Northern California could be in for a new atmospheric river storm by the end of the week, potentially blasting the Bay Area with substantial rain, and the Sierra with even more heavy snow, but likely not as fierce as the wet storms that wreaked damage across the region at the start of the year, forecasters say…. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and the Nature Conservancy, said Sunday evening that an atmospheric river could be a concern regarding the state’s snowpack, which on Friday reached its highest level this century for the start of March. Such rain-on-snow events — when heavy rain falls on snow in higher elevations — could result in snow melting faster, flooding downstream areas, overwhelming rivers and overloading buildings with heavy slush, weather experts say.

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