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Floods in Merced, California: The parched ground cannot hold back the floods
Photo: Noah Berger/AP
At least 17 people have died, a five-year-old is still missing, he was swept away by the masses of water: violent storms and rainfall have caused flash floods and landslides in California.
Streets are flooded, trees are downed.
Around 150,000 households were temporarily without electricity.
Authorities ordered the evacuation of several localities, including the small town of Montecito.
Many celebrities live in the town about 90 minutes by car south of Los Angeles on the Pacific coast, including Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, talk show legend Oprah Winfrey and actress Jennifer Aniston.
"Get out now!" the fire department urged the residents of Montecito.
“This is a rapidly evolving situation.
Please pay close attention to disaster warnings.”
Space for the »Pineapple Express«
Californians are used to rainy winter winds.
Broad streams of water-heavy air that sweep thousands of miles across the Pacific are responsible for this.
Because the storms often absorb their water load near Hawaii, the Californians call them the "Pineapple Express".
The locals have developed a kind of love-hate relationship with the storms.
Christmas is often miserable weather in northern California.
However, the rainstorms also bring 30 to 50 percent of the longed-for annual precipitation - in just a few days.
The problem this year, however, did not start with too much water, but on the contrary with too little.
For more than two decades, California has suffered from a prolonged drought that has fueled widespread forest and bush fires.
Where vegetation has been destroyed by fire, heavy rainfall can hardly seep into the ground - which in turn encourages landslides.
lakes in the desert
And in the coming years, the rains could get even worse.
Scientists have been expecting an ARkStorm, the abbreviation for Atmospheric River kilo Storm, for a long time.
According to this scenario, rainstorms gain such momentum that, like a gigantic fire hose, they transport fantastic amounts of water from west to east across the Pacific.
The clouds are rushing in only about a mile above the sea.
As soon as they collide with a mountain range and the warm air is pushed upwards, a torrential rain erupts for days.
Sediment samples show that in the past few centuries, violent winter storms have repeatedly swept in from the Pacific and flooded the American west coast.
Researchers now know that "atmospheric fluxes" are an integral part of the Earth's climate system.
The flow bands build up north and south of the equator, transporting warm and humid air from the tropics to subtropical and temperate latitudes, where they dump their water load on the west coasts of the continents.
Historical records demonstrate the power of "atmospheric fluxes."
The storm of the century in the winter of 1861/62 particularly frightened science.
Heavy rain clouds rolled over the country for 45 days.
Lakes formed in the Mojave Desert and Los Angeles Basin.
The storms raged almost the entire west coast of North America, from British Columbia down to Mexico.
In an August study, researchers speak of the ARkStorm as a flooding scenario from the climate change era.
"Climate change is increasing both the frequency and magnitude of extreme storm events that can cause megaflood events in California," it says.
The probability of heavy precipitation lasting for weeks has already increased.
Even a small rise in global temperatures could further accelerate the process.
Ex-moderator Ellen DeGeneres published a video of the current floods on Twitter, showing a torrent.
"This is crazy," she said.
The creek next to her house never flows, now it is probably a meter high and continues to rise.
"We need to be kinder to nature," DeGeneres says.
koe/phb/dpa/AFP
