While rain might sound like a blessing to drought-stricken Californians, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. That’s exactly what meteorologists predict with the upcoming El Niño weather event this winter that will see a sudden rain increase across California. When you suddenly have increased rainfall in drought-stricken areas, flash floods and water damage are bound to occur.

“Yes, El Niño’s great, and it could provide us with relief and replenish some of these reservoirs,” Climatologist .Woods said. “The flip side of that is it could mean catastrophic flooding, too.”

For the uninitiated, El Niño is a phenomenon that occurs where warm water cycles through the seas along ocean currents. These warm water surges affect the atmosphere and weather, especially in areas along the Pacific Coast.

“What we want is just enough water to come in slowly enough for the watersheds to hold that,” Woods said. “The nice thing is that so many of them are dry that they have the capacity, but the flip side of that is, as anybody knows in a desert climate, is that terrain is just parched and so a lot of that can be runoff if those storms are too warm.”

It’s always important for California residents to be prepared in the event of flooding.