A dramatic storm on the West Coast has unleashed "extraordinary torrential downpours" in Southern California, leading to flooding in many coastal cities, according to reports.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA, said during a Thursday online briefing that the Ventura County downpour is likely "the heaviest rainfall that has been observed in this area in recorded history and is likely a multicentennial kind of event."
"These are genuinely extraordinary torrential downpours and, importantly, they're continuing," he added.
"In Oxnard, particularly, overnight there were downpours that preliminary data suggests were probably the heaviest downpours ever observed in that part of Southern California."
The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Oxnard and the city of Ventura at 1:28 a.m. Thursday due to a high-intensity thunderstorm, but no tornado activity was immediately observed, the Ventura County Sheriff's Office said in a social media post.
The storm swept through Northern California earlier in the week as the center of the low-pressure system slowly moved south off the coast. Forecasters described it as a "cutoff low," a storm that is cut off from the general west-to-east flow and can linger for days, increasing the amount of rainfall.
According to the National Weather Service, flood watches are in effect through Friday evening for various areas in Southern California.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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