A2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26 , 2021
HAPPENING TODAYFor the latest updates all day, visit washingtonpost.com.10 a.m. | The Commerce Department issues single-family home sales
for September, which are expected at 760,000. Visit washingtonpost.com/
business for details.
10 a.m. | A Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
subcommittee holds a hearing regarding the protection of kids online.
Representatives from Snap Inc., TikTok and YouTube testify. For
developments, visit washingtonpost.com/politics.
11 a.m. | The Senate holds a cloture vote on the nomination of Jia M.
Cobb to be a U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia. For details, visit
washingtonpost.com/politics.
Evening | President Biden speaks at a campaign rally in Arlington for
Virg inia gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe (D). For developments, visit
washingtonpost.com/local.
CORRECTIONSl An Oct. 25 A-section article
about Germany’s climate actions
incorrectly said the country was
aiming to cut emissions
compared with preindustrial
levels. The cuts would be r elative
to 1990 levels.l Because of a production error,
several paragraphs were omitted
from an Oct. 24 Page One article
about methane emissions in
Russia. A complete version is
available online at wapo.st/
3vGFsRG.l In some Oct. 23 editions, the
headline with a Metro article
about state Sen. Bryce Reeves (R-
Spotsylvania) seeking the GOP
nomination t o c hallenge Rep.
Abigail Spanberger ( D) in
Virginia’s 7th Congressional
District misspelled her last name
as S panaberger.l Because of a production error,
the crossword puzzle and the
previous day’s solution in the
Oct. 23 Style section were partly
obscured. A complete version is
reprinted on Page C4.l The C hile Shrimp With
Brussels Sprouts and Lemon
Aioli recipe i n the Oct. 20 Food
section misstated the amount of
garlic powder needed. It is ½
teaspoon, not 1 teaspoon. A
corrected version of the recipe
appears online at
washingtonpost.com/recipes.l An Oct. 18 Metro article about
school vaccination rates
incorrectly said that Fairfax
County Public Schools employees
had the highest vaccination rate
among regional school systems
at 97.6 percent. About 90 percent
of Fairfax staffers are fully
vaccinated, slightly lower than
Arlington County school
employees’ 91 percent.Download The
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WEATHERSeveral tornadoes
reported in MissouriThe National Weather Service
has confirmed a strong tornado
that thrashed the southeastern
Missouri city of Fredericktown
as strong storms that swept the
state and moved into Illinois
overnight damaged buildings
and knocked out power but left
no serious injuries.The National Weather Service
confirmed an EF-3 tornado hit
Fredericktown on Sunday night,
damaging homes, businesses and
the main electrical substation
that feeds power to the city of
about 4,000. A tornado with that
rating is considered strong, and
wind speeds range from 136 to
165 mph.
The National Weather Service
said preliminary reports indicate
up to six tornadoes may have
touched down across northern
Missouri. Teams were surveying
the damage Monday, but the
service said it could take days to
fully assess the damage.
Fredericktown schools
canceled classes for Monday
because of “ communitywide
power outages and damages
incurred by families” in the
storm, the St. Louis Post-
Dispatch reported.
Fredericktown is about 85
miles south of St. Louis.
The storms dropped heavy
rain, leading to some flooding
around tributaries and in low-
lying areas.
The Weather Service
reported over 2.5 inches of rain
fell in the Chicago area during
storms that started Sunday and
continued into Monday. Peak
winds of 48 mph were recorded
at about 9:30 a.m. Monday at
Chicago Midway International
Airport.
The system continued east
into the Ohio Valley on Monday,
a Weather Service meteorologist
based in St. Charles said.
— Associated PressTEXASChild’s remains found
with abandoned kidsAuthorities discovered the
skeletal remains of a child andthree abandoned siblings living
in a Houston apartment, police
said.
