United States: President Biden visits California on the bad weather front
To Sacramento, January 11, 2023. REUTERS - FRED GREAVES
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
US President Joe Biden will visit areas of California ravaged by a series of storms on Thursday, January 19, which killed at least 19 people.
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US President Joe Biden will visit this Thursday, January 19 "
communities affected by the destruction due to recent storms, study reconstruction efforts and assess the additional federal assistance needed
", announced Monday evening, January 17, the White House in a statement.
Since December 27, severe winter storms have been causing flooding, landslides and mudslides in California.
The damage has already been estimated at $1 billion.
The most precipitation "
since January 14, 1862
"
Upstate San Francisco has recorded more than 45 centimeters of rain since Dec. 26, 2022, according to a National Weather Service (NWS) report.
This is the 22-day period that has recorded the most precipitation "
since January 14, 1862
", commented the American weather service.
In the Central Valley, the most fertile region of California - which produces 40% of American fruit - Modesto on Monday broke the daily rainfall record of 1950 and Stockton that of 1973, tweeted the Sacramento NWS.
Saturday, January 14, waterspouts had still fallen on the Pacific coast, causing the overflow of many rivers and flooding urban areas, homes and agricultural land dried up by an interminable drought.
Power lines were hit, and fields and roads were submerged.
However, the succession of these storms since the end of December could soon come to an end.
The NWS is indeed predicting for the weekend “
a period of drier weather over California and the southwestern
United States
”.
California will then perhaps, finally, have time to repair the damage, restore electricity - some 23,800 homes were still without it on Monday - and learn the lessons of these bad weather "
unprecedented on the scale of our lives
in the words of the governor.
In San Francisco, the past three or so months have been the wettest since the winter of 1972-73.
At the same time, California, whose agriculture feeds North America, is facing an unprecedented long-term drought.
"
A world that no longer exists
"
But the torrential rains of recent weeks will not reverse the trend.
They "
will not be enough to refill Lake Mead
", warns - for example - the NWS about this gigantic reservoir on the Colorado River which waters California and whose level has been inexorably falling for years.
There, the water control and retention infrastructures - dykes, artificial lakes, constrained riverbeds - "
were designed 40, 50 years ago
" for "
a world that no longer exists
", estimated, Saturday, California Governor Gavin Newsom.
By blocking the runoff of water, these developments limit the vital recharge of groundwater, explain specialists.
The Democratic governor, one of the most committed in the United States on climate change, intends to tackle these questions, as "
the heat becomes much hotter, the dry drier and
(...)
and the 'wetter humidity
'.
Global warming increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, say scientists.
►Also read
: President Biden declares a state of major disaster in flood-ridden California
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