Heavy rains and strong winds have paralyzed parts of the US state of California and killed several people. Authorities have so far reported three deaths from the storm, as US media consistently reported.
Near Sacramento, a man was struck by a falling tree in his yard and later died from his injuries, the Sacramento County coroner’s office said on Monday. In the other two cases, two people were fatally injured by falling trees in northern California, reported the US broadcaster CNN, among others. The deaths therefore occurred on Sunday.
The storm initially raged in the greater San Francisco area and moved further south to Santa Barbara and Los Angeles on Monday. The heavy rain triggered mudslides, flooded streets and knocked out power supplies. According to the PowerOutage website, hundreds of thousands of households were temporarily without power.
The current storm is the second in a week
There are delays and cancellations at Hollywood Burbank Airport, and LAX International Airport is also affected by the extreme weather. In nearby Downtown LA, the water rose on Sunday to the tenth highest value ever measured there at 10.4 centimeters.
The National Weather Service warned of wind gusts of up to 60 miles per hour. California Governor Gavin Newsom had already warned on Sunday of a “severe storm with dangerous and potentially life-threatening impacts” and declared a state of emergency for several districts. The reason for the heavy rainfall is a weather phenomenon called “atmospheric river”.
The German Weather Service understands this to be “a relatively narrow, directed band of moisture-saturated air” with a width of around 500 kilometers and a length of around 2,000 kilometers or more. Such systems transported much of the water vapor outside the tropics. Because the moist air masses that hit California mostly come from the tropical ocean regions in the Pacific region around Hawaii, they are also called the “Pineapple Express.” The current storm is the second in a week.