California Threats Jump from Fires to Flooding in Wet Season
- ‘Land of extremes’ segues increasingly from threat to threat
- Rains hold off wildfires but add the risk of deadly mudslides
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California’s climate threats could soon be jumping from wildfires and blackouts to floods, mudslides and huge coastal waves as the state’s wet season kicks into gear.
About half the water that falls in California in any given year does so in the 90 days between Dec. 1 and the end of February. Too much rain has at times meant catastrophic floods and dangerous mudslides. Too little threatens agriculture with drought, and creates a tinderbox effect in the year ahead.