海角大神

A storm system that has battered California for three days, flooding streets and triggering mudslides, is now aiming at Arizona.

This bout of bad weather, say meteorologists, is largely courtesy of El Ni帽o, which is expected to influence the jet stream throughout the winter months.

In southern California on Wednesday, the third storm in three days brought high winds and continuous rainfall, prompting authorities to issue flash-flood and high-wind warnings. In the north, some 30,000 people lost power, and the state鈥檚 highway patrol reported numerous mudslides along roadways.

On Thursday and Friday, Arizona is expecting as much as four feet of snow in the northern part of the state and heavy rainfall in the center. And Nevadans should prepare for flooding later this week, officials in Las Vegas said. That city was pummeled with heavy rains Tuesday.

鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be a big one,鈥� says Darren McCollum, lead forecaster in Flagstaff, Ariz., for the National Weather Service.

While it鈥檚 difficult to pinpoint what鈥檚 responsible for a batch of severe storms, many are pointing their finger at El Ni帽o.

鈥淓l Ni帽o appears to be showing signs here in this pattern with particularly strong disturbances within the jet stream,鈥� says Greg Carbin, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service鈥檚 Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. 鈥淭he intensity of the mid-level and upper-level winds has been quite dramatic.鈥�

The high winds, which reached 60 miles per hour and toppled power lines in Sacramento and Silicon Valley in California on Wednesday, are expected to taper off as storm systems move east and into Arizona.

While big storms across the West, it may also be blamed for producing an unimpressive amount of snowfall for the upcoming winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.

As , El Ni帽o years can bring both stormy weather as well as warmer temperatures.

In San Francisco, El Ni帽o has been held responsible for the relocation of the city鈥檚 sea lions from their Pier 39 home to colder waters along the Oregon coast.

"My gut feeling is it has something to do with the [ocean-warming] El Nino conditions off California, which is driving prey and sea lions up north," Kim Raum-Suryan, a biologist at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore., .

But while most meteorologists say that El Ni帽o is at the root of this week鈥檚 rotten weather, some disagree.

for The Orange Country Register, science writer Gary Robbins interviewed William Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

鈥淲hile the rest of the country has been battered by strong, cold outbreaks; bringing storms, snow and frigid temperatures over the past two weeks, California remained mild and dry. Now it鈥檚 our turn,鈥� wrote Mr. Patzert in an e-mail to the science dude.

But don鈥檛 blame it on El Ni帽o, he says.

鈥淭he El Nino warmed subtropics might be pumping a little moisture into these storms as they move south and could be giving rain and snowfall totals a boost. But not much!鈥� he wrote.

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