Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, March 24.
California kicked off 2023 with a barrage of heavy weather that’s barely let up since New Year’s. A dozen atmospheric rivers have rolled through since late December, bringing epic rain, record snow and, for some communities, danger and devastation.
This week’s storm was especially severe in the Bay Area, where five people were killed in a single day, all reportedly by falling trees.
In San Francisco, strong winds shattered glass on skyscrapers and sent a couch sailing from a high-rise apartment to the sidewalk below.
And down in SoCal, I did a cliche cartoon double-take Wednesday when I saw headlines about a possible tornado touching down in the San Gabriel Valley.
Weather officials later confirmed it was indeed a tornado that ripped part of the roof off a building in Montebello, injuring at least one person and damaging more than a dozen other structures. That followed a Tuesday twister in Carpinteria that injured one person and “damaged around 25 mobile homes,” National Weather Service officials said.
The roof of the Royal Paper Box Co. in Montebello and nearby cars suffered damage in Wednesday’s weather event. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Turns out tornadoes actually do occasionally touch down in the Golden State. A NWS meterologist said seeing a “few of them a year is not uncommon.” The Ventura County Star has a map with more than 70 years of NWS data on California cyclones, if you’re so inclined.
The storms have affected some far more than others, with severe flooding, evacuations, power outages and blizzards devastating communities up and down the state. But there is a common attitude among Californians saturated in this gloom: We’re over it.
And that storm fatigue is also being felt by weather forecasters.
“It’s been really busy for us,” Dial Hoang, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Bay Area, told me, adding that staffing has been ramped up at his office as forecasters from other regions are brought in to help.
That help is needed as the weather experts track multiple events and communicate with local authorities “to make sure we keep as many people as safe as possible,” Hoang said.
As “lovers of weather,” fellow NWS meteorologist David King said, “there is this element of excitement” as forecasters track systems.
But with the storms coming “one after another after another, there is this element of exhaustion that comes in.” King added, noting that he and fellow forecasters are “in the same boat” as Bay Area residents:
“We live in this area, too. We’re not forecasters that are on the other side of the country saying, ‘Hey, good luck with your rain.’ We’re here dealing with the power outages and the strong winds and the heavy rains the same as everyone else.”
So when will the Golden State’s beloved sunshine return? And will it stick around now that we’re officially in spring?
“Our winter season really doesn’t kind of taper off until the end of March,” King explained. “There is April to look forward to [and] hopefully, we’ll have improving conditions.”
Dry conditions are expected over the next couple days, King told me, but he noted that weather officials “don’t want people to let their guard down.” He offered this advice:
“Enjoy [sunny days], relish in them, but also use them. Now’s the time to restock any go bag you have — just in those worst-case scenarios if the rain does intensify.”
The sunshine will probably be short-lived, King warned, as “yet another system looks to be moving toward the California coastline for early next week.”
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