Major Storm Brings ‘Life-Threatening Flooding,’ Hurricane Warning to California. ‘One of the Most Dramatic Weather Days in Recent Memory’ Says NOAA

Time to put the top up. A 1970 Cadillac DeVille convertible in Los Angeles traffic
It turns out that the Pineapple Express, which arrived in Southern California on Thursday and brought with it flash flooding, damaging winds, power outages, and potential landslides, wasn’t sufficient: Now the Golden State is on the receiving end of a second, and more intense and long standing, atmospheric river, one even more severe than last week’s and the National Weather Service issued an ominous warning Sunday morning.
“All systems are go for one of the most dramatic weather days in recent memory,” the NWS said.
“Another Pacific storm with an atmospheric river will bring excessive rain with a flooding threat, heavy mountain snow, strong winds, and damaging high surf to California through Tuesday,” the agency said in a Sunday morning forecast. “A brief tornado and waterspouts are possible along the central California coast Sunday,” the agency added.
Approximately 94% of the state’s population is under warnings for life-threatening flooding.
Heavy rain was expected from the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Coast through Southern California starting Sunday into Monday, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center said. Rainfall of 2” to 5” (51 mm to 127 mm) and as much as 10” (254 mm)in some spots was likely, the center said. “This will result in considerable flash, urban and small stream flooding with debris flows and mudslides.”
Emergency evacuation orders are in place in parts of Southern California.
As if this weren’t enough, the National Weather Service issued the first-ever hurricane force wind warning for the California coast. Wind gusts of up to 92 mph (148 km/h) are possible from the Monterey Peninsula to the northern section of San Luis Obispo County, the agency said.
A Pineapple Express, not to be confused with the 2008 stoner film of the same name, is a non-technical term for a meteorological phenomenon, a specific recurring atmospheric river characterized by a strong and persistent large-scale flow of warm moist air, and the associated heavy precipitation both in the waters immediately northeast of the Hawaiian Islands and extending northeast to any location along the Pacific coast of North America.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)