The mayor of San Diego is deciding whether to run for governor.
DAVID SIDERS with Politico: "San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer has quietly started discussing a potential run for governor with advisers and prospective donors, according to a former Los Angeles mayor and sources familiar with Faulconer's deliberations."
"Faulconer, a Republican who said last year that he would not seek the governorship, remains hesitant, the sources said. But he is tentatively assessing how supportive GOP donors might be in a race that is widely expected to be won by a Democrat."
"Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan told POLITICO California that Faulconer visited him in Los Angeles last month and told him he plans to run. Riordan, a moderate Republican who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2002, said Faulconer asked for his support but, “I don’t know him well enough to make that decision."
Meanwhile, a storm with the potential to bring California's worst flooding in over a decade is brewing over the Pacific ocean.
EVAN SERNOFFSKY with The Chronicle: "A menacing storm taking shape over the Pacific is poised to pound California this weekend, causing what could be the worst flooding in parts of the state in more than a decade, forecasters said."
"The atmospheric river of warm and highly concentrated water will begin to deliver its payload across the northern two-thirds of California on Saturday, overwhelming rivers, drenching urban areas and likely eviscerating much of the Sierra snowpack."
"But while drought-stressed California has begged for such soaking storms in recent years, the rain may do more harm than good — especially in the mountains — when it surges Sunday."
Speaking of storms, new climate data suggests that monster storms in California will triple over the next century.
MIKE MOFFITT with The Chronicle: "As forecasters predicted 12 inches or more of rain in parts of Northern California over the next week, MIT released a new study that warned that the state could expect the frequency of extreme storms to triple by the end of the century."
"Using a new technique, MIT researchers can now predict the frequency of local, extreme rainfall events by identifying telltale large-scale patterns in atmospheric data."
"An example of an "extreme storm" is the Dec. 11, 2014, "Pineapple Express" soaker that dumped 3 inches of rain on the Bay Area in one hour, causing flooding, power outages and mudslides."
READ MORE related to Environment: Yosemite's Merced River threatens to spill its banks -- EVAN SERNOFFSKY and STEVE RUBENSTEIN with The Chronicle
A new climate change model shows that the affects of global warming on ocean currents could be worse than previously thought.
CHELSEA HARVEY with WaPo: "Intense future climate change could have a far different impact on the world than current models predict, suggests a thought-provoking new study just out in the journal Science Advances. If atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were to double in the future, it finds, a major ocean current — one that helps regulate climate and weather patterns all over the world — could collapse. And that could paint a very different picture of the future than what we’ve assumed so far."
"The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or AMOC, is often described as a large oceanic conveyor belt. It’s a system of water currents that transports warm water northward from the Atlantic toward the Arctic, contributing to the mild climate conditions found in places like Western Europe. In the Northern Atlantic, the northward flowing surface water eventually cools and sinks down toward the bottom of the ocean, and another current brings that cooler water back down south again. The whole process is part of a much larger system of overturning currents that circulates all over the world, from pole to pole."
"But some scientists have begun to worry that the AMOC isn’t accurately represented in current climate models. They say that many models portray the current as being more stable than real-life observations suggest it actually is. Recent studies have suggested that the AMOC is weakening, although there’s some scientific debate about how much of this has been caused by human activities and how much by natural variations."
The looming Obamacare repeal could spell disaster for some Trump voters in California.
JOE GAROFOLI with The Chronicle: "As Republicans in Congress start dismantling Obamacare, they run the risk of hurting a particularly vulnerable population in California: a whole lot of people who voted for Donald Trump."
"In 49 of the state’s 58 counties, nearly 1 in 4 residents is enrolled in Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, which the Affordable Care Act helped to expand, according to a study by the nonpartisan California Budget and Policy Center."