Another powerful storm, known as a bomb cyclone, is hitting the California coast and the National Weather Service in the Bay Area is warning residents that the “truly brutal” system needs to be taken seriously.
The system could trigger “immediate disruption to commerce, and the worst of all, likely loss of human life,” forecasters say. It comes on the heels of the last round of record-breaking rainfall that slammed the same area over the weekend.
Meanwhile, a major winter storm that brought snow and freezing rain to its colder northern end – and severe storms and tornadoes on its warmer southern end – is still threatening more severe weather as it treks east.
California’s storm is prompted by a strong “atmospheric river” – a long, narrow region in the atmosphere that can carry moisture thousands of miles. Northern California and the Bay Area will see the worst impacts through the day Wednesday and Thursday as heavy rain and hurricane-force wind gusts move onshore.
The storm became a bomb cyclone Wednesday, after it rapidly strengthened while still offshore. A bomb cyclone is an area of low pressure that intensifies by 24 millibars within 24 hours. Millibars are a unit used to measure atmospheric pressure.