Don\u2019t be fooled by Thursday\u2019s lull.<\/p>\n
The eighth and ninth storms to target California since Christmas are on the way this holiday weekend, making for volatile and treacherous conditions from the Bay Area to the Sierra.<\/p>\n
The storms themselves won\u2019t be as intense as those that devastated communities in the Santa Cruz mountains and along the beaches over the past week, but with rivers running high and soils already saturated, more flooding and mudslides are predicted across California. The Salinas River in southern Monterey County in particular is expected to flood Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely appreciate the bounty, but we wish it was spread out over a longer period,\u201d Jeff Lorber, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
So much snow has fallen already this season that sensors are registering what is considered the \u201cfull seasonal snowpack\u201d normally expected by April 1, state climatologist Michael Anderson told reporters during a news briefing Wednesday. It\u2019s still too soon to say whether the snowpack levels will hold until then, but if they do, they could provide ample snowmelt to continue to fill the reservoirs this spring and summer.<\/p>\n
Kevin \u201cCoop\u201d Cooper, a longtime Tahoe area ski condition reporter and resort marketing consultant, said the abundant snow is a welcome change after several lean snow years during the state\u2019s drought.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, I\u2019m looking out of my house and it\u2019s snowing lightly. We\u2019re seeing a nice new amount of snow, temperatures are dropping,\u201d he said Wednesday. \u201cAfter my 30 years up here, this is one of the best MLK weekends we\u2019ve seen in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that comes with a catch.<\/p>\n