‘Pineapple express’ storm arrives in Southern California with even more rain expected next week
- Share via
The first of two “pineapple express” storms arrived in Southern California early Wednesday after delivering a stronger-than-expected pounding to the San Francisco Bay Area, breaking rainfall records.
The storm brought a deluge of rain and strong winds to Northern California on Tuesday, swelling rivers, flooding roadways, knocking out power and unleashing other damage across the region.
In the Sonoma County town of Forestville, a house fell into the Russian River after a rain-saturated hillside gave way. All low-lying areas of the river downstream of Healdsburg — including Guerneville — were ordered evacuated due to the risk of flooding. A large tree branch in San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley fell and hit a person, who declined to be taken to a hospital.
The main band of the storm will hit Los Angeles County throughout Wednesday, but overall it’s expected to be much weaker in Southern California.
Meteorologists say Wednesday’s gusty atmospheric river storm is capable of causing roads to flood and triggering rockslides on canyon roads. Impacts aren’t expected to be significant and the moisture is predicted to be helpful in reducing wildfire risk across Los Angeles and Ventura counties, said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
“The rain this week is going to be beneficial,” Kittell said. “For the vast majority of the area the impacts will be limited to slippery roads and soggy days.”
The National Weather Service has estimated a 5% to 10% chance of significant debris flow in fire-scorched parts of the two counties, as well as in the area burned by the Lake fire in the Santa Barbara County mountains north of Los Olivos in 2024.
Winds from the south and southwest, at 15 to 30 mph, will be common in L.A. and Ventura counties — and up to 50 mph in the high desert. They are expected to peak from 10 p.m. Tuesday through 10 a.m. Wednesday, possibly causing delays at Los Angeles International Airport and isolated power outages, said Kristan Lund, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Oxnard office. Gusts could be even stronger in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, causing trees to fall.
While the storm is generally weaker than predicted across the southern portion of the state, some areas have been hit hard. About an inch and a half of rain has fallen in the Santa Ynez mountain range, and areas north of Morro Bay have seen between 2 and 5 inches of precipitation, according to the weather service.
In Southern California, officials are preparing for potential landslides and mudflows in areas recently devastated by wildfires.
An 8½-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway — between Chautauqua Boulevard in Pacific Palisades and Carbon Beach Terrace in Malibu — remains closed because of the risk of debris flow. A four-mile stretch of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, ending at the Pacific Ocean, was also closed.
Some small businesses burned down in the Eaton fire. Others are ‘silent casualties’: Intact but out of commission as the community rebuilds.
“We have slopes — natural slopes and man-made slopes — that are quite unstable right now that could fail and have been failing even when it’s not raining,” L.A. County Public Works Director Mark Pestrella said during a news conference Wednesday. “The rain hits another level of concern for me.”
Pestrella added that “it’s the cumulative effect of these rains and not just one rainstorm” that concerns him as the communities ravaged by fire continue to rebuild.
County officials are still assessing the full scope of the damage brought by the January firestorm. The Eaton and Palisades fires leveled thousands of properties and killed 29 people. The areas hit by the fires are a high risk to nearly everyone, officials said, including motorists on roadways or residents trying to assess what’s left of their homes.
“The level of destruction and the scope of this damage is beyond anything that we have seen here in L.A. County in terms of infrastructure,” Pestrella said.
The vast majority of homes destroyed in the Eaton fire were outside of Cal Fire’s “very high” fire hazard severity zones, yet a newer approach by an independent company had found Altadena had “severe” wildfire risk.
The homes destroyed in the blazes left over 4.5 million tons of debris, nearly half of the amount of waste the county generates over the course of an entire year, Pestrella said.
Ahead of the series of storms, crews were in the fire zones installing concrete barriers, sandbags and other types of berms to filter debris and prevent it from flowing into storm drains.
Southern California won’t get too much of a break from the soggy weather before the second storm moves into the region.
The second system is forecast to be weaker, and expected to peak in the Los Angeles area Thursday night into Friday morning. There will still be chances of rain between the two storms and through early Saturday morning.
From Friday night through Monday, there’s a potential for dry winds gusting into the region — from 15 mph to as high as 50 mph in wind-prone areas — but the risk of fire weather is minimal, given the recent rains, Lund said.
