As Southern California’s weather-weary mountain communities continued to recover from severe storms that have snowed in many residents, San Bernardino authorities urged calm ahead of another “atmospheric river” lurking to the north, saying Wednesday that the latest, weaker system could bring about an inch of rainfall to the area but otherwise would spare the region of another public safety crisis.
According to the National Weather Service, a warmer system that’s expected to slam into Northern California early Thursday will move through Southern California beginning late in the evening.
The storm is not expected to pack nearly the punch of the cold storms that swept through Southern California several days ago: It likely will bring some rain to most areas, with snow possible mainly above 7,000 feet in elevation. The state’s central and northern coast will get drenched, but Southern California could see around an inch of rain at most.
“The most significant impacts we’re expecting from this will be non-life threatening flooding,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Philip Gonsalves.”Depending on where the water runs off, the combination of rainfall and some melting of existing snow is expected to produce non-life-threatening flooding, but some of the flooding, depending on where the water gets routed, could end up getting into people’s homes.”
Although it is not predicted that there will not be any significant damage in mountain communities, locals who are still digging their neighbors out of the snow and facing trauma from the past couple of weeks are on edge.
“I can see the concerns,” said Lake Arrowhead resident Natalia Hinkleman, who has been helping with a massive volunteer donation effort. “We definitely have spots that will flood easily, but we’ve never had this amount of snow on the ground.”
Lake Arrowhead resident Lisa Griggs, another volunteer, lives in a flood zone within the mountain community. Days of digging…
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