Mother Nature is crashing the New Year’s party with a vengeance.
As storms loom large, evacuation warnings are sweeping across nine burn scar zones in the Greater Los Angeles Metro Area, threatening holiday cheer with potential floods, mudslides, and debris flows, as Fox Weather reports.
While much of America prepares for a quiet ring-in of the new year, California faces yet another holiday weather wallop. It’s almost as if the Golden State is being singled out for a soggy reprimand while the rest of us sip hot cocoa.
Starting at 11 a.m. PST on New Year’s Eve, nine vulnerable areas in Los Angeles County, scarred by past wildfires, are under evacuation alerts. These include regions torched by the historic Palisades fire in Malibu, alongside other danger zones like the Canyon Fire scar near Halsey Canyon and the Kenneth Fire area by Calabasas.
Other at-risk spots stretch from the Agua Dulce and Lidia scars near Acton to the Franklin Fire zone by Malibu Creek State Park, Kaslow Nature Preserve, and even Pepperdine University’s Malibu campus. Don’t forget the Eaton Fire scar near Altadena, Bridge Fire areas near Mount Baldy and Wrightwood, and more. Wrightwood, already battered by Christmas Eve flooding in a Bridge Fire scar, braces for another round of mud and debris chaos.
That Christmas Eve deluge, by the way, was the wettest ever recorded at Los Angeles Airport, unleashing flash floods and mudslides statewide. If that’s a preview, we’re in for a messy encore.
A weakening low-pressure system from the subtropical Pacific is already stirring up flash flood alerts across Southern California through Thursday. Light to moderate rain is expected to kick off on New Year’s Eve, building to a crescendo of heavy downpours on New Year’s Day. It’s the first time since 2006 that Los Angeles will see rain on this holiday—a dubious honor.
A level two out of four flash flood risk hangs over the region from Wednesday through Thursday, worsened by already soaked ground. Areas from Los Angeles up to Santa Barbara, recently drenched with over a foot of rain in spots, are squarely in the danger zone.
By Friday, this watery menace shifts north, putting San Francisco and other Northern California areas under the gun for flash flooding. Another 1 to 2 inches of rain is likely through Friday, with some Transverse Range spots possibly seeing up to 3 inches or more.
New Year’s Day also brings a low-level severe weather threat from Los Angeles down to San Diego, rated 1 out of 5. Damaging wind gusts and even a few tornadoes could sneak into the mix.
Looking ahead, a bigger storm is set to slam Northern and Central California from Friday into Saturday. Think gusty winds, torrential rain, and fresh Sierra Nevada snow, with almost all of California’s coast under a low-end flash flood risk into early Saturday.
The Climate Prediction Center isn’t offering much hope either, pegging the western U.S. for above-average precipitation into early January. It’s as if the weather gods are punishing California for every progressive policy ever passed.
Millions of Californians just want to celebrate the new year without wading through mud or dodging debris flows.
It’s hard enough to keep spirits high without the added stress of evacuation warnings in places like Malibu or Wrightwood.
Let’s hope local officials are on top of this, because the last thing hardworking folks need is another government fumble while they’re packing go-bags. Southern California deserves a break, not a breakdown, as these storms bear down.
