After widespread rain across California in the past week – resulting in at least one death – weather officials are expecting a Thanksgiving recovery.
A tropical storm this week dumped record rainfall in Northern California, before weakening as it moved down the coast into Southern California. Meteorological officials said light rain is expected across the region from Monday and will continue till Tuesday.
“Our biggest concern this week is the Thanksgiving crowd,” said Dylan Flynn, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “If you go on a Wednesday, you'll have a better chance of staying dry.”
Another system moving through Monday — mostly aimed at the Central Coast — could bring 1 to 3 inches of rain, Flynn said. That would be as much rain as the region saw in a six-hour period during a river that is now raining over a two-day period.
“Spreading that out will make it less impactful,” Flynn said. “Overall this is kind of a typical winter event compared to what we just went through.”
The actual Thanksgiving day and Wednesday, Flynn said, “looks like we're going to be dry.”
Flynn called the program's impact on Northern California this week “unprecedented,” citing the record amount of rain in Santa Rosa, with 12.47 inches that fell in three days. Flynn said officials have never seen this much in 120-plus years.
“Statistical analysis shows that that amount of rain in the city of Santa Rosa is expected to occur once every 1,000 years,” he said. “It's never happened before, we've never seen it before, we don't expect to see it again.”
Flynn said the atmospheric river was stationary for several days, sitting over the North Bay – with moderate rainfall for 48 hours straight – before it began to move and affect the entire Bay area. When the system finally started marching south, it resulted in a flash flood warning for San Francisco, which Flynn called “very rare.”
Weather officials also saw the first-ever flooding of the Russian River, near Guerneville. That area tends to flood in late winter, usually in February, according to Flynn.
Authorities have identified at least one driver who was found dead in a car that was found in the water. According to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office, around 11:30 a.m. Saturday, a bystander called to report a vehicle in a flooded area near Mays Canyon Road and Highway 116. Authorities were able to extricate the man from the vehicle, but he was identified. dead at the scene.
According to Flynn, all major rivers are below flood stage now, with only a few streams still in flood.
“The big issue is what happened last week and the recovery from that,” he said.
In the LA area Saturday, rainfall totals were less than a tenth of an inch, with some mountain areas getting about a quarter of an inch, according to Mike Wofford, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
Wofford said the next chance of rain in the LA and Ventura areas is most likely Monday night into Tuesday, and is expected to be less than an inch. Temperatures are expected to range from the low to upper 60s, with mostly cloudy skies.
“A little bit of rain at times, but for us it's going to be – it's not normal as most of us expect it to be sunny and 72 every day – it's going to be different than that, but not as impactful,” Wofford said. Closer to Long Beach and down into Orange County, that rain is decreasing, with less than a quarter of an inch expected, he said.
The rain is expected to stop after Tuesday, and some may begin next weekend.
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