Wild Storm Blasts Southern California, Northern Part Of That State Up Next

The 110 Freeway in Los Angeles Friday

Southern California, including the Los Angeles basin and San Diego, got their biggest storm hit of the winter Friday as the most powerful storm in years hit the southern part of the Golden State.

Until now, the northern half of California has seen the major action from this stormy season, though southern California has had plenty of drought-busting rains, too.

The weather focused its fury on Los Angeles and environs Friday, with reports of at least four people killed in storm related incidents. There were plenty of flooded freeways, mudslides and toppled trees from the strong winds that accompanied the storm.

There's some videos at the bottom of this post showing the California storms.

On radar, I watched last night as a powerful squall line passed through southern California, looking for the world like something I'd seen in the Midwest during the springtime tornado season peak.

I'm not aware of any tornadoes touching down in California with this storm, but there was plenty of havoc from the rain and wind.

Two cars plunged into a 10-foot deep sinkhole that abruptly opened up on a road in Studio City. One woman who was in a car that fell into the sinkhole was rescued when firefighters lowered a ladder down to her.

On Interstate 15 in Cajun Pass, water undermined a lane of the highway, causing a fire truck to fall over and plunge down an embankment. Luckily the firefighters who were in the truck were able to jump off before it went, so they're safe.

Several cars got stuck in flooding on the 110 Freeway and the normally incredibly busy freeway had to be shut down.

The southern California storm will gradually taper off today, though flood watches extend all the way into Arizona as the system makes its way inland.

Via Kathy Vara at NBCLA, a large tree
smashed into an apartment building
 in L.A.'s  Westwood.

The next storm will slam northern California starting later tomorrow. Officials are fairly confident the Oroville Dam will hold. There were big evacuations last weekend as spillways threatened to collapse there and unleash a huge flood downstream.

Workers have been able to drop the dam reservoir's level by 42 feet, opening up quite a bit of room for the anticipated deluge.

However, with ground already saturated, the expected five to 10 inches of rain over much of northern California is sure to produce a renewed round of serious flooding and mudslides.

Usually, when California gets a storm, a large portion of the rest of the nation eventually gets clobbered with something.

It looks like energy from the southern California storm will eventually make it into the Gulf of Mexico and weaken.

The storm will probably produce a few severe thunderstorms in Texas and Oklahoma. It could also produce some bad weather along the Gulf Coast and in Florida within a few days.

The northern California storm will eventually spin up another strong storm in the middle of the nation in the middle of next week. It's too soon to offer details on exactly what that one will do.

Now some videos:

Here's a storm-induced massive landslide in the San Bernardino mountains:



Here's a video compilation of some flooding scenes in California from Friday.



Here's a BMW stuck on a flooded California highway. Not sure why he drove into it, and I'm not sure why the bus in the video is plowing through so aggressively, either.:



Here's that fire truck falling off the collapsing freeway:

Hilarious Video Shows Panic As Rain Invades Los Angeles

Rain clouds gather over Los Angeles earlier
this year. Time to panic! Photo from Reuters.  

Yesterday, I told you how Los Angeles had its second rainiest September day on record, with more than two inches of precipitation recorded.

Buzzfeed responded by releasing a video that shows how Angelenos respond to rare instances when it rains. Lots of commenters say the video is pretty accurate.

Love the panic in this video over - get this- a dangerous quarter inch of rain!!

Watch:

Rainy Los Angeles Is Great News, But.....

A rare rainy September day in Los Angeles.
Photo by Richard Vogel/AP  

Yesterday, Los Angeles got 2.39 inches of rain, it's second wettest September day on record.

This was a real bonus, because it doesn't normally rain much at all in southern California in September.

There have only been seven September days since the 1880s in L.A. with an inch or more of rain, notes Capital Weather Gang.

So, this helps with the epic drought, but only a little. The hope is this rain is a harbinger of an upcoming wet winter to help ease the drought. But it would take a LOT of precipitation to end the drought.  

Most of California needs two years worth of rain to end the drought. Good luck with that.

The heavy California rain this week is due to the remnants of Hurricane Linda, which spun off the coast of Mexico last week.

The rains, though welcome, brought tragedy. That moisture from Linda caused that horrible flash flood in Utah. The death toll is now up to 16 and four are still missing, says The Weather Channel. 

Twelve of the dead were in the small town of Hilldale, where their vehicles got swept off roads by flash floods. Four others died in the canyons of Zion National Park.

This will be a continued risk if El Nino gives California and nearby states a wet winter, as many are predicting. The rain will be welcome, but the bursts of heavy rain could lead to more flash floods, mudslides and other havoc during the winter.

96 Million "Shade Balls" Are A Calfornia Drought Buster

"Shade balls" being dumped into a Los Angeles
 reservoir to prevent water loss through evaporation
as the long California drought continues.  

The Great California Drought continues to drag on, made worse as the unrelenting summer sun evaporates water from reservoirs.

Los Angeles has one solution: Shade balls.

Shade balls are plastic balls that Los Angeles officials dumped into the city reservoir, the surface of which covers 175 acres, says the Los Angeles Times. 

The shade balls 96 million of 'em in this reservoir - are made out of the same material that your plastic gallon milk jugs are made of.

They float on the water to slow evaporation from the reservoir. Officials think the balls will prevent about 300 million gallons of water a year from evaporating from the reservoir, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The balls also prevent algae growth and help preserve water quality.

Each shade ball costs only about 36 cents, but since they're using 96 million of these things, the cost of the Los Angeles reservoir shade ball project is $34.5 million.

That's a TON of money, but much less likely than another alternative that was dreamed up. Putting protective tarps over the reservoir would have cost about $300 million, says the Los Angeles Times.

Each four inch diameter shade ball will probably last roughly 10 years before they start to degrade and split, and probably have to be fished out of the reservoir.

Environmental officials said the type of plastic used in making the balls poses no risk to humans who drink the water.

Hey, when it doesn't rain, you need to do something to save water, right?  A reservoir covered with plastic balls is surely better than an empty one during a drought.

Here's the local news report on this from ABC7:

Tornado In Los Angeles Amid Huge Storm

Flying debris amid a small tornado in Los Angeles today.  

As expected, that immense "pineapple express" storm caused lots of wind damage, flooding and very serious mudslides in much of California yesterday and today.

Among the problems it caused was a tornado on South Los Angeles today. It was an EFO, the weakest of tornadoes on a zero to five scale.

Still, an EFO tornado, with winds of between 65 and 85 mph, but they can still be scary, if brief, as the video below shows.

The expletives by the people filming the twister are annoying bleeped out with loud beeps, which makes the sound more annoying than if we just left the expletives in, but it's still quite a sight to see in southern California.

Watch: