Los Angeles has a Mediterranean climate, an ethnically and culturally diverse population, in addition to a sprawling metropolitan area. With roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits as of 2020, Los Angeles is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind only New York City it is the commercial, financial and cultural center of the Southern California region. 'The Angels'), often referred to by its initials L.A., officially the City of Los Angeles, is the most populous city in the U.S. Los Angeles ( US: / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s/ i lawss AN-jəl-əs Spanish: Los Ángeles, lit. That northward shift could give other areas of the state a break, David Novak, the director of the Weather Prediction Center, said on Tuesday, adding that the storm system was threatening the state this weekend but didn’t look as strong. And seven more inches of rain could fall in many parts of the state over the next several days, the National Weather Service said, as yet another “enormous cyclone” that is forming off the coast slams areas of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest on Wednesday. Over the past two days, more than a foot of rain has been recorded across portions of coastal California. That means storms in many places, California included, are more likely to be wetter and more intense because of climate change. In an atmosphere heated by the burning of fossil fuels, the warmer air can hold more moisture. It’s been ravaged by expanding seasons of wildfires and years of drought, both of which have left behind scars that leave the land unmoored and prone to landslides. The storms are yet another example of how climate change has upended life in the nation’s most populous state. Storms like these dump too much water, too quickly, for the state’s reservoirs and emergency responders to handle. But when the deluges are especially severe, they can do more harm than good. In a state that has been parched by droughts in recent years, winter rain and snow can serve an important purpose, providing much of the water used by residents and farmers throughout the year. And multiple stretches of the well-traveled Route 101 were turned into rivers. In Fresno, a hillside crumbled onto a highway. In Malibu, a large boulder blocked a canyon road. Public transportation systems in major cities have been snarled, and roads have been temporarily shuttered just about everywhere, from the mountains to the valleys to the coast. Mudslides mucked up Los Angeles on Tuesday. Heavy winds toppled power lines in Sacramento this weekend. Extra snow fell in the Sierra Nevada last week. This week, the oceanside counties of Santa Cruz, Monterey and Santa Barbara, all of which lie between San Francisco and Los Angeles, have borne the brunt of the impact.īut just about every community in California has been jolted by the storms in one way or another. Last week, strong winds and pelting rain brought chaos to the Bay Area. The ripple of storms has produced uneven impacts. But, she added, “None of us expected it to go on this long.” “It’s a very resilient group of people who live along the Northern California coast,” Ms. But few places have been as savaged by the changing climate these last weeks as California. In Central California, rescuers searched for a 5-year-old boy who was swept out of his mother’s arms as their car was swamped by fast-rising floodwaters on the way to school.Įxtreme weather has plagued many parts of the country this fall and winter - deep freezes, hurricane-like blizzards, tornadoes, drastic temperature swings. Hail pelted San Francisco, which was under a flood warning. More than 400 public and charter schools were closed. And more rain is expected.Īs of Tuesday morning, amid the latest round of rain, nearly 100,000 residents were under evacuation orders or warnings, state officials said, and about 220,000 utility customers were without power. SAN FRANCISCO - An unrelenting series of pounding storms over at least 11 days has left no part of California untouched - flooding towns from north to south, loading inland mountains with snow and transforming the often dry Los Angeles River into a raging channel.Īt least 17 people have died in the downpours, which started in late December and stretched into the new year.
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