California welcomes the New Year with an earthquake and floods that inundated several employees of the American state

Weather of Arabia - Continuous heavy rains in the US state of California on Friday and Saturday caused torrential rains and a rise in the water levels of lakes and rivers, which led to floods, landslides and power outages in several parts of the state, in addition to an earthquake that struck the north of the state simultaneously. With the beginning of the new year.

And in Sacramento County, rescue teams recovered the body of a person who was found dead in a submerged car after being swept off the road by torrential rains, and the teams worked to rescue dozens of people trapped in their vehicles after they were flooded, and more than 100,000 people in the state lost their electricity this afternoon. Sunday.

An "atmospheric river" causes heavy rain

The heavy rain resulted from an atmospheric phenomenon called the " atmospheric river " or atmospheric river, which are long passages in the atmosphere that include a large amount of condensed water vapor, in this case the source of moisture from the Pacific Ocean, and when the wet currents met with very cold winds coming from the land Unstable weather conditions formed.

Weather maps in the Arab Regional Weather Center indicate that the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are exposed to severe weather disturbances that raise the risk of torrential rains, as it is expected that a collision will occur between warm and moist winds coming from the Gulf of Mexico with cold and dry winds coming from the north, which will lead to the emergence of Severe weather disturbances, the formation of cumulus clouds classified as dangerous, resulting in heavy rain and heavy hailstones.

Magnitude 5.4 earthquake near Eureka

Flooding and extreme weather weren't the only natural phenomena plaguing Northern California on Sunday, as a 5.4-magnitude earthquake struck Sunday morning at about 10:35 near Eureka, in an area that was already recovering from a 6.4-magnitude earthquake on Dec. 20 that left people dead. two, injuring at least 17, and causing significant damage to buildings in Humboldt County.

State Route 211 in Fernbridge was closed on Sunday for an assessment of any structural damage to a bridge from the quake.