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By Aleks Phillips
U.S. News Reporter
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The Monterey Peninsula, to the south of San Francisco Bay, risks being cut off after the Salinas River, brimming with floodwater, burst its banks into nearby land.
Helicopter footage of the river overflowing into nearby roads and farmlands comes as another bout of storms is expected to hit the region, beginning Friday morning and continuing through the weekend.
John Zuchelli, from NBC's Bay Area news desk, posted a video of the Salinas River bursting its banks, causing water to flow into farmland.
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"Severe flooding in the Salinas Valley. The storm has caused the Salinas River to overflow [its] banks and cause several levee breaks along the river flooding farmland," Zuchelli tweeted.
The Salinas River already breached the 23-foot flood stage near Spreckels, a small town to the south of Salinas, on Thursday evening, and reached 24 feet in the early hours of Friday morning, U.S. Geological Survey data shows. The National Weather Service (NWS) predicts it will crest at 24.4 feet by 8 p.m. ET.
The Monterey County Sheriff's Office ordered the evacuation of low-lying areas near the river on Wednesday afternoon. Sheriff Tina Nieto told a press conference that residents should prepare for "what could be the Monterey Peninsula Island," according to local reports.
A stretch of Highway 1 that runs via the peninsula has been closed until further notice, with Caltrans running a "limited convoy operation" on Friday to allow for resupplies before the storms return, according to the sheriff's office.
NBC Bay Area also tweeted a video of the flooding from the Salinas River, writing that residents had been "advised to prepare for major roadways to be closed due to flooding between Thursday night and Sunday morning."
All schools in Salinas City have been closed for the day. To the south, parts of the Carmel Valley, which holds another river, are subject to evacuation warnings.
"The flooding of the Salinas River tomorrow would raise a scenario where the entire Monterey Peninsula—roughly 54,000 residents, including a naval base & the Bay Area's National Weather Service office—would effectively become an island," Gerry Diaz, a meteorologist for the San Francisco Chronicle, explained in a tweet.
The West Coast has been battered by a series of atmospheric river storms since late December, a meteorological phenomenon that brings intense levels of precipitation.
California has been drenched with rainwater—between 400 and 600 percent of historic averages, the NWS said on Tuesday—which has led to flooding, rock and mudslides.
Floodwaters and high winds have brought down trees and power lines, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without power at times, and led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of homes across the state earlier in the week.
The storms have so far claimed the lives of at least 18 people and, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Ariella Scalese, may have already caused a billion dollars of damage. On Sunday, President Joe Biden declared an emergency upon Governor Gavin Newsom's request.
The next storm front to break over the San Francisco Bay Area will begin on Friday morning, but will "stall and weaken" as it makes landfall, making for relatively low precipitation volumes, according to the NWS.
Even so, meteorologists are anticipating as much as 0.75 inches of rain in the valleys and 1-2 inches in the hills.
The next weather front will begin on Saturday, dropping another 1-2 inches in the valleys and 1.5-3 inches in the hills, "likely leading to urban and small stream flooding, rapid rises on the creeks/streams and exacerbate any mainstem flooding," the NWS said.
Local valleys are expected to see another 2-3 inches of rain on Sunday as a third storm moves in, with less in the Salinas Valleys.
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