If you go down far enough on this page you will see a graphic of the atmospheric rivers causing this from across the Pacific Ocean.
(CNN) -- "It never rains in California," a 60s rock ballad goes. That's basically true, and it makes the state a notorious drought zone -- currently the country's worst.
Torrents, gales, 20-foot waves -- and blizzards -- to blast California
By Ben Brumfield, CNN
updated 3:27 AM EST, Thu December 11, 2014
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Business owners in Northern California prepping with sandbags
San Francisco and Oakland schools to close Thursday
An "atmospheric river" is pumping moisture into drought-stricken West Coast
ARs can be 250-400 miles wide and branch off from bands of tropical moisture
(CNN) -- "It never rains in California,"
a 60s rock ballad goes . That's basically true, and it makes the state a notorious drought zone -- currently the country's worst. But when it does rain, the song warns: "It pours. Man, it pours!"
It poured late Wednesday to the tune of half an inch an hour in parts of the state's north, the National Weather Service said. And during the day on Thursday, the Bay Area will brace for two to three inches.
The highest elevations of Northern California might get 10 inches of rain, forecasters said. A gushing fit for a tropical island.
That's the zone where a lot of the moisture in the current storms has come from. The California coast has been hosed by an "atmospheric river," a band of heavily moist air that split off from a larger such band at the tropics.
Storms batter both U.S. coasts
It's as if a river in the sky broke its banks, sending a new tributary 250 to 400 miles wide northeastward to California.
Water supply
Such atmospheric river drenchings in California are rare but normal and necessary, the National Weather Service
Atmospheric River still taking aim at the Bay Area.
#BayAreaStorm
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