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Southern California is set to experience a drastic drop in temperatures on Monday while a powerful winter storm is expected to hit Northern California starting late Monday and bring several inches of rain and heavy winds. An atmospheric river, or a weather system that moves high concentrations of water vapor outside of the tropics, could on Tuesday bring up 1 to 3 inches of rain to the coastal areas, with higher elevations receiving upward of 3 to 5 inches, the National Weather Service told CBS San Francisco. The atmospheric river could be as strong as a Category 3, with a...

A huge Pacific storm is poised to unleash conditions known as an “atmospheric river”, with torrential rains and strong winds putting about 10 million people at risk of flash floods in parts of northern California this weekend. The incoming tempest has raised fears of mudslides, especially in areas charred during record-setting wildfires this summer. Some parts of the Pacific north-west, including coastal Oregon, are also expected to see heavy rains and winds, the Bloomberg news website reported. Much of the Bay Area around San Francisco could see 3-3.5in of rain, with up to 8in expected at higher elevations in the...

California has seen worse: massive floods have swept through the state about every 200 years for at least the past 2,000 years, climate scientists Michael Dettinger and Lynn Ingram recount in a 2013 article. The most recent was a series of storms that lasted for a near-biblical 43 days between 1861 and 1862, creating a vast lake where California’s Central Valley had been. Floodwaters drowned thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of cattle, and forced the state’s government to move from Sacramento to San Francisco. More than 150 years have passed since California’s last, great flood — and a team...

Whip out your web site links and get ready for Phase #3 or is it #4 as it comes ashore, the hills are soggy.. the sandbags are ready.. Twenty days out from the Mayan calendar scenario.. got life jackets?

California Is About To Get Pummeled With Rivers Of Rain Mark Fischetti, Scientific AmericanNovember 30, 2012An atmospheric river (thin yellow band) feeds torrential rain into northern California on Nov. 30. Northern California is experiencing the first days of what weather forecasters are warning will be a long series of torrential rainstorms that could cause serious flooding across the northern one-third of the state. The relentless storms are being driven by a feature in the atmosphere you have probably never heard of: an atmospheric river. Oh, and another atmospheric river created the worst flooding since the 1960s in western England and...