Weeks of deadly storms in California are expected to end this Monday

At least 19 people have died in California, soaked after a series of storms that are expected to subside on Monday before drier weather arrives.

In California, where some areas have seen as much rain in three weeks as they normally do in an entire year, the latest in a series of deadly storms is expected to leave the state on Monday.

Since late December, Californians have been battered by record levels of rain and snow that have swollen rivers, flooded roads and homes, forced evacuations and left millions without power. “The rain will finally begin to ease in California Monday night, ushering in what appears to be a period of much drier weather after weeks of relentless heavy rains,” the National Weather Service wrote in its forecast for Monday.

The western state of the United States, and the most populous, is about to suffer its ninth episode of torrential rains in almost three weeks.

To facilitate aid to California, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, declared a state of serious catastrophe in that state where some 26 million people are under flood warning.

On Saturday, waterspouts hit the Pacific coast, causing many rivers to overflow their banks and inundating urban areas, homes and land that had just suffered a seemingly endless drought.

The new rains “could, in some places, cause flooding” in already waterlogged soils, the United States Weather Service (NWS) said on Sunday.

In Santa Cruz, south of San Francisco, several areas remained under flood advisories and the city beach was still littered Sunday with logs and trash washed up by the St. Lawrence River over the past two weeks.

The succession of storms since late December could soon come to an end.

The NWS forecasts “a drier period of weather over California and the southwestern United States” over the weekend.

California could then repair damage and bring electricity back to normal. Some 20,000 homes were still without power as of Sunday morning.

Extreme weather

In San Francisco, the last three months were the wettest since the winter of 1972-73. At the same time, California, whose agriculture feeds North America, is facing an unprecedented prolonged drought.

However, the torrential rains of the last few weeks will not reverse the trend. “They will not be enough to fill Lake Mead,” said the NWS, referring to the gigantic reservoir of the Colorado River that supplies water to California and whose level has been falling for years.

But the water control and retention systems – levees, artificial lakes, limited channels – “were designed 40 or 50 years ago” for “a world that no longer exists,” Newsom said Saturday. (YO)