Water-logged Californians will have to endure several more days of rain, as new storms line up in the Pacific to pound the state with unprecedented precipitation, forecasters said Thursday.
The Bay Area and Central Coast have been particularly hard hit, with rain falling on San Francisco for 15 out of 18 days from Christmas through Wednesday.
Oakland International Airport, a focal point of the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area region, has received almost a year’s worth of rain in just the past 3 1/2 months.
From Oct. 1 through Wednesday, that neighborhood of East Oakland received 17.85 inches of rain when a normal year accounts for 18.7 inches of rainfall.
A brief respite from rain in the Central Coast is allowing rescuers in San Luis Obispo County to continue their search Thursday for 5-year-old Kyle Doan, who was swept away by floodwaters on Monday.
Kyle was being driven to kindergarten by his mother when they hit a rainwater-filled dip in the road and their car was swept off its wheels.
“Every day gets harder, because we just don’t have answers,” the boy’s father, Brian Doan, told NBC News on Wednesday. “It is what it is.”
Any break from rain on Thursday will only be temporary as three new systems are lined up in the Pacific Ocean and moving toward California in the coming days.
- The first storm is due to hit the far northwest corner of California and coastal Oregon and Washington on Thursday and continue through Friday.
- A second system could affect the entire state on Saturday and Sunday.
- And a third storm could be the strongest of the set and hit the state Sunday night and last through much of Tuesday, bringing high wind gusts and rainfall. Much of California will receive an inch to 4 inches, with some pockets being struck with up to 8 inches in this time frame.
