Residents of Sonoma County have experienced a series of heavy downpours throughout the county’s wet season, felling trees and powerlines in areas and prompting warnings of flash floods in others. Throughout the mid-January storms, county officials worked overtime to clear roads closed as a result of the weather.

The strongest storm of the season moved over Sonoma County on the week of January 16, in which residents anticipated as much as 10 inches of rain across Sonoma and Mendocino counties, and causing power outages for hundreds of residents in Sonoma county, according to The Press Democrat. 

Many areas affected by the October 2017 wildfires were at a higher risk for flooding, debris and mud flows, and rock falls, according to the Sonoma County Recovery, a website launched after the fires to bring awareness about post-fire dangers.

Speaking on the December following the 2017 fires, former California governor Jerry Brown described the fires as “the new normal.” Brown also described the possibility that blazes of comparable destructiveness would occur in subsequent years, as they did last year, when the 2018 wildfires spurred the most destructives fire season since 2008. 

The increased frequency of devastating wildfires in recent years and the increased risk of environmental disasters in the areas most affected by the wildfires may be considered compounding effects of manmade climate change. There are also links to increases in the amount of precipitation an area receives and average temperature increases as a result of global climate change. 

According to NASA, increased amounts of evaporation as a result of higher temperatures result in more storms, and increased flooding risks and precipitation.

Sonoma County Recovery advises residents living in areas most affected by the fires to take specific precautions in preparation for powerful storms, such as the ones which passed through Sonoma County in January. 

These precautions principally involve evacuation preparation, in which endangered residents should prepare according to the dangers associated with their location with emergency supplies and at least two evacuation routes. The website also advises residents to fortify their property against environmental dangers with particular techniques, like installing obstacles to impede debris and removing existing debris. 

Additionally, signing up with SoCoAlert notifications allows residents to use their phones for alerts from the National Weather Service and to keep a weather emergency radio in areas at risk for power or cell service outages.

NBC Los Angeles ranked California’s 2017 and 2018 winter storms as among the worst in the state’s history, and while the effects and destruction of the 2019 winter storms may not be sufficiently cataloged to rank them amongst recent years, the compounding effects of climate change in increasing the risks of environmental disaster are unprecedented in the state’s long-term meteorological history. 

According to KQED, the sort of extreme weather events intensified by manmade climate change also correlate with a myriad of other problems, including mental health issues like depression, health risks associated with pollution, such as in cases where flooding contaminates water supplies, and infection, largely in areas where increased rainfall led to an increase in fungus growth. 

While any single one of these events may pose a negligible health risk, their danger intensifies when combined, and with a wet weather pattern returning in the coming weeks, it is important to take every precaution possible.