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As yet another winter storm rolled into the Bay Area and Santa Cruz County region on Saturday, forecasters warned of dangerous winds and mudslides, followed by widespread flooding early next week as a more powerful atmospheric river weather pattern is expected to slam the region.

Rivers and creeks are at the greatest risk of cresting their banks on Monday and Tuesday. The chances of flooding in other low-lying areas also will be highest then as the heaviest rains arrive.

Booming wind gusts starting Saturday could topple trees and knock out power lines and after a week of relentless rainfall, mudslides are a threat this weekend, especially in areas burned by wildfires in recent years.

“A lot of these soils are very saturated, so there could still be mudslides and downed trees (this weekend), but our concern is even more elevated by the time we hit this Monday storm,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Brooke Bingaman.

Saturday’s weather pattern — the fourth in a series of deadly and destructive storms since late December — was moving south from the North Bay on Saturday morning and expected to reach the rest of the Bay Area by the afternoon. It’s forecast to bring half an inch to 2 inches of rain for most of the region and up to 4 inches in the mountains through the weekend. Wind gusts could reach up to 60 mph, and higher at mountain peaks.

After a brief respite Sunday afternoon, the more potent second storm is expected to arrive that night and last through Tuesday morning, dumping from 2 to 6 inches across the Bay Area and up to 8 inches in higher elevations.

In Santa Cruz, the National Weather Service has issued a flood watch beginning at 4 p.m. Saturday and ending 4 p.m. Tuesday. A wind advisory is also in effect from Saturday morning to Sunday at 1 p.m. The city of Watsonville has issued a flood advisory for portions of the city near Corralitos Creek and the Pajaro River that is in effect from Saturday to Tuesday.

The wet weather comes after days of rain the state from Pacific storms. A series of recent weather systems have knocked out power to thousands, flooded streets, battered the coastline and caused at least six deaths.

The storms won’t be enough to officially end California’s ongoing drought but they have helped.

In the Sierra, both Interstate 80 and Highway 50 were open without restrictions Saturday afternoon.

But the road conditions in the Sierra are likely to change in the next few days, according to the National Weather Service. The NWS has issued a winter storm warning from 7 p.m. Sunday to 4 p.m. Wednesday.

San Jose could see about 2 inches of rain in the coming days, unusual for an area usually rain-shadowed in by the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Big Sur could get upwards of 11 inches of rain at its highest peaks.

The next few days will feature two separate storms. The first starting today through Sunday morning. There will be a brief dry period on Sunday, then the second round starting Sunday night through Tuesday morning. Here are the latest forecast totals and max wind gusts.#CAwx pic.twitter.com/9YgoRWiv0C

— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) January 7, 2023

Until then, Sonoma and Napa counties should feel the brunt of the first storm.

“The North Bay is going to be the big focus of this one,” said weather service meteorologist Bray Murdock “There are some areas reaching up to 4 to 6 inches with maybe some peaks getting 6 inches.”

But as the second storm touches down late Sunday, the threat of floods and mudslides should increase across the region. And major waterways will be at risk of overflowing.

Some creeks and rivers the weather service highlighted for potential flooding include the Russian River near Guerneville in Sonoma County; Alameda Creek near Niles and Sunol, and Arroyo de la Laguna at Verona in Alameda County; and Coyote Creek at Milpitas and at Edenvale, and Pacheco Creek near Dunneville in Santa Clara County. The San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz County is also at risk of overflowing.

Bingaman encouraged residents to sign up for local emergency alert systems to get the most current information about any evacuation orders during the storms.

“One of the number one things for people to do is to make sure they are signed up for their county alerts,” Bingaman said. “That is going to be the best way to get the info that’s pertinent to them.”

Forecast

The three-day forecast for the Santa Cruz County region according to the National Weather Service.

Sunday: A chance of rain before 10 a.m., then a chance of rain after 4 p.m. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 58. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Sunday night, rain, mainly after 10 p.m. Low around 49. Southeast wind with gusts as high as 26 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%.

Monday: Rain, heavy at times. High near 61. Breezy, with a south wind as high as 39 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Monday night, rain before 4 a.m. Chance of precipitation is 90%.

Tuesday: Showers and possibly a thunderstorm before 10 a.m., then rain likely. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. High near 56. Chance of precipitation is 90%. Tuesday night, a slight chance of rain before 10 p.m., then a slight chance of rain after 4 a.m. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 44.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva removed 40 soldiers from the detail at his presidential residence after vowing a staffing clean-up following the attempted coup on January 8.

Lula claims that the backers of far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro who attacked the presidential palace, Supreme Court and Congress most likely had inside help.

He ordered a thorough staffing review, saying he was “convinced that the door of the Planalto (presidential) palace was opened for people to enter because there are no broken doors.”

In a notice published in the official gazette on Tuesday, it was announced that 40 soldiers have been removed from the presidential detail at Alvorada palace, where Brazil’s presidents live.

The president said last week that any “radical Bolsonarista” found still working for the government would be dealt with, and cited media reports of alleged threats made by personnel inherited from the previous administration.

Lula said that members of the security services may have been involved in the uprising and asked: “How can I have a person outside my office who might shoot me?”

Mr. Bolsonaro went to the United States two days before Lula’s inauguration and is now being investigated on suspicion of instigating the uprising.

The former president denies any link to the attempted coup.

