“The big melt is now here”: California braces for floods

CALIFORNIA – California’s water woes could soon get worse.

After weeks of nervous anticipation in California’s Central Valley, a massive pulse of snowmelt is expected to flow out of the Sierra Nevada this week, challenging levees and raising the risk of another round of damaging flooding.

California’s high peaks stored historic amounts of snowfall this winter in the southern Sierra as more than a dozen atmospheric river storms battered the state with rainfall and caused billions of dollars in damage from landslides, avalanches and river flooding. Now, the water stored as mountain snow will begin to flow into saturated valleys and already swollen rivers.

Read more at NBCNews.com.