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Tag: california weather

  • Heavy rains in California go away swimming pool dangling partway off cliff edge

    Torrential rains in California have compelled evacuations, energy outages and highway closures, wreaking havoc. Mudslides within the beachfront group of San Clemente left a swimming pool dangling partway off the cliff edge.

    New Delhi,UPDATED: Mar 17, 2023 08:09 IST

    The eleventh atmospheric river of the season prompted officers to warn of potential flooding and mudslides from heavy rain (Photo: Reuters)

    By Reuters: As heavy rains soaked into already sodden floor in California, mudslides within the beachfront group of San Clemente compelled evacuations of blufftop houses this week and in a single case left a swimming pool dangling partway off the cliff edge.

    Drone visuals confirmed a big chunk of the yard taken out by the mudslide. Patio furnishings and plant pots are strewn alongside the lengthy drop all the way down to the bluff’s backside.

    The West Coast is getting pounded by an often moist season following twenty years of drought, creating havoc on roads and endangering homes alongside the shoreline in southern California’s Orange County.

    This week, the eleventh atmospheric river of the season dumped extra torrential rain, inflicting energy outages and risking flooding from the already saturated soils and swollen streams.

    Although the rain had lastly tapered off within the space by Thursday, forecasters have warned that one other storm may very well be incoming subsequent week.

    ALSO READ | Flooded California sees evacuations, energy outages, highway closures, New York buried underneath snow

    Published On:

    Mar 17, 2023

  • Torrential downpour, robust winds torment California; extreme rain possible in the present day, evacuations ordered

    Authorities in California have ordered the evacuation of practically 25,000 individuals because the state is predicted to obtain extra rain in the present day. Several back-to-back storms have lashed California since December final yr.

    A automobile is caught in a sinkhole within the Chatsworth part of Los Angeles (Photo: AP)

    By India Today Web Desk: Torrential downpours and powerful winds lashed California on Tuesday, knocking out energy and turning metropolis streets into rivers. The newest Pacific storm compelled evacuation orders as terrain denuded by previous wildfires has created an elevated danger of flash floods and mudslides.

    With the soil already saturated, a lot of the harm has been concentrated across the metropolis of Santa Barbara, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Los Angeles, the place the steep foothills slope towards the Pacific Ocean.

    EVACUATIONS ORDERED

    Millions of individuals have been below flood warnings, and greater than 200,000 properties and companies have been with out energy due to heavy rains, lightning, hail and landslides.

    Officials ordered the evacuation of some 25,000 individuals, together with all the prosperous enclave of Montecito close to Santa Barbara, attributable to heightened flood and mudslide dangers.

    A automobile is trapped by mud and particles at Jameson Lane close to Highway 101 in Montecito, California (Photo: AP)

    The Montecito evacuation zone was amongst 17 California areas the place authorities fear the continued torrential downpours might unleash deadly cascades of mud, boulders and different particles on the hillsides.

    ALSO READ | What is atmospheric river that’s driving heavy rains, floods to US?

    CALIFORNIA WEATHER FORECAST

    According to the native climate report, heavy to extreme rainfall was anticipated throughout the state, particularly in southern California.

    The newest atmospheric river, which is a protracted plume of moisture stretching out into the Pacific that may drop staggering quantities of rain and snow.

    However, extra rain is predicted on Wednesday after which an extended storm system was predicted to final from Friday till January 17.

    The climate service issued a flood watch by Tuesday for all the San Francisco Bay Area, together with the Sacramento Valley and Monterey Bay.

    Debris from a mudslide blocks a avenue within the Laurel Canyon part of Los Angeles (Photo: AP)

    Areas hit by wildfires in recent times face the potential of mud and particles sliding down naked hillsides.

    Gusts as excessive as 88 miles per hour (141 kilometers per hour) have been recorded within the mountains north of Los Angeles and rainfall was anticipated to succeed in as much as half an inch (1.27 centimeters) per hour.

    Tornadoes that had been forecast by no means materialised.

    Experts say the rising frequency and depth of such storms, interspersed with excessive warmth and dry spells, are signs of local weather change. Though the rain and snow will assist replenish reservoirs and aquifers, a mere two weeks of precipitation won’t resolve 20 years of drought.

    ALSO READ | US winter storm wreaks havoc throughout Buffalo, California; horrific movies present a path of destruction

    SCENES OF DISTRAUGHT ACROSS CALIFORNIA

    The moist and blustery climate left California’s massive homeless inhabitants in a precarious scenario.

