California Storm Watch - Stay Safe [early Feb, 2024]

Waiting to hear a report from my kid in Spring Valley (San Diego). The last blast that went through a short time back flooded their basement, had torrents of water running down the sides of their street, up to the rocker panels on the cars, despite having a sizeable canyon right across the road. Hope all our Dopers down there are prepared and weather this OK.

Having lived in Louisiana, 30 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, and only 30 feet above sea level, I’m familiar with the flooding. Caught an 8 pound catfish of my front porch years ago!

So far, San Diego to L. A. hasn’t seen a drop of rain. It’s windy but so far it looks like another case of the big stuff passing to the north of us.

Santa Cruz here. It’s been breezy but not crazy. I woke up to gentle rain, now it’s sunny. This may have been oversold.

Probably. But the 2023 Fire season wasn’t as bad as many years due to the rainfall.

Here in SoCal, not so bad so far.

Stockton has been in a calm zone for an hour or so. The maps are showing more rain coming in from the south, but that blob on the map seems to be dropping less rain that it was this morning.

All clear in Orange County. It’s pretty sunny so far, but the day is young.

I’m in coastal L.A., and we had some strong (not crazy) winds for a few hours, and a splattering of rain about half an hour ago. It’s stopped now and actually looking like brighter skies.

“The National Weather Service office in San Francisco has issued a hurricane force wind warning for the first time since the agency started keeping records, warning of powerful gusts for a stretch of the coast in Northern California.”
Live updates: California atmospheric river-fueled storm brings rain and flooding to Los Angeles, San Diego and throughout state.

Sounds very serious. I hope everyone stays safe and dry.

It’s been quite a winter so far.

My kind of off-topic ramblings about regional weather/hazards chauvinism

Yes, here in western Oregon it gets tiresome when the snow-prone parts of the world point and laugh because we shut down when there’s less that an inch of snow on the streets. But we aren’t prepared or designed for it. For us, it is hazardous because the streets will stay slippery until the snow melts.

On the other hand, I used to comment, but have learned to confine it to an internal scoff (or nothing) when folks here in Oregon remark that it’s “pouring” or “really coming down.” I know it is those things in a relative sense, but having grown up in Florida, my definition of “pouring” was calibrated there, and typically means anything between, “you literally cannot see across the street,” to “you have to pull over on the freeway because you can’t see through your windshield, even with the wipers on high.”

But it’s exactly as you both say – it’s about the hazard relative to what’s typical, and to what people are familiar with and prepared for.

I’ve also seen people scoff at the mountain roads here requiring people to carry tire chains (referring to most kinds of temporary traction aids applied to the tires, not just chain ones). But, I would love to see how they would do without chains trying to cross the Siskyou Summit pass when Cal DOT and ODOT are about to close it.

About 1.5" of rain so far - been mostly dry since around 11 a.m. after a heavy morning downpour. But a new blob just plopped down on us a second ago. Forecast for my area was 2.5-3.5" by Monday afternoon, so we’ll see if that materializes.

In the meantime the winds are definitely howling. I doubt we’re out of the woods for potential power failures anytime soon.

We had a 90 second power outage a couple hours ago and a few flickering lights just a few minutes ago.

nevermind

At 10 am in Fremont (between Oakland and San Jose) the winds were so high that the rain was falling horizontally. But my rickety fence stayed up. Sunny now, we got .91 inches today and a bit over an inch and a half yesterday.

My weather station in Santa Barbara is showing A little over an inch since midnight with winds gusting into the upper 40 mph range.

The wind is definitely making itself heard here in Rancho Cordova.

Here in Corona, we have overcast with some dark clouds, but no rain or wind yet.

Mom’s in South Orange County … on a hill (ie, wildfires and mudslides can be her neighbors). Six straight days of rain in the forecast.

My best to all.

Hm. You don’t hear this all too often:

The National Weather Service issued a rare hurricane-force wind warning for the Central Coast: Wind gusts up to 92 mph were possible from the Monterey Peninsula to the northern section of San Luis Obispo County.

Uh … yikes.

I’m in south San Jose. It’s been rainy since last night and pretty windy this morning. The power went out four times in around 30 minutes this morning around 8:30a.m., but it always came back on fast. I’m hoping it settles down tomorrow.

Somebody upthread mentioned Colorado (where I’ll be for a few days starting tomorrow), but it’s actually supposed to be nice there for the upcoming week. Folks there say there might not even be any snow on the ground, which I’m bummed about because that’s the only time of year I get to see snow.

Just got back from Crystal Cove (OC) where there was no rain but the wind was howling out of the East like I’ve never felt it.

On the way back, we checked out the cliffs in the Back Bay, which look really vulnerable

Thanks amigo. They are swaying a lot, but so far so good. Pines in the foothills were weakened by drought & disease. A lot are dead/dying.

I can handle rain, wind not so much