California Storm Claims At Least 13 Lives, System To Cause Trouble All The Way To Northeast

A California house buried in mud yesterday after heavy
rains hit areas denuded by wildfires last month. 

The mudslides and debris flows spawned by the torrential rains in areas of California that experienced wildfires just a month ago has now claimed 13 lives, with other people still missing.

The rain has mercifully let up, with little if any rain expected over the next week.

But the damage is done, with incredible destruction in some communities, especially around the city of Montecito, where a wall of mud, boulders, trees and debris swept through town, carrying homes, cars and people with it.

At least 25 other people were injured in the disaster, according to the Los Angeles Times. As of late yesterday afternoon, at least 300 people remained trapped in their homes, but were safe for now. However, rescue crews haven't even been able to get into a more remote area in the debris flow zone to check for people who might be trapped.

The wet weather extended well inland. Las Vegas, Nevada had its wettest January day on record Tuesday,  with 1.33 inches of precipitation.

There's some pretty incredible videos of the destruction at the bottom of this post.

The storminess that hit California is making a cross-country trek across the United States, and will cause havoc in many areas, including Vermont. I'm not expecting anything like California, of course, but it's still going to get messy. At least that's the way it looks now.

Today, a vast area from Montana to Wisconsin and south to Kansas is under a variety of winter storm watches, warnings and advisories. The same is true for many parts of the Rocky Mountains. This is all part of a first wave of storminess that's heading northeastward through the central part of the United States.

This first wave will push a warm front through us here in northern New England tonight. Later on tonight, expect light, but messy precipitation - sleet, snow, freezing rain and rain.

Remember that the ground is quite frigid after that long subzero siege that just ended a few days ago. Which means even if there's plain rain where you are, it could still easily freeze on pavement. Could be a tricky commute to work in the morning.

Forecasters don't expect much precipitation during the day Thursday here in Vermont, but a real January thaw will surge in. By afternoon, it'll be in the 40s everywhere, maybe even touching 50 in the warmest valleys.

Meanwhile, the main storm system will be taking shape near the central Gulf Coast, and that one will start to head toward the northeast, toward us in New England specifically. This storm will have lots of moisture with it, so whatever precipitation comes down will probably come down pretty hard at times.

And there's the rub. We don't know what kind of precipitation we're going to get from this thing. It'll be a race between a cold front coming in from the northwest and the storm coming up from the south.

Which one wins will determine which type of precipitation we get. If the cold front gets here first, there will be an ugly mix of sleet, freezing rain and snow. If the storm gets here first, it's rain, which raises the possibility of flooding.

Either way we lose.

The forecast thinking now is rain will move in amid mild temperatures Thursday night and continue most of Friday. That could spell trouble with ice jams in rivers, and street flooding from ice-clogged drains.

Then - again, this is what forecasters are expecting at the moment - the cold air will come in from northwest to southeast Friday night, giving us the ugly mix of precipitation Friday night and Saturday.

This forecast has a huge bust potential. I really don't think the predictions will go exactly the way I've just outlined, but nobody really knows for sure which way it might go. Stay tuned on this one.

Meteorologists are more confident that precipitation will go over to snow later Saturday or Saturday night, then taper off. It also looks like we've got another couple of Arctic cold surges coming in, starting Sunday.

The good news is the cold doesn't look like it will be as intense as what we had the first week in January. The temperature will probably go below zero again but it won't go into the 20s below or anything like that.

This cold blast won't last as long as the previous one, either. It'll start Sunday, and begin to end probably four days later.

Here are some of those videos from California: You might want to turn off the sound in the first one. The narrator talks and talks and swears, too. NSFW:



The Santa Barbara Independent also has dramatic views of the disaster:


And here's the CBS overview of the storm: