Could Helene-type flooding happen in California? Scientists say yes

(KCBS RADIO) – While the cleanup effort gets underway in the southeast region of the United States after Hurricane Helene, West Coast disaster preparedness experts say something similar could happen here.

It's highly unlikely that California could see a Category 4 storm like Helene park itself well inland and dump water at record breaking rates.

But we're still vulnerable to flooding, especially during a Pineapple Express.

Letitia Grenier directs the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California and says climate change takes it up a notch.

“Now with the heating in the atmosphere, we are getting these really intense stormburst in certain places, in particular storms,” Grenier stated. “And that may be more like a hurricane in terms of those moments.”

Think of the flooding that followed a levee breach in Pajaro in March 2023, but multiplied across the region.

“The soil is saturated. The reservoirs are full,” explained Grenier. “Rivers are full all the way up to their banks. That's when rivers want to overflood onto their floodplains. That's how these natural ecosystems work.”

Meteorologists and disaster preparedness experts call this atmospheric river scenario an ARkStorm, because it'd make you want to build an ark.