Millions of people in California are under a flood watch because of the heavy rain that has been falling for two days.
From Sacramento in the north to San Diego in the south, about 37 million people in California are under a flood watch. After more than 2.5 inches of rain, the storms shut down the Santa Barbara airport on Monday morning because it was flooded.
These very bad storms are moving across California. They are bringing tornadoes, damaging winds, hail, lightning, and heavy rain that could cause floods. Over the weekend, it rained two to four inches in San Francisco. Now, there is a much better chance that it will rain even more from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area. Because of the heavy rain, the Santa Barbara airport had to close because it was flooded and planes could not land.
Many parts of California are under a flood watch, and wind gusts of 40 to 60 mph are also possible. They have also sent out a high surf alert because waves of 18 to 28 feet are possible, and the coast could flood.
A lot of towns in California are expecting an average of 1 inch of rain per hour. If Los Angeles only gets 3 inches of rain, it will be the wettest February ever.
California is actually flooding because of all this rain. Mountainous places are also likely to get a lot of snow as the storm moves through. It’s going to snow about 8 inches in the San Bernardino Mountains from Monday through Wednesday at the start of the week. Many people in California will likely be able to enjoy this heavy rain and snow for one last day on Wednesday.
