California is being slammed by an El Niño storm train packing heavy rains and mountain snow that could generate massive flooding that could be more dangerous than wildfires.  Like rail freight cars slowly moving down a track at increasing speed, AccuWeather is forecasting that over five days, California will receive two to five-inch rainfall across lowlands and at least three feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. California suffered about 9,000 fires wildfires in 2017 and in 2018, which was somewhat below the state’s average. But the 1.5 million acres and 10,000 structures that were destroyed each year was substantially above prior periods. With a record $14 billion of California wildfire insurance losses recorded in 2017, catastrophe modeler Risk Management Solutions estimates 2018 wildfire insurance losses of another $13 billion.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting a 90 percent chance of an El Niño cyclical...(Read Full Post)