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A powerful atmospheric river weather system has mostly moved through California but not before causing at least six deaths and dousing much of the state.
Early Monday lingering thunderstorms pose the risk of mudslides in areas of Los Angeles county that were recently ravaged by wildfire.
Flood advisories remained in place through Sunday afternoon for LA, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, where localized showers were still possible after heavy downpours on Friday and Saturday.
“Due to the abundant rainfall the past couple of days, it will not take as much rainfall to cause additional flooding/rockslide conditions,” the National Weather Service said in a Sunday update.
And authorities on Monday were still searching for a five-year-old girl who was swept into the ocean by 15ft waves at a state beach in Monterey county on Friday. The girl’s father, 39-year-old Yuji Hu, of Calgary, Alberta, was killed while trying to save his daughter, sheriff’s officials said on Sunday.
And in northern California, Sutter county north of Sacramento, a 71-year-old man died on Friday after his vehicle was swept off a flooded bridge, according to the California highway patrol.
Much further south, a wooden boat believed to have been ferrying migrants toward the US from Mexico capsized in stormy seas off the coast of San Diego, leaving at least four people dead and four hospitalized, the US Coast Guard said on Saturday.
And south-west of Los Angeles there was flooding in the Palm Springs area and road closures throughout the desert area of the Coachella valley.
The long plume of tropical moisture that formed over the Pacific Ocean began drenching the San Francisco Bay Area last Wednesday night and then unleashed widespread rain over southern California on Friday and Saturday.
More than 4in of rain fell over coastal Santa Barbara county as the storm approached Los Angeles. Parts of the Sierra Nevada received more than a foot of snow.
The weather service said scattered rain could continue through Tuesday in the southern part of the state. Another storm was expected to arrive on Thursday.
Amid the climate crisis, warming oceans are supercharging such atmospheric river storms, making them deadlier and costlier.
Atmospheric rivers have long been important features of weather systems across the US west and are vital to replenishing the state’s reservoirs and snowpack. But filled with enough moisture to rival flows at the mouth of the Mississippi – and often many times more – the strong systems that carry water across the Pacific also often cause the most destructive floods.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
