US President Joe Biden will travel to flood-hit areas of California tomorrow, the White House said, as the country’s most populous state cleans up from a devastating and lethal series of storms.Biden will tour storm-hit communities, "survey recovery efforts, and assess what additional federal support is needed", the White House said in a statement on Monday.Nine successive storms have rolled in from the Pacific Ocean, hitting California and other western regions in three weeks of extreme weather that has cost 20 lives.The president had already issued an emergency declaration on January 8 to free up federal aid and then on Saturday authorised disaster assistance for Merced, Sacramento and Santa Cruz counties.The White House has yet to reveal the areas Biden will visit.The storms have forced thousands of people to evacuate, according to an executive order signed on Monday by California Governor Gavin Newsom.Damage estimates from the series of storms already top $1bn.Even as scattered sunny skies were predicted yesterday, there would not be much of a respite for relief workers in California hustling to clear landslides, shovel mud from roads and remove fallen trees.About 15,300 homes in the state remained without power early yesterday, according to PowerOutage.us.Sodden cities in northern California reported staggering accumulated quantities of rain.A report from the National Weather Service (NWS) for the Bay Area said more than 18" (45cm) of rain have fallen on San Francisco since December 26."It’s the wettest 22-day period since January 14, 1862," the NWS office said in a tweet.In the Central Valley, the fertile region that produces 40% of US fruits, Modesto reported more than 1" of rain on Monday, beating an old record set in 1950, and Stockton had 1.2" of rain, surpassing a record set there in 1973, the NWS office in Sacramento tweeted.The relentless winter storms have largely passed over the state and are now hitting Rocky Mountain and Great Plains states.An NWS short-range forecast said "heavy snowfall" was expected in mountainous parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah "through Tuesday before advancing east into the Central Plains" today.While California is seeing some relief, a new storm system looms off Washington state to the north."There will be a new storm system arriving across the Pacific Northwest by Tuesday night and advancing inland by Wednesday," the NWS forecast said. "This will bring a new surge of Pacific moisture and a round of heavy rainfall for especially the coastal ranges and the foothills of the Cascades."While damaging, the storms also helped mitigate a historic drought, as much of the state has already received half or more its average annual rainfall.However, with more than two months to go in the rainy season, officials are urging Californians to continue conserving water.The US Drought Monitor still shows almost the entire state under moderate or severe drought conditions.Reservoir levels were still below average for this time of year, officials said.
January 17, 2023 | 11:26 PM