Flooding in California, February 22 to 25, 1998

Rain in the Kern County area continued to have the Lamont area in the Southeast San Joaquin Valley plagued by runoff from Caliente and other area small streams. Ponded water in addition to small flows were already causing nuisance flooding with some damage to homes and small businesses by late afternoon and early evening of the 23rd. Near continuous rain through the month of February saturated soils throughout Central California. While not exceptionally heavy rain had not occurred in the 24 hours previous to 2/23/98...small stream flows were beginning to overburden downstream communities' ability to handle any runoff. Only 50CFS out of Caliiente Creek was overtaxing drainage basins by 2300 PST on 2/22/98 in Lamont although the rain was not yet over in the Kern County area. Note other flooding areas on and around this date in Central California. More substantial flow was yet to come later in the evening of the 23rd and on the 24th for the Lamont area. Additional flooding was also reported in Weedpatch (south-Central Bakersfield Metro area) by late in the evening of the 23rd due to heavy rainfall contributing to substantial ponded water and runoff.