A storm that's been flooding Southern California streets with historic rainfall, disrupting travel and prompting water rescues and evacuations is expanding into the Southwest on Friday.
The big picture: The slow-moving storm on Thursday morning dumped a month's worth of rain in one hour on Oxnard, a Ventura County city west of Los Angeles. As of Friday morning, more than 26 million people were under flood watches from Southern California to Central Arizona.
The Biden administration on Friday released its attempt at a climate-friendly approach to using the tax code to boost hydrogen fuel production.
Why it matters: Administration officials seek to address the irony that, without sufficient guardrails on curbing energy use in producing hydrogen, a boom in the new business could actually undermine progress on reducing carbon emissions.
California this week made large strides in recycling wastewater — yes, that's toilet water — into drinking water.
The big picture: The move is meant to make the Golden State more resilient to hotter and drier conditions amid a climate crisis that has led to multiple droughts, severely depleting water resources even after a series of atmospheric rivers that hit California last season.
Forget the chance of a white Christmas in the Midwest and much of the East this year. Instead, record warmth is on tap.
The big picture: Mild air is flowing across the Lower 48 states as a result of an extremely strong, west-to-east jet stream flowing across the Pacific Ocean. This feature is connected to a strong El Niño in the tropical Pacific.
