Just days after a New Year's Eve storm wreaked havoc on the state, California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a state of emergency as residents prepared for the arrival of what meteorologists are calling a "truly brutal" series of storms.
- The hostile conditions, which are expected to last through the weekend, are expected to begin with a bomb cyclone in the San Francisco Bay area on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. It's then expected to head south, bringing 40 miles-per-hour winds and dumping up to 10 inches of rain along everything in its path, per the NWS. The result could include "widespread flooding, roads washing out, hillsides collapsing, trees down, widespread power outages, immediate disruption to commerce, and the worst of all, likely loss of human life," according to the NWS. "This will likely be one of the most impactful systems on a widespread scale that they have seen in a long while."
- Over the weekend, a severe storm left at least two people dead, flooded hundreds of streets and cut off electricity to thousands of residents.