California braces for another atmospheric river to flood parts of the state over the weekend

As previously drought-stricken parts of California bailed out from a series of unrelenting snowstorms, another river-generated atmospheric storm is looming and is set to continue through the weekend.

The most recent storm could bring devastating flooding, said the meteorologists, with a potential deluge of 12 inches at a time. Fortunately, it’s also fast-moving, so the storm won’t linger long enough to dump a lot of water in one spot.

“Just because he fire hose effect of the rain will continue to move, instead of staying nearly stationary, the rain will generally be limited to several inches,” AccuWeather’s chief on-air meteorologist Bernie Rayno told the website.

The new, moisture-packed storm will bring warm air to high altitudes, where it will quickly melt snow, according to AccuWeather. It will also carry with it a column of tropical air, an atmospheric river, which will release even more moisture.

The atmospheric river will reportedly be 2,400 miles long and stretch from California to Hawaii, the type of powerful storm forecasters have dubbed the Pineapple Express.

This could cause severe flooding, forecasters warned. It could also blanket the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada and Siskyous with another layer of heavy snow.

The new storm heralds a soggy couple of weeks, especially since the ground is already soggy from previous storms. KTLA-TV informed. Parts of California were seeing rain on Wednesday, but the worst part of the storm is forecast to hit the state on Thursday and continue through the weekend.

In central and northern California, approximately 16 million people were under flood watches Wednesday, CNN reported, including in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento.

creeks and streams in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada were the most vulnerable to flooding from the combination of rain and snowmelt, the Weather Prediction Center said.

Previous snowfalls have already caught numerous Californians, and some are running out of food. Authorities in Marin and Monterey counties are already preparing, and Big Sur residents have been told to stock up on essentials for at least two weeks, CNN reported.

with cable news services