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Despite concerns, drought-rattled California welcomes strong storm

Rain, snow prompt fears of avalanches, flooding, rock slides

The Columbian
Published: February 8, 2014, 4:00pm
2 Photos
A woman carries an umbrella as she crosses Market Street in San Francisco, Saturday.
A woman carries an umbrella as she crosses Market Street in San Francisco, Saturday. Californians accustomed to complaining about the slightest change in the weather welcomed a robust weekend storm that soaked the northern half of the drought-stricken state Saturday even as rain and snow brought the threat of avalanches, flooding and rock slides. Photo Gallery

SAN FRANCISCO — Californians accustomed to complaining about the slightest change in the weather welcomed a robust weekend storm that soaked the northern half of the drought-stricken state Saturday even as rain and snow brought the threat of avalanches, flooding and rock slides.

In Willits, one of 17 rural communities that California’s Department of Public Health recently described as dangerously low on water, City Councilman Bruce Burton said he was cheered seeing the water levels in a local reservoir and his backyard pond creeping up and small streams flowing again. The city in the heart of redwood country usually sees about 50 inches of rain a year and was expected to get about four inches by today.

“It’s guarded optimism. We are a long ways from where we need to be, but we have to start with some sort of a raindrop,” Burton said.

The storm that moved in Friday, powered by a warm, moisture-packed system from the Pacific Ocean known as a Pineapple Express, dropped more than 7 inches of rain on Marin County’s Mt. Tamalpais, an average of 4 inches in Sonoma County and one to three inches in San Francisco, San Jose and other urban areas as of Saturday morning, National Weather Service hydrologist Mark Strudley said.

With areas north of San Francisco forecast to see another few inches by today, the downpour, while ample enough to flood roadways and prompt warnings that parched streams could be deluged to the point of overflowing, by itself will not solve the state’s drought worries, Strudley said.

“The yearly rainfall around here, depending on where you were, was less than 10 percent of normal,” he said. “The additions from this last series of storms and the totals are taking a dent out of it, but it is not a significant dent.”

The storm deposited a foot of snow of on the top of Lake Tahoe ski resorts that have relied on man-made snow for much of the season, and elevations above 7,500 feet were expected to get another foot or two by today, said Holly Osborne, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sacramento.

The additions, which followed some brief periods of snow in the last week, already have improved the outlook for the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides about a third of California’s water supply. When state surveyors last checked on Jan. 30, the snow pack was at 12 percent of normal for this time of winter. By Saturday, it was at 17 percent of normal.

“At least we are getting something versus nothing,” Osborne said.

Southern California was expected to be mostly dry.

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