The latest in a damaging succession of storm systems blew into California on Saturday, bringing heavy flooding to already waterlogged regions and threatening snowfalls of up to six feet (two meters) in areas.
The latest system was expected to bring "heavy lower-elevation rain, significant mountain snow, and strong winds," with "another surge of Pacific moisture" expected Monday, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.
It predicted "disastrous flooding" across the lower Salinas River valley, an important agricultural region south of San Francisco Bay.
An AFP journalist saw the Salinas River overtopping its banks in many spots, at times covering farm fields for hundreds of yards (meters), even as the rain continued under leaden skies.
In Spreckels, a community a few hundred yards from the river, most residents had opted not to evacuate despite warnings from authorities.
A few miles away, 30-year-old farm worker Erick Diaz watched the flooded fields from his modest home located near the river. Despite evacuation orders, he too had remained.
"I have nowhere to go and for the moment everything is fine," he said.
Governor Gavin Newsom, however, warned Californians that they were not in the clear yet.
"We're not done," he said Saturday after visiting residents impacted by the storms.
Urging residents to remain vigilant, he said Californians should continue to exercise "common sense over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours."
Nearly 26,000 Californians remained under a flood watch Saturday evening, according to the NWS, with tens of thousands ordered to evacuate.
The storms of recent weeks were originally welcomed -- coming after years of drought -- but by now have brought "disastrous" flooding, officials say.
Around 2330 GMT, there were approximately 20,000 homes without power, according to poweroutage.us.
At least 19 people are known to have died from storm-related causes.
"This place was hit hard by the drought over the past years," 58-year-old farm worker Manuel Paris told AFP near Salinas, adding, "We're not used to this much rain anymore."
The NWS said an additional two to three inches of rain (5.0 to 7.5 centimeters) could cause new flooding and mudslides, with parts of the Sierra Nevada seeing three to six feet of snow, and heavy winds buffeting central and coastal California at up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) per hour......more below
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/01/15/696346/New-storms-California-disastrous-floods
Any moment now I am expecting John Cleese (a veteran of Monty Python) to jump out of the bushes and announce the creation of the Ministry of Silly Wars, with Donald Trump as the deranged leader. For you youngsters out there, Monty Python’s skit, The Ministry of Silly Walks, helped make the members of MP legends. I had to reference Monty Python because the line of bullshit the Trump administration is feeding the American people and the world about the amazing, obliterating US attack on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, is more ridiculous that all of the silly walks pictured in the following video:
My hopes that Donald Trump would finally act like a responsible adult are dashed. He’s a dangerous buffoon. While the team around him are working frantically to maintain the fiction that Trump has a vision and is calling the shots on the foreign policy front, he is careening around the globe like an out-of-control cue ball on a billiards table. It started a week ago… first, he claimed...
Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults. Official media said China is about to enter a three-aircraft-carrier era, with the Fujian expected to enter service by 2025.
After the launch of the Fujian on June 17, 2022, it carried out its first sea trial from May 1 to 8 in 2024. Since then, the Fujian has completed multiple sea trials, accumulating more than 100 days of sea trial, China Central Television (CCTV) News reported on Tuesday.
Wei Dongxu, a Chinese military affairs commentator, said that the aircraft carrier Fujian has been making steady progress in sea trials, and is expected to be commissioned within this year, CCTV News reported.
With a full displacement of more than 80,000 tons, the Fujian is the world's first conventionally powered aircraft carrier to feature electromagnetic catapult technologies, according to CCTV News. The report noted that it will carry a wide variety of carrier-borne...
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China and Central Asian countries have explored and formed the China-Central Asia Spirit, which features mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, and the pursuit of common modernization through high-quality development.
Xi made the remarks in his speech at the second China-Central Asia Summit in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Xi said that the Chinese side has decided to establish three cooperation centers and a trade facilitation platform within the China-Central Asia cooperation mechanism.
When addressing the summit, Xi said these institutions include the China-Central Asia poverty reduction cooperation center, the China-Central Asia education exchange cooperation center, the China-Central Asia desertification control cooperation center, as well as the China-Central Asia trade facilitation cooperation....more below
