California NOW: Battling the Wrath of Atmospheric Rivers

California has been hit by a storm caused by a massive atmospheric river. This storm marks the second to strike California within a week. The storm system unleashed on Sunday resulted in destructive wind gusts in northern California and along the central coast, bringing torrents of rain and snow. Consequently, the National Weather Service issued a rare hurricane-force wind warning.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, wind speeds exceeded 60 miles per hour, while mountainous areas experienced gusts surpassing 80 miles per hour. Heavy rain flooded streets, and the wind toppled trees and power lines.
Eight counties in California, including Los Angeles and San Diego, declared a state of emergency. According to poweroutage.us, powerful wind gusts damaged power lines, leaving around 550,000 out of 15 million registered electricity consumers in the state without power early Monday morning on February 6.
As the storm moved south, officials warned of potentially devastating floods and ordered evacuations in canyons that had recently suffered from wildfires, posing a high risk of mudslides and debris flows. Evacuation orders and warnings were in effect in mountainous areas and canyons in the counties of Monterey, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles.
"All the highways are flooded here," reported Ventura County resident Alexis Herrera, who found herself in a flood. "I don't know how I'm going to move my car."
In Santa Barbara, schools were closed on Monday, and the airport was also closed due to flooding. Sepulveda Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains received 9.95 inches of rain. In downtown Los Angeles, 5.96 inches of rain fell since Sunday, significantly more than the usual amount for the entire month of February.
The rains caused "significant" road flooding in Malibu canyon roads, leading to road closures. The city is also preparing for "significant" beach erosion. Early Monday morning, a mudslide affected several homes in Encino, northwest of Los Angeles.
"We're not used to this much rain; we're used to perfect weather," said the mayor of San Diego, preparing for the storm's impact. "These atmospheric rivers are something that probably many of us didn't even know about as kids, but now they seem to be almost constantly present in our lives."
A powerful atmospheric river is moving at an agonizingly slow pace across Southern California. Normally, storms move across the United States from west to east at a constant speed, but this time, an atmospheric feature high above the surface is causing the storm to stall over Southern California. This is very bad news for the region, as the longer the rain persists, the more severe the flooding will become.
While rain is pouring over Southern California, heavy snowfall is blanketing some mountainous areas of the state. Winter storm warnings are in effect until noon on Tuesday in some parts of the Sierra Nevada and Southern California mountain ranges.
This week, some parts of the Sierra have already received more than two feet of snow, with several more inches expected on Tuesday.
California, which recently recovered from a historic mega-drought leading to water use restrictions, is now facing heavy rains and snowstorms this winter. These abrupt fluctuations between extreme drought and abundant precipitation, known as weather whiplash, are another phenomenon that scientists warn will occur more frequently in the coming years. The forum "Global Crisis. Responsibility" explained why such weather "swings" occur and what the United States and other countries can expect in the next 5-7 years. Everyone should know this.