Battered by storm after storm, California is facing intense flooding, with at least 19 lives lost so far and nearly 100,000 people evacuated from their homes.
Battered by storm after storm, California is facing intense flooding, with at least 19 lives lost so far and nearly 100,000 people evacuated from their homes. And there’s no sign that the storms will be letting up soon.
Below, experts from across the Columbia Climate School help to explain this devastating weather and what it means in the broader conversation of climate change and disaster response.
“The floods are due to recurrent waves of atmospheric rivers that typically lead to very high rainfall. These are not unusual for California,” said Upmanu Lall, an engineering professor and director of the Columbia Water Center. Atmospheric rivers are air currents that carry large amounts of water vapor through the sky.
Read more at: Columbia Climate School
California’s precipitation forecast for December 26 to January 11. (Photo Credit: Weather Prediction Center)
