At the start of the year, California endured multiple storm events involving atmospheric rivers, the term for massive volumes of water vapor in the atmosphere that often produce large amounts of precipitation when they encounter land. Between late December and Jan. 16, California was walloped by nine such atmospheric river systems. Heavy rains from the recurring storms caused flooding and landslides across the state, severely testing - and, in some cases, overwhelming - the infrastructure designed to accommodate such events. After three years of severe drought, California finds itself whipsawed by the recurring storms. "We are in the middle of a flood emergency and also in the middle of a drought emergency," said Karla Nemeth, the director of the California Department of Water Resources, in a Jan. 4 news release. "This is an extreme weather event and we're moving from extreme drought to extreme flood."
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