Pair of California Storms, One With An Atmospheric River, Brought Flooding Rain, Landslides

Dangerous And Deadly Rain Soaks California

California was soaked by two Pacific storms in just a few days time, the first of which was accompanied by an atmospheric river which triggered flash flooding, rockslides and some debris flows in the Los Angeles Basin and elsewhere.

Atmospheric rivers can be beneficial, with much-needed lower elevation rainfall to suppress wildfire risk and mountain snow to build up snowpack to recharge reservoirs in the spring and summer.

But they can also be hazardous, with heavy rain triggering flooding, rockslides and debris flows off areas recently burned by wildfires.

(MORE: What Is An Atmospheric River?)

The first round of rainfall from the atmospheric river-enhanced storm began on the night of Nov. 12 into early Nov. 13 across Northern California.

Power outages began to climb into the thousands as widespread gusts of 40-60 mph were reported with higher elevations seeing gusts over 80 mph. Trees and power lines were downed in some areas, including in far northwest California, where multiple downed trees required a closure of the Pacific Coast Highway north of Point Arena.

From Nov. 13-17, the Santa Barbara Airport picked up 8.42 inches of rain, making it by far their wettest November on record dating to 1941 and over six times their average November rainfall (1.27 inches). It was also their wettest five-day stretch in any month in over 63 years, since early February 1962.

In Ventura County on Nov. 15, 3.18 inches fell in Oxnard, their third wettest November day in 102 years of records, there.

Some of the most notable reports included:

- Vehicles were stuck in floodwaters or mud near El Capitan State Beach, near Twentynine Palms, Daggett, in Sacramento, Tehachapi and Red Rock Canyon.

- Another vehicle was stuck in mud, dirt and rocks on the Angeles Crest highway near Altadena in one of multiple landslides. Snowplows were unable to clear the slides, according to the storm report.

- Up to 3 feet of water was reported on an offramp of Interstate 710 in Compton.

- Flooding closed several roads in Death Valley National Park, including Badwater Road.

(MORE: Atmospheric River Storm Turned Deadly)

While snow amounts in the Sierra and Southern California mountains were modest, snow blanketed a wildfire southeast of Mammoth Mountain in Mono County, leading to the odd sight of snow covering an area that just burned days earlier.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.