The past 5-10 years have seen all the latest reports concerning California's wildfires- from wine country being threatened and possibly being one of the causes. To celebrity homes being burnt to a crisp in the forest wildfires. The state has even suffered through numerous droughts that seemed to have only gotten worse. The problem has become so severe that even the film industry and other media outlets are beginning to address the problem.
Yet a new environmental crisis may be looming for California, and it's the exact opposite of extreme drought. Experts are now expecting a devastating flood to hit California. Scientists are calling this flood a "mega-flood". Per CNN, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA, describes a 'mega-flood' as “describes a mega-flood as, "a very severe flood event across a broad region that has the potential to bring catastrophic impacts to society in the areas affected”.
This event is being compared to one that happened in 1862, named the "Arkstorm". The storm historically flooded California, and we haven't seen anything like it since.
On August 12th, the UCLA newsroom posted that climate change has doubled California's likelihood of extreme precipitation. This flood may seem shocking to many since we've been focusing on how dry California is. This can be seen as part of the problem as Swain points out that people have been so preoccupied with wildfires and drought people have completely forgotten about floods because years go by without one. This flood prediction comes right off the heels of the recent flood that occurred in St. Louis, which was also considered “bone dry.”
Additionally, climate scientists predict that major highways such as I-5 and I-80 will be closed during this mega storm and mega-flood. At the time of this writing, it was also predicted that "Stockton, Fresno and Los Angeles would be under water even with today's extensive collection of reservoirs, levees and bypasses." This would lead up to almost $1 trillion worth of damage. One of, if not the biggest natural disasters seen.
Edited by: Chanelle Jassim
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