    Several distant spots have reported greater than a foot (30 cm) of rain together with the San Marcos Pass within the Santa Ynez Mountains above Santa Barbara, the place greater than 17 inches (43 cm) have fallen.

    In the Rancho Oso space of the Santa Ynez Mountains, mud and particles throughout the roadway remoted about 400 individuals and 70 horses.

    A resident retains watch on Fredonia Drive in Studio City, California, the place a mudslide is obstructing the street (Photo: AP)

    Near the coast, the California Highway Patrol closed US 101, the principle freeway connecting northern and southern California, with no estimated time for reopening.

    Many communities have been flooded, together with Goleta, the place a person rode his paddleboard by the streets. Further south within the Los Angeles neighborhood of Chatsworth, two automobiles fell right into a sinkhole that opened beneath a street.

    Cars stay in a big sinkhole alongside Iverson Road in Chatsworth, California (Photo: AP)

    Floodwaters invaded the prepare station in downtown Los Angeles, submerging a pedestrian walkway. Rockfalls and landslides shut down roads and gushing runoff turned sections of freeways into waterways.

    Swollen rivers swamped properties and residents of small communities inundated with water and dust have been stranded.

    Floodwaters encompass properties on Thornton Rd. in Merced, California (Photo: AP)

    CALIFORNIA WEATHER AND FATALITIES

    At least 17 fatalities have been attributed to a number of back-to-back storms which have lashed California since December final yr.

    The deaths included a pickup truck driver and motorcyclist, who have been killed when a eucalyptus tree fell on them on Highway 99 within the San Joaquin Valley close to Visalia, the California Highway Patrol mentioned.

    Sinkholes swallowed vehicles and floodwaters swamped cities and swept away a small boy, as California was wracked by extra wild winter whereas the following system in a strong string of storms loomed on the horizon Tuesday.

    Authorities on Tuesday mentioned much less individuals died within the final two years of main wildfires in California than have died since New Year’s Day associated to the current climate.

    Further, the current climate situations in California have been described as ‘critical’ and ‘lethal’.

    ALSO READ | Bomb Cyclone continues to batter California as streets flip into rivers

    Published On:

    Jan 11, 2023

  • ‘Parade of cyclones’ to hit California this week, state of emergency declared

    A collection of cyclones is slated to hit California this week after storms and excessive climate circumstances within the northern a part of the state killed 12 individuals some days in the past. Authorities have declared a state of emergency for Wednesday.

    New Delhi,UPDATED: Jan 9, 2023 09:56 IST

    A drone view of a tree that fell throughout a winter storm with excessive winds in Sacramento, California (Photo: Reuters)

    By India Today Web Desk: Turbulent climate rocked California on Sunday as thunderstorms, snow and damaging winds swept into the northern a part of the state. The improvement comes after every week of torrential downpours and damaging winds killed no less than 12 individuals prior to now 10 days.

    The climate circumstances led to an influence outage that crippled a whole bunch of 1000’s of houses and companies.

    Forecasters with the National Weather Service have warned that northern and central California was nonetheless within the path of a “relentless parade of cyclones,” promising little reduction for the area till the center of the week.

    A drone view of residents wanting a tree that fell throughout a winter storm with excessive winds in Sacramento, California (Photo: Reuters)DEVASTATING FLOODS, RECORD SNOWFALL IN CALIFORNIA

    Two overlapping phenomena – an immense airborne stream of dense moisture from the ocean known as an atmospheric river and a sprawling, hurricane-force low-pressure system generally known as a bomb cyclone – have triggered devastating flooding and file snowfall over the previous week.

    The newest storms vividly illustrated the results of hotter sea and air temperatures brought on by local weather change.

    ALSO READ | What is atmospheric river that’s driving heavy rains, floods to US?

    “These storms are supercharged by climate change,” California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot instructed a information convention.

    Despite the momentary deluge, the western United States stays in a two-decade drought.

    According to consultants, whereas local weather change has resulted in excessive warmth, drought and floods, the west will want a number of exceptionally wet years in a row to replenish aquifers and reservoirs.

    CALIFORNIA WEATHER FORECAST

    Monday is more likely to witness one other extreme storm and one other atmospheric river, the sixth of the season, is predicted later within the week, state officers stated.

    In the final week, extreme climate spawned violent wind gusts that toppled vans, flooded the streets of small cities alongside northern California’s coast and churned up a storm surge that destroyed a pier in Santa Cruz.

