A Storm’s a Coming

California opens its newest chapter in extreme weather preparation.

On the first weekend of the new year, a low pressure system reached California’s coastline, bringing with it a dramatic downpour of rain and stormy weather. Videos of wide scale flooding and massive waves slamming against the otherwise peaceful seaside towns of Northern California circulated on social media and nationwide news. Before long, trees were uprooted by the wind of dense cloud formations and cyclones were depicted on vibrantly colored maps on TV. A state of emergency was declared by the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and flood warnings became constant during the first weeks of January. Looking at damage displayed throughout the state, especially to the North, it may seem as though this is a bad omen of what is to come given the impending nature of climate change.

Matthew Igel, adjunct professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of California Davis, says, “These kinds of storms that we’ve gotten and sort of this repeated…sequence of storms is not unprecedented. There have been several instances in the past hundred years of two or three consecutive weeks of one storm after another.” One such example of these powerful Californian storms is the Los Angeles Flood of 1938, where two large Pacific storms collided over the LA Basin from Sunday, February 27th to Friday, March 4th, causing mass destruction, flooding and a drastic shift in the city’s planning — the effects of which are still felt today. Similar to this January, the rain was a welcome occurrence after a series of dry years, yet this sentiment quickly changed as the intensity of the storms sent watershed rushing through the San Fernando Valley, and decimated the more densely populated developments alongside the LA River.

(Photo reprinted from NBC, Los Angeles)

A man gathers belongings from a car trapped in the floodwaters of the Los Angeles Flood of 1938.

(Photo reprinted from the Los Angeles Field Guide)

A man canoes next to a submerged car during the Los Angeles Flood of 1938.

While occasional flooding and intense Pacific storms may not be as uncommon in California as we may believe, that is not to say that climate change does not play a role in this year’s harsh weather. “The impact of climate change…potentially [relates to] the amount of rain and so it’s hard to know right now whether the amount of rain from these storms has been enhanced and given a boost by the fact that these storms are a little bit warmer [which] tends to make storms a bit rainier,” Igel said. As we see the continued effects of climate change warming our weather systems, it is a possibility that we could see more rain in the future. While the frequency of these storms may fit well within the usual patterns for California storms, the potential of more rain may spell for greater damage in the future when combined with the effects of other weather extremes facing Californians.

Small changes make a big difference in California, and when wetter winters are combined with the other drastic climate events we have seen in summer, such as sweeping wildfires and severe droughts, the effects of climate change may be amplified. “Wildfires…at least for one year after, tend to make rain wash off of the landscape more easily. And so the interesting thing here is that for some of these burned areas there can be a lot of water flows and there can be issues with landslides,” Igel said. Root systems play a key role in the preservation of hillsides and mountains, and when these are destroyed by either intense wildfire or severe drought, the results can be potentially devastating — as Californians saw after the 2018 Southern California Mudflows that affected the areas of Montecito and Santa Barbara County and was responsible for the death of twenty three people.

(Photo reprinted from The Atlantic)

Rocks and debris destroy a home in Santa Barbara County in 2018.

(Photo reprinted from CNN)

The Southern California Mudflows of 2018 affected the areas of Montecito and Santa Barbara.

But what happens going forward? How are we to balance the damages between increasingly damaging wildfires and these routine, yet progressively wetter, winter storms? According to Dr. Igel, the state may have been lucky going into this year in the midst of a drought: “…our dams and reservoirs were really low so we got all of this precipitation but the lucky thing was that, because we were coming out of these drought years, there was lots of capacity in those dams to actually accept all of that water…it’s never lucky to be in a drought but in this case it actually helped us prevent a lot of flooding downstream.”

While the exact effects of climate change remain somewhat unclear, the adjunct professor highlights key areas in the state’s reservoir and dam system which may need addressing. “I think for California, from the meteorology side, it’s about being prepared for these storms when they come. So things like changing dam operations so that they can use forecasts to release water before a storm arrives…dam operations have been set not by a forecast but by sort of historical averages…I think just having better forecasting here on the west coast and using those forecasts to their fullest potential…we just need to make sure that we are not reacting to storms but preparing for them,” Igel said.

Taking these next steps may prove vital in the prevention of serious storm damage and even loss of life in the future. While the dramatic storms of recent years may appear as nothing new, the chance of an increase in rainfall might be the catalyst necessary in updating and shifting our emphasis from a reactionary approach to a preventive one — benefiting both California’s land and its inhabitants.