Harris County deputies
responded Sunday afternoon to a
call by a 15-year-old, who said
that his 9-year-old brother had
been dead for a year and that his
body was in the room next to his,
according to the Harris County
Sheriff’s Office.
When the police arrived to
the apartment complex in
western Houston, they found
the three minors, ages 15, 10 and
7, abandoned in an apartment
and living for a long time in
deplorable conditions, Harris
County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez
said.
They also found remains that
could be a minor’s and that
appeared to have been
abandoned there, also “for an
extended period of time,”
Gonzalez said. “A nd I emphasize
extended.”Police did not identify the
children.
The teenager told the deputies
that his parents hadn’t been
living in the apartment with him
and his two younger brothers for
several months.
The youngest boys appeared
to be malnourished and showed
signs of physical injury, police
said. They were taken to a
hospital to be assessed and
treated.
Gonzalez said that the siblings
apparently “were fending for
each other” and that the 15-year-
old was taking care of the
younger children.
The mother of the children,
as well as her boyfriend, were
later located. Both were
questioned and later released,
Gonzalez said in a tweet on
Monday.
The children were with Child
Protective Services on Monday.
— Paulina VillegasDIGESTEDUARDO MUNOZ/REUTERS
People march across the Brooklyn Bridge o n Monday as they protest
a coronavirus vaccine mandate for municipal employees in New York.BY MATTHEW CAPPUCCI
AND JASON SAMENOWA historic atmospheric river
drenched central and northern
California on Sunday with
r ecord-setting rains. The high-
impact event dented the region’s
drought and quelled the fire
season but also triggered flood-
ing and mudslides.
Up to a half-foot of rain fell at
low elevations, and over a foot
saturated the mountains. Both
San Francisco and Sacramento
established new rainfall records
for October, just after enduring a
historic shortage of precipita-
tion.
At the highest elevations of the
northern Sierra Nevada, multi-
ple feet of snow fell — a crucial
addition to water resources in
the drought-plagued region.
Atmospheric rivers are long,
narrow swaths of exceptionally
moist air, sometimes sourced
from the tropics, that can pro-
duce excessive amounts of pre-
cipitation. This river was rated a
level 5 out of 5 in the San
Francisco Bay area by the Cen-
ter for Western Weather and
Water Extremes in La Jolla,
Calif.
The parent “bomb cyclone,”
the rapidly intensifying ocean
storm that drove the atmos-
pheric river to the West Coast,
proved the most intense on
record offshore the Pacific
Northwest. It had a minimum
air pressure reminiscent of
Superstorm Sandy in 2012,
bringing hurricane-force
winds over the open ocean
waters and 50 to 80 mph gusts
along the coast from Seattle to
San Francisco.
Two people were killed near
Seattle when a falling tree
crushed their car. The combina-
tion of wind and rain left up to
170,000 customers without pow-
er in California on Sunday; that
number had diminished to
around 115,000 on Monday
morning. More than
150,000 customers lost power
around Seattle.
The atmospheric river was
winding down in intensity Mon-
day while sinking south toward
Southern California, but a look at
the long-range pattern suggests
the likelihood of continued at-
mospheric river events in the
coming weeks.Record precipitation
The atmospheric river
drenching the West Coast un-
leashed record rainfall and
moisture that brought deluges
and flooding to the rain-starved
region. Sacramento ended a rec-ord 212-day dry streak Oct. 18,
reversing course and suddenly
experiencing its wettest day on
record on Sunday — a whopping
5.44 inches of rain fell in
24 hours, equating to what
would ordinarily fall in two and
a half months.
In downtown San Francisco,
4.02 inches of rain fell Sunday,
its wettest October day on
record and fourth-wettest day
of any month in records dating
to 1 849 during the Gold Rush.
San Francisco International
Airport also recorded 4.02 inches
of rain on Sunday, bringing its
monthly total to 5.5 inches, or
roughly 10 times the average for
the month. No measurable rain
fell there between April and
September.
