LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Days of heavy rain and snow in California have triggered flash floods, landslides and road closures. When the storm system stalled over the Northern California city of Redding, up to 10 inches of rain fell in just a few hours. We get details from Kevin Stark of member station KQED.
KEVIN STARK, BYLINE: One person called 911 after water poured inside their vehicle, according to a social media post by Redding's mayor. Cal Fire Assistant Fire Chief Scott Corn says they had driven...
SCOTT CORN: Into a flooded roadway that was deeper than expected.
STARK: The city's mayor also said a Redding police officer swam out to the car, broke the window, pulled the person to shore and performed CPR.
CORN: And that person ultimately lost their life.
STARK: This part of the Northern Sacramento Valley received a continuous downpour that lasted for several hours. Floodwaters quickly poured from creeks and streams into city streets. Officials set up an evacuation shelter at a local church and scrambled overnight to restore power, clear debris and replace manhole covers. UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain says the deluge fell from a narrow but very intense band of cumulus clouds - what he calls a persistent convergence line.
DANIEL SWAIN: Unfortunately, this convergence line was able to squeeze out a lot of that moisture on a recurring narrow axis. This axis was only about 5 or 6 miles wide, so it was very localized, but it happened to run right through the city of Redding.
STARK: Over the central and northern Sierra, rain fell on a record-low snowpack, flowing off bare earth and directly into rivers, causing them to flood.
SWAIN: The Yuba River is running higher right now than it has in years.
STARK: It was the first in a series of storms, known as atmospheric river storms, forecast to hit the state over the holiday week. They will bring gusting winds, colder air and blanket the mountains with feet of snow, likely snarling holiday traffic up to ski resorts. Heavy rain will once again pummel the Bay Area, where the ground is already saturated, and LA, where officials warn there could be possible evacuations due to flooding in formerly burned areas and are asking holiday travelers to use extreme caution. Rachel Kennedy with the National Weather Service.
RACHEL KENNEDY: We are expecting flooding concerns to really increase as we go throughout the week and we start to see successive rounds of moderate to heavy rain.
STARK: Officials want people to avoid creeks and rivers where water can rise without warning.
For NPR News, I'm Kevin Stark in Northern California.
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