California Continues To Get Drenched With Rain
LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) — A second day of much-needed rain fell across drought-stricken California on Wednesday, but the storm had so far produced few of the problems such as flooding and mudslides that had threatened areas left barren by wildfires.
Residents and authorities, however, kept a cautious watch on saturated slopes as scattered showers fell in Southern California, where the heaviest torrents fell a day earlier.
Despite the storm's scale, experts said it would take many more similar storms to pull the state out of three years of drought.
Nonetheless, the rain awakened signature waterfalls at Yosemite National Park, including 2,425-foot Yosemite Falls — which had dried to a trickle by mid-July — and 620-foot Bridalveil Fall.
"With the precipitation, they are looking good. They are flowing nicely," park spokeswoman Ashley Mayer told The Associated Press after a morning drive through Yosemite Valley.
In Tuesday's downpours, downtown Los Angeles received 1.15 inches of rain, breaking a 1961 record for the day, according to the weather service.
Nearly 1½ inches fell on San Francisco, where historic cable cars and their 100-year-old braking systems had to be shut down. The rain, expected to last through Thursday, has brought most of the San Francisco Bay Area within or beyond normal rainfall totals to date for the first time in years.
Traffic was snarled and flights were delayed in cities around the state.
Just before the storm arrived, the Sierra Nevada snowpack — which counts for most of the state's water supply — was at just 24 percent of normal for this time of year. But snow was rapidly building rapidly with reports of 10 inches of snowfall at elevations of 8,000 feet.
Meantime, another potential problem awaited Southern California coastal residents: a thick tangle of trash that gets washed from city streets into storm drains and then onto beaches after major storms.
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