    The heavy rain and snow have triggered vital flooding and floor saturation, which might imply the following storm will transfer by this week and would deliver a further flood risk, the National Weather Service stated.

    Five toes (1.5 meters) of snow might fall on the Sierra Nevada mountains by Tuesday.

    A state of emergency has been declared for Wednesday.

    Authorities on the White House have additionally been requested to challenge a federal emergency declaration forward of the approaching storms.

    ALSO READ | Bomb cyclone wreaks havoc in California

    Published On:

    Jan 9, 2023

  • Spaghetti sauce Is below menace as water disaster slams tomatoes

    Tomatoes are getting squeezed.

    California leads the world in manufacturing of processing tomatoes — the variability that will get canned and utilized in industrial kitchens to make a number of the hottest meals. The drawback is the worst drought in 1,200 years is forcing farmers to grapple with a water disaster that’s undermining the crop, threatening to additional push up costs from salsa to spaghetti sauce.

    “We desperately need rain,” Mike Montna, head of the California Tomato Growers Association, stated in an interview. “We are getting to a point where we don’t have inventory left to keep fulfilling the market demand.”

    Lack of water is shrinking manufacturing in a area liable for 1 / 4 of the world’s output, which is having an influence on costs of tomato-based merchandise. Gains in tomato sauce and ketchup are outpacing the rise in US meals inflation, which is at its highest in 43 years, with drought and better agricultural inputs responsible. With California climate-change forecasts calling for warmer and drier circumstances, the outlook for farmers is unsure.

    “It’s real tough to grow a tomato crop right now,” Montna stated. “On one side you have the drought impacting costs because you don’t have enough water to grow all your acres, and then you have the farm inflation side of it with fuel and fertilizer costs shooting up.”

    Bruce Rominger, a fifth-generation farmer, slashed rice sowing by 90% to make room for tomatoes on his farm in Winters, California. (Source: Bloomberg)

    California restrictions limiting groundwater use and hovering prices for labor, gasoline and fertilizer have prompted complications for producers corresponding to Woolf Farming. It prices the Fresno County-based grower and processor round $4,800 an acre to develop and harvest a tomato crop today in contrast with $2,800 a decade in the past, based on Rick Blankenship, vice chairman of farming operations. Most of the will increase have been within the final two years. This season’s bounty prices extra and delivers much less.

    “Yields are way off this year,” Blankenship stated in an interview. “Coupled with drought, we’ve had high temperatures and that in itself creates an issue where the tomatoes are so hot that they just don’t size properly — so you have a lot of tomatoes on a plant, but they are smaller.”

    Getting increased worth for crops from the sphere is often an incentive for farmers, but this season’s negotiated fee of $105 a ton for the tomatoes — an all-time excessive — will not be sufficient to beat the trade’s challenges.

    “You would think that it was a home run for growers, but in reality the input costs have gone up so much that the potential profit was all gobbled up,” Blankenship stated.

    The water woes have led to crop shifting as growers attempt to gauge what commodity will deliver the most important returns. Bruce Rominger, a fifth-generation farmer, slashed rice sowing by 90% to make room for tomatoes. He hopes to show a revenue on the 800 acres of tomatoes he started harvesting in July—although it’s of venture.

    “It’s a high-risk crop and our yields so far are below average,” Rominger stated, noting that extreme warmth, lack of water and mid-April frost took its toll.

    A tomato subject in Winters, California, US, on Friday, Aug. 12, 2022. (Source: Bloomberg)

    And it’s solely getting worse. Higher temperatures will shrink provide of processing tomatoes in key areas within the subsequent few a long time, with the US, Italy and China anticipated to say no 6% by 2050, based on an instructional examine printed in Nature Food. Increasing warmth and water constraints might make it particularly powerful for California and Italy to keep up present manufacturing ranges, the June report stated.

    The California crop has been beneath the current manufacturing peak of 14.4 million tons in 2015 for the previous six years, and 2022 is shaping as much as proceed the development, based on US Department of Agriculture knowledge. The trade expects this yr’s harvest to fall beneath the USDA’s 11.7 million tons estimate.

    “Despite low supply and a substantial increase in price, contracted production has dropped significantly compared to the beginning of 2022,” the USDA stated in its May report on California’s processing tomato crop, noting that water availability is the principle problem dealing with producers.

    “There are simply not enough acres of processing tomatoes being planted this year to ensure that everybody gets their full supply,” stated R. Greg Pruett, gross sales and vitality supervisor for Ingomar Packing Co., one of many world’s largest tomato processors. “The water is either too expensive or just not available at any cost.”

