Flood — Kern, California

2024-11-25 to 2024-11-26 · near Democrat Spgs, Kern, California

Event narrative

California Highway Patrol reported several rocks on SR 178 11SW Lake Isabella.

Wider weather episode

A large upper low pressure system which had remained nearly stationary off the Pacific Northwest coast for several days moved inland across the Pacific Northwest on November 26. This low pulled up a surge of deep moisture into central California between the evening of November 25 and the evening of November 26. This atmospheric river type system brought moderate to locally heavy precipitation to much of the area with most of the San Joaquin Valley picking up between 0.75 and 1.50 inches of rainfall. Most of the Sierra Foothills and the Kern River Valley picked up between 1 and 3 inches of rainfall while the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada picked up between 2 and 4 inches of liquid precipitation with several SNOTELs above 7000 feet picking up an estimated 1 to 3 feet of new snow. The Tehachapi Mountains generally picked up between a quarter to a half inch of rainfall while rain shadowing limited precipitation in the Kern County Desert areas. Several reports of nuisance flooding were reported by law enforcement in Fresno, Tulare and Kern Counties.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.5379, -118.6280)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1218445. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.