After several days of relentless rain, wind, and snow, Californians woke up to sunny skies and flooded streets on New Year’s Day, taking advantage of a brief respite to recover before the next set of storms predicted for later in the week.
Northern California was hit hardest by a powerful “atmospheric river” system that caused floods and landslides across the West Coast on Saturday.
Rescue operations continued on Sunday, with crews extracting passengers from submerged vehicles and dealing with rivers and creeks that had overflowed their banks. In downtown San Francisco, streets were still draining after the city experienced nearly record-breaking rainfall.
The National Weather Service reported 5.46 inches of rain in the city on New Year’s Eve, just 0.08 inches short of the 1994 record in over 170 years of recorded data, accounting for 46.8% of the month’s total rainfall.
In Sacramento County, agricultural workers spent New Year’s Day repairing a compromised levee system.
Firefighters and rescue teams scoured a rural area of Sacramento County on Sunday afternoon, searching for individuals potentially trapped in homes and vehicles.