'Biggest storm of winter' to slam southern California
The "biggest storm of the winter" is poised to slam into southern California on Friday and Saturday, bringing drenching rain, heavy mountain snow and howling winds — and also taking a massive chunk out of the region's lingering drought.
Floods, mudslides, rockslides, travel delays and power outages are all possible, the National Weather Service warned.
It will likely be the strongest storm in the past six years and potentially as far back as 2004 or 1995, the weather service in Los Angeles wrote in an online forecast.
"This is not a typical storm," said Kathy Hoxsie, a weather service meteorologist.
More than 20 million people, including the entire metro areas of Los Angeles and San Diego, are under a flash flood watch. Even Death Valley National Park, considered the driest place in the U.S., is under a flood watch, Weather.com said.
Los Angeles could see one of its rainiest days on record Friday. If the city picks up more than 4.1 inches of rain, that would crack its list of top 10 rainiest days since records began in 1877, according to Weather Channel meteorologist Greg Diamond.
About 3 to 6 inches of rain is expected around Los Angeles, with 6 to 12 inches of rain likely in the mountains below snow levels, said AccuWeather meteorologist Ken Clark
Thunderstorms are possible later Friday into early Saturday in parts of Southern California, some of which could spin up a tornado or two, Weather.com said.
Wind gusts could howl up to 70 mph in the higher terrains of the Los Angeles area. Large, damaging surf is also forecast to hit the coast, causing beach erosion. The Sierra Nevada and the mountains of Southern California will likely receive 1 to 2 feet of snow from the storm, potentially making roads impassable.
There is a silver lining to the storm —it will take another big chunk out of the drought over Southern California, AccuWeather said. "The storm is good news for California, except for the flooding," said NOAA meteorologist Anthony Artusa.
The winter has already been one for the record books in the state. Since Oct. 1, it's been the second-wettest water year to date in California, according to Paul Iñiguez, a weather service meteorologist in Phoenix. California's "water year" runs from October through September. The weekend storm could easily push it to the wettest water year on record, Iñiguez tweeted.
Coming off such a historic multi-year drought, the recovery has been "phenomenal," said Mark Svoboda, the director of the National Drought Mitigation Center. "Torrential rains and flooding can make quick work of droughts, but we still do have some surface and groundwater concerns in SoCal," he said.
While northern California will miss out on the brunt of the storm, another is lined up to hit that part of the state late Sunday. It could aggravate the situation around Oroville and other reservoirs filled to capacity in Northern California, AccuWeather said.
Contributing: Ventura County Star