This comes as the office of Brazil’s prosecutor-general has presented its first charges against some of the thousands of people who authorities say stormed government buildings in an effort to overturn Lula’s election.

The prosecutors in the recently formed group to combat anti-democratic acts have also requested that the 39 defendants who ransacked Congress be imprisoned as a preventive measure, and that $7.7 million (£6.2m) of their assets be frozen to help cover damages.

The defendants have been charged with armed criminal association, violent attempt to subvert the democratic state of law, staging a coup and damage to public property, the prosecutor-general’s office said in a written statement on Monday night.

The identities of the defendants have not yet been released.

More than a thousand people were arrested on the day of the January 8 riot, which bore strong similarities to the January 6 2021 riots at the US Congress by mobs seeking to overturn former President Donald Trump’s election loss.

The prosecutor-general’s office sent its charges to the Supreme Court after the Senate’s president, Rodrigo Pacheco, last week provided a list of people accused of rampaging through Congress.

Morning Star

For marathon runners, the last mile is often the hardest — and the same apparently holds true for extending Caltrain into downtown San Francisco.

Preparations for the final 1.3-mile leg — pushing trains to the city’s Salesforce Tower — are finally picking up speed after decades of on-and-off planning. But there’s one major hurdle: a new $6.7 billion price tag.

The rail line — also planned as the finishing northern stretch for California’s High-Speed Rail — saw a cost increase of 34% from a 2015 budget, according to a new estimate from the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, which oversees the project.

At $5.15 billion per mile of new track, the Caltrain undertaking is now runner-up for the world’s most costly transit project, behind New York’s notoriously pricey East Side Access project, according to a database at New York University.

The escalating figure is not holding back transit planners. They have set an ambitious 2032 completion date, allocated over $1.7 million toward lobbying the state and federal government for funds, and rebranded the extension with a new name: “The Portal”

“This is a generational investment in our climate, mobility and economic future for California. This is not extending a commuter rail one mile,” said Adam Van De Water, executive director of the TJPA. Instead, he said, Bay Area residents should view the mega project as a linchpin for a climate-friendly future by uniting high-speed rail, bus and BART at San Francisco’s Salesforce Transit Center.

“It is a critical connection to bring those 11 agencies together,” said Van De Water. “So then you can take a bus from any of the Bay Area counties into downtown and hop on Caltrain or high-speed rail and be destined statewide.”

A similar vision for regional transit connectivity is also underway in San Jose, with BART, electrified Caltrain and high-speed rail eventually meeting at Diridon Station. Both transit hubs in San Francisco and San Jose have been dubbed the future “Grand Central Station of the West” by local officials. BART’s $9.4 billion extension through the South Bay is scheduled to open in 2034, two years after the Caltrain extension.

The majority of the Caltrain project’s costs come from building the new underground station and underground tunnel that extends the tracks from Caltrain’s current terminus near Oracle Park at 4th and King to the basement of the Salesforce Transit Center.

Along with tunneling costs, inflation and planning for unforeseen expenses are behind a “conservative but realistic approach” to budgeting, Van De Water said. With an eye toward ballooning costs for bringing BART through San Jose and other mega projects around the country, Caltrain is saving some money by shrinking its tunnel size and eliminating an underground passage from the Salesforce building to the Embarcadero BART Station.

“Every year we don’t get this project underway is almost $300 million in escalation alone,” said Van De Water. “That’s not adding any bell, any whistle any change to the design.”

Alon Levy, who researches transit costs at New York University, called the new budget estimate “horrific” without clear reasoning for the sky-high price tag. The project is expected to cost more than average due to the dense urban location and the inflated price of doing business in San Francisco, said Levy. But the current estimate is “unjustified” considering that much of the heavy lifting was already completed in 2018 when the $2.2 billion Salesforce Transit Center opened with a massive empty basement prepped for Caltrain and high-speed rail’s eventual arrival.

Nevertheless TJPA, along with Caltrain, is embarking on a plan to secure nearly 50% of the funding from the Biden administration. The rest will come from state and local sources, but there are headwinds at the state level as Gov. Gavin Newsom recently proposed axing $2 billion from a key transit infrastructure program that would likely fund The Portal.

While transit planners emphasize The Portal’s tie-in with a future bullet train, it appears unlikely that California’s embattled high-speed rail project will reach Salesforce tower in the coming decades. A high-speed rail link is projected to connect Bakersfield and Merced in the early 2030s, but there is no funding — or major political backing — for the tens of billions of dollars needed to bring a bullet train from the Central Valley to the Bay Area, which would require a contentious 13.5-mile tunnel through the Pacheco Pass, south of San Jose.

Backers of high-speed rail hoped that President Biden would fund the project through his massive infrastructure bill. But the Federal Transit Administration recently rejected a $1.3 billion funding request from the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The FTA determined that the project was not cost-effective.

For Caltrain and The Portal, the other issue is convincing the federal government that it is worthwhile to invest in a transit service and downtown area that is oriented around commuters who have shifted to working from home. Caltrain had one of the nation’s worst ridership collapses. Nearly three years after the COVID pandemic, passenger travel remains down by 60%.

Due to the ridership collapse, Caltrain is projecting an operating deficit that could hamper the rollout of their electrified in trains in 2024.

Tom Radulovich, a former BART board president and long-time advocate for the extension, said the region needs to think past high sticker prices and fund infrastructure that will be used for generations to come.

“This one is truly transformative,” he said. “We have an obligation to be a good ancestor.”