37 Not just flooding, but also the potential for mudslides and flooding in burn scar areas.

01:43 What does that mean?

01:44 Well, remember, burn scars are essentially what happen after a fire.

01:47 It looks like a scar if you were to look at the ground from the air.

01:50 It looks like a scar on your skin, but on the earth.

01:52 Now, those burn scars, they don't accept the water.

01:55 The soil does not accept the water right away.

01:57 Just like dried out ground with a drought, for example.

02:00 It's like a cementing effect.

02:01 So what happens?

02:02 Well, the water runs over the ground and you get even more flooding and sometimes mudslides

02:06 too.

02:07 I want to mention it's not even just for California we're concerned here, but as you're getting

02:10 through the California desert and out into southern Arizona, cities like Tucson and Phoenix,

02:15 we don't have a blockbuster amount of rain by, let's say, I don't know, Jacksonville,

02:19 Florida standards, but even half an inch is enough in these places to cause some problems

02:23 with flooding.

02:24 Now, in terms of the numbers, let me show you what we've got here.

02:27 Half an inch, that's small for this storm.

02:29 You can see, for example, Fresno looking at half an inch to an inch, but Santa Barbara,

02:33 the epicenter here over the next few days, looking at three to six inches of rain.

02:38 Even as we head to LA, two to four inches of rain.

02:41 And just a reminder for you, LA generally sees about two and a half inches in the entire

02:46 month of December.

02:48 So we could see about a month's worth of rainfall, not just into LA, but into many of our California

02:52 cities.

02:53 Make sure you're staying weather aware as we head through the rest of the week.

02:56 Thanks for watching.

02:57 Have a great day.

02:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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