Forecasters say the onslaught of storms is expected to last at least another week.
Evacuation orders for thousands of people across California were lifted on Tuesday following the latest in a series of storms that has killed 16 people in the rain-soaked state.
The storm moved toward Southern California this week after beginning on Sunday night around the San Francisco Bay Area, forecasters said. The northern part of the state has experienced the brunt of the four earlier storms, which have caused widespread power outages and floods since Christmas.
Coastal Santa Barbara County, home to Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey among other celebrities, was particularly hard hit, county officials said Tuesday afternoon. Damage is widespread in the city of Santa Barbara and the surrounding area, and officials said an estimated 17 inches of rain from the latest storm was recorded in the area.
In the latest deaths, two people were killed in a multivehicle crash on a highway about 35 miles south of Fresno on Tuesday morning. The California Highway Patrol said a eucalyptus tree fell onto the roadway, leading to a chain-reaction crash involving at least five vehicles. Authorities are investigating reports of a lightning strike nearby, but CHP said the ground in the area was saturated and the tree had been completely uprooted.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that more people have died from the series of storms than from wildfires in the past two years. He warned Californians to be vigilant.
“There are still several days of severe winter weather ahead and we need all Californians to be alert,” he said.
Forecasters said a series of atmospheric rivers would continue to pummel the statethrough Jan. 19. The atmospheric rivers, or ribbons of moisture, have generated the storms after moving across the Pacific Ocean.
Dr. Michael Anderson, the state climatologist with Department of Water Resources, said the next series of storms are likely to bring steady rains to the already soaked state, but likely won’t offer a repeat of heavy downpours that have flooded communities around the state in recent weeks.
“At this point we are switching to cumulative impacts,” Dr. Anderson said of the impending storms’ effects on already saturated soil.
The storm raised the risk of floods and mudslides over the already-saturated earth.
In Central California, officials said Monday night that one woman had died in San Luis Obispo County after driving on a flooded road. Authorities suspended their search for a 5-year-old child who was swept from a car into county floodwaters………