    Such pressures are being mirrored in Ingomar’s processed merchandise. Tomato paste costs for shoppers of the corporate, which sells to a number of the largest US meals manufacturers, are up as a lot as 80% from a yr in the past. With inventories dropping to critically low ranges, although, provide isn’t out there for everybody.

    “If you are looking for a significant amount of tomato paste and you haven’t already contracted it then you aren’t going to get it no matter what the price is,” Pruett stated in a cellphone interview. “It’s just not there.”

    Since tomato-based merchandise are arduous to substitute, demand isn’t particularly delicate to cost modifications. Still, it’s an added price for customers. The value of tomato sauce within the 4 weeks ended July 10 is up 17% from a yr in the past, whereas ketchup is 23% increased, based on market analysis agency IRI.

    “There is obviously a point where that relationship is going to break down if frozen pizzas and pasta sauce and other staple items get priced to the point where the average consumer wants to decide to do something else,” Pruett stated.

  • Climate change makes drought restoration harder in US West

    Californians rejoiced this week when massive drops of water began falling from the sky for the primary time in any measurable manner because the spring, an annual soaking that heralds the beginning of the wet season following among the hottest and driest months on document.
    But because the rain was starting to fall on Tuesday night time, Gov. Gavin Newsom did a curious factor: He issued a statewide drought emergency and gave regulators permission to enact obligatory statewide water restrictions in the event that they select.
    Newsom’s order might sound jarring, particularly as forecasters predict as much as 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain may fall on elements of the Northern California mountains and Central Valley this week. But consultants say it is sensible for those who consider drought as one thing brought on not by the climate, however by local weather change.
    For many years, California has relied on rain and snow within the winter to fill the state’s main rivers and streams within the spring, which then feed a large system of lakes that retailer water for consuming, farming and power manufacturing. But that annual runoff from the mountains is getting smaller, principally as a result of it’s getting hotter and drier, not simply because it’s raining much less.
    In the spring, California’s snowpack within the Sierra Nevada mountains was 60% of its historic common. But the quantity of water that made it to the reservoirs was much like 2015, when the snowpack was simply 5% of its historic common. Nearly all the water state officers had anticipated to get this 12 months both evaporated into the warmer air or was absorbed into the drier soil.
    “You don’t get into the type of drought that we’re seeing in the American West right now just from … missing a few storms,” stated Justin Mankin, a geography professor at Dartmouth College and co-lead of the Drought Task Force on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “A warm atmosphere evaporates more water from the land surface (and) reduces (the) amount of water available for other uses, like people and hydropower and growing crops.”
    California’s “water year” runs from October 1 to September 30. The 2021 water 12 months, which simply ended, was the second driest on document. The one earlier than that was the fifth driest on document. Some of the state’s most essential reservoirs are at document low ranges. Things are so unhealthy in Lake Mendocino that state officers say it might be dry by subsequent summer season.
    Even if California have been to have above-average rain and snow this winter, warming temperatures imply it nonetheless doubtless received’t be sufficient to make up for all of the water California misplaced. This previous 12 months, California had its warmest ever statewide month-to-month common temperatures in June, July and October 2020.
    Jeanine Jones, interstate sources supervisor for the California Department of Water Resources, stated individuals mustn’t take into consideration drought “as being just this occasional thing that happens sometimes, and then we go back to a wetter system.”
    “We are really transitioning to a drier system so, you know, dry becomes the new normal,” she stated. “Drought is not a short-term feature. Droughts take time to develop, and they usually linger for quite some time.”
    Water regulators have already ordered some farmers and different massive customers to cease taking water out of the state’s main rivers and streams. Mandatory water restrictions for normal individuals might be subsequent.
    In July, Newsom requested individuals to voluntarily cut back their water use by 15%. In July and August, individuals reduce 3.5%. On Tuesday, Newsom issued an govt order giving state regulators permission to impose obligatory restrictions, together with banning individuals from washing their automobiles, utilizing water to scrub sidewalks and driveways and filling ornamental fountains.
    State officers have warned water companies that they won’t get any water from the state’s reservoirs this 12 months, a minimum of initially. That can be very difficult, stated Dave Eggerton, govt director of the Association of California Water Agencies.
    But he stated he believes Californians will begin to preserve extra water quickly with the assistance of a statewide conservation marketing campaign, which is able to embrace messages on digital signboards alongside busy highways.
    “It’s going to happen,” he stated. “People are starting to get the message, and they want to do their part.”