Torrential rains threaten flooding across California

LOS ANGELES: A newly formed Pacific storm swept into California on Friday as forecasters warned of flooding from heavy downpours expected to drench much of the state, including mountain areas still blanketed in snow from recent blizzards.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued excessive-rainfall alerts and flood watches, as well as high-wind advisories, for a wide swath of northern and central California encompassing the metropolitan areas around San Francisco Bay and Sacramento. The storm is the product of what meteorologists call an atmospheric river, a high-altitude current of dense, subtropical moisture streaming into the West Coast from the warm Pacific waters around Hawaii.