Despite this week’s rain, the amount of precipitation that is predicted to fall will probably not be enough to declare an end to fire season, given the region’s severe deficit in winter rainfall.
The week’s rainfall totals are expected to be modest — for downtown Los Angeles, 0.43 of an inch for the first storm and 0.41 for the second. Combined with the 0.54 of an inch downtown received from Jan. 25-27, that’s less than 1½ inches. Meteorologists say 2 to 4 inches of widespread rain are necessary to definitively call an end to the fire season.
“While the rains will have provided temporary relief with high moisture in some fuel types, the expected rain this week will not be enough to completely end high fire season,” Lund said.
Request by the Environmental Protection Agency to process hazardous waste from the Palisades fire near Malibu City Hall faces protest.
During the first storm, Santa Clarita could get one-seventh of an inch of rain; Covina, three-tenths of an inch; downtown Los Angeles, Canoga Park and Long Beach, two-fifths of an inch; Redondo Beach, about half an inch; Thousand Oaks, three-fifths of an inch; Oxnard, two-thirds of an inch; San Luis Obispo, 1.16 inches; and Santa Barbara, 1.69 inches.
During the second atmospheric river storm, downtown Los Angeles, Canoga Park, Redondo Beach, Long Beach, Santa Clarita and Thousand Oaks could see two-fifths of an inch of rain; Covina and Oxnard, about half an inch; and Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, about three-fifths of an inch.
The storms are expected to be even weaker for San Diego and Orange counties and the Inland Empire.
Forecasters, however, are monitoring the potential for yet another storm that could arrive in the middle of next week, between Feb. 12 and Feb. 15. Just how much moisture that storm will bring isn’t clear yet, but each day the projections are “becoming wetter and wetter,” Kittell said.
“Don’t let this week kind of lull everyone into the belief that we can handle any rain that comes,” Kittell said. “We still have a few storms to go for the winter.”
Across Northern California, Tuesday’s atmospheric river — the second for that region since Friday — packed a punch. A gust of wind hit 90 mph in the mountains of Marin County, another was clocked at 69 mph at San Francisco International Airport, and one gust hit 55 mph in San Francisco.
Downtown San Francisco got 2.89 inches of rain Tuesday, breaking the record for the calendar day last seen in 1887, when 2.22 inches of rain was observed. San Francisco International Airport recorded 1.75 inches, breaking the record of 1.3 inches on Feb. 4, 1991.
And the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport near Santa Rosa recorded 2.72 inches, breaking the record for the calendar day set last year, when 1.85 inches fell.
Since Friday, more than 17 inches of rain have been recorded at Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County.
State Farm General asked Monday for an emergency rate increase averaging 22%, saying the Los Angeles County fires have put California’s largest insurer in dire financial straits.
Even after the rains tapered off, rivers across Northern California continued to swell.
The Russian River in Guerneville was forecast to reach minor-flood stage early Wednesday. That level of flooding could begin to flood the lowest sections of towns along the river, according to Sonoma County.
In Mendocino County, significant flooding was expected along California 175 at the Russian River near Hopland, and moderate flooding was expected at the Navarro River at Navarro, the weather service office in Eureka said.
Moderate flooding was also forecast for the Susan River in Susanville in Lassen County, the weather service office in Reno said.
Flooding also temporarily forced the closure of some southbound lanes of Interstate 5 in Stockton. Farther north in San Joaquin County, southbound California 99 had to be shut in Lodi due to the flooding Tuesday night.
After Judy Zweig lost her home to the Palisades fire, someone stole her husband’s identity and applied fraudulently for FEMA assistance.
Portions of the Sierra Nevada are expected to get a heavy accumulation of snow, up to 34 inches in some areas, and winds gusting up to 60 mph, according to the weather service.
The weather service issued a winter storm watch beginning Thursday morning and lasting through Friday morning in the Lake Tahoe area. Between 6 and 18 inches of snow are expected to fall below 7,000 feet. Elevations above 7,000 feet could see even more — between 2 to 3 feet.
In Mono County, which includes Mammoth Mountain, 1 to 2 feet of snow was expected to accumulate at elevations above 8,000 feet, and up to 6 inches below that elevation.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