In Nevada, Reno received- 82 inches of rain between Sun-
day and Monday, an October
record.
Atmospheric rivers transport
their moisture most effectively at
the mid-levels of the atmos-
phere, which is why higher eleva-
tions wound up with the jackpot
totals.
The atmospheric river itself
was transporting about a ton and
a half of moisture per second
over every horizontal meter
across the core of the moisture
stream.
Snow totals measured in feet
occurred in the highest terrain.
Heavy snow forced the closure
of Interstate 80 for a time.
Extreme winds ripped across
mountain peaks, with gusts
topping 100 mph in some loca-
tions. Mammoth Mountain
clocked a peak gust of 159 mph.
Flooding and mudslides
The National Weather Service
Weather Prediction Center hoist-ed a rare level 4 out of 4 “high
risk” of excessive rainfall and
flooding in the northern Sierra
Nevada. In San Francisco, resi-
dents could be seen working to
clear storm drains at the inter-
section of 31st Avenue and Cali-
fornia Street. The Santa Rosa
Fire Department tweeted foot-
age depicting roaring rivers as
water rushed down streets and
threatened structures.
The high rainfall rates, which
topped an inch per hour, were
particularly problematic within
the burn scars of wildfires that
have torched parts of central and
Northern California in the past
several years. The Weather Serv-
ice issued flash flood and debris
flow warnings for the Dixie,
Caldor, River and Creek fires
burn scar areas.
“Excessive rainfall over the
warning area will cause mud
slides near steep terrain,” the
Weather Service wrote. “The
mud slide can consist of rock,
mud, vegetation and other loose
materials.”
On Sunday, a landslide oc-
curred along Route 70 near
Tobin, Calif., on the Butte-Plumas
County line, forcing the closure
of the highway. The area was
within the burn scar of the Dixie
Fire, which burned nearly a mil-
lion acres this year.Record-setting ‘double bomb’
Steering the atmospheric river
into the Golden State was a swirl
of low pressure several hundred
miles off the coasts of Washing-
ton and Oregon. The low pres-
sure brought wind gusts to
around 60 mph in coastal
stretches of the Pacific North-
west and wave heights of up to
20 feet, but it was a powerhouse
storm over the open ocean withhurricane-force winds. It i ntensi-
fied at an extreme rate — twice
the pace of “deepening,” or
strengthening, needed to qualify
for “bombogenesis.”
That led to an air pressure
similar to that of Hurricane San-
dy in 2012, signifying the vacu-
um-like effect of the storm as it
spiraled in air from all direc-
tions. It proved the lowest air
pressure on record in that part of
the ocean.Looking ahead
More than 86 percent of
California was in “extreme” or
a top-tier “exceptional”
drought last week according to
the U.S. Drought Monitor.
While the drenching will make
a dent in the deficit, the years-
long problematic paucity will
be far more difficult to erase.
Due to the storm’s warm na-
ture, less of the precipitation
fell as snow; snow is more
useful from a water resources
standpoint since it can easily
be stored in the Sierra Nevada
as it melts more gradually,
creating a more reliable reser-
voir of water.
Data indicates that climate
change is causing the expan-
sion of California’s dry season
and fire season deeper into
October and November, as the
wet season becomes com-
pressed. This latest storm
proved an anomaly and a wel-
come nail in the coffin for
2021’s fire season in central and
northern parts of the state.
But rain in Southern Califor-
nia was insufficient to mean-
ingfully relieve drought condi-
tions there or end its wildfire
season.
[email protected]
[email protected]Record-setting rain, floods strike in California
An atmospheric river
soaked northern, central
parts of a bone-dry stateMELINA MARA/THE WASHINGTON POST
State transportation department crews clean up rocks and mud along Highway 1 in Big Sur, Calif., on
Monday. R ecord rainfall in places that were scarred by w ildfires caused flash floods and landslides.a name you can...TrTrustustAll major credit cards
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