It’s going to be a wet Christmas in California, where a series of storms is about to dump as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain this week.
An atmospheric river is already drenching San Francisco and the Bay Area, and flood watches extend across almost the entire state, according to the National Weather Service. As that system moves through, another one will move in, bringing rain to Southern California on Tuesday and snow in higher elevations the same day.
After that, another set of storms coming back-to-back will pummel the state later in week. Colder temperatures arriving midweek are expected to bring the snow level down to about 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) by Friday, according to Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the US Weather Prediction Center.
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It will be a welcome change for ski areas that need more snow. Winter storm warnings and watches are also in effect across the Sierra Nevada mountains.
“It’s been dry,” said Jackson. “It certainly won’t be after this.”
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California
Windstorm
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