The waterlogged mountainsides looming over the communities in the foothills in California have city officials worried. The state is in dire need of moisture but not at high rates that have become increasingly more dangerous.
Evacuation orders for hundred of Los Angeles County homes remained in effect where fires have burned vegetation holding the soil in place and heavy rain bursts have caused the mountainsides to belch the occasional flow of debris.
The storm that is now situated just off the coast and sending bands of rain onto the mainland is a marked departure from months of drought. The drought is at crisis proportion for the huge farming industry in the state.
However, storms of this sort would need to be commonplace to make a serious dent in the drought, said weather forecasters.
Officials have warned that even though there have been long lulls, additional heavy downpours can be expected and they have urged all residents that have left their homes to not return yet.
The weather forecast has the storm moving east over the Rockies to the Plains and into the Mississippi Valley, bringing large amounts of rain with it.
The eastward movement of the storm on Saturday ended a streak of 70 straight days without any precipitation in Phoenix. A spell of 85 days of no rainfall of any measurable amount ended Friday in Las Vegas.
Snow and rain finally arrived in New Mexico, which has been drought stricken as well. A highway accident in Denver due to heavy snow involved over 100 vehicles killing one person and injured dozens more.
More than 1,200 homes in Monrovia, Glendoria and Azusa all adjacent cities to one another have been evacuated, because of the possibility of huge flows with destructive force originating from the San Gabriel Mountains.
Forecasters are saying that the upper-level low at the center of the storm would be coming ashore moving east and by the end of Sunday would leave just showers in the area.
The storm has saturated much of the state. San Francisco has received over 8 inches of rain this week bringing the city to more than 44% of its normal rainfall.
Roxanne Briean
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