California appears to be soaking wet right now. From heavy rains in Southern California sending boulders sliding on sheets of mud, storm warnings in effect in the Sierra with up to 15 inches of snow above 7,000 feet, and a big ol’ mess of rain falling in San Francisco last night in a matter of minutes, our weather has our meteorologists multi-tasking and digging ever deeper for new weather metaphors and ways to get people’s attention.
“Turn around,” shouted one statement from the National Weather Service, warning about flooding from Burbank to Agoura Hills. “Don’t drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood deaths occur in vehicles.”
To help you get your heads around all this “snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” breaking news, here’s a look by-the-numbers at some of what’s going out there:
13: how many minutes it took for a quarter-inch of rain to fall Thursday night in San Francisco
70: miles-per-hour that winds are expected to reach today and tomorrow on mountain tops around Lake Tahoe
19: inches of snow that could fall overnight on those same peaks
26: the calendar date in March this year when the caboose on this heavy-storm train pulls out of the Tahoe Basin, bringing an end to the seasonal snow dump
19: percentage, in inches, of normal Sierra Nevada snow pack as of three weeks ago
40: percentage as of this past Wednesday
12: hours that evacuated residents in and around slide-ravaged Montecito and Carpinteria were out of their homes on Monday night
100: number of runs at Northstar – and the number of them open on Thursday
8: number of snow stories or snow references on the homepage of the Tahoe Daily Tribune Friday morning
54,100: number of followers this week on Heavenly Mountain’s Instragram account
9 and 6: temperatures in Fahrenheit expected today and Saturday, respectfully
450: average inches of snowfall every winter at Squaw Valley
297: inches of snowfall, at 8,000 feet, at Squaw so far this season
3361: number of umbrellas or umbrella-related products available for purchase on Walmart.com
