Climate Impact Report – 2/14

February 14, 2025

Key Facts Of The Day 2/14

On Thursday, the biggest rainstorm of the season slammed into Southern California, bringing with it flash floods.
- Street flooding and mudslides were reported across the region, including in the Eaton fire burn area in Altadena and on Mulholland and Outpost drives in the Hollywood Hills.
- Heavy debris flows were reported near Duke’s Malibu.
On Thursday, an extreme wind event that meteorologists were describing as a possible weak tornado hit a mobile home park in Oxnard, ripping roofs off homes and tearing power lines to the ground.
A storm system is expected to bring flooding to the Tennessee and Ohio valleys and tornadoes to the South this weekend.

Wildfire prevention work in some high-risk parts of Oregon has slowed after federal funding was frozen by the Trump administration.
- Oregon is coming off one of its worst wildfire seasons on record, and any interruption to work that lessens risk could lead to more intense and expensive wildfires.
Altadena, California, residents worry rebuilding will drive out longtime locals in the racially diverse suburb.
- The Eaton Canyon fire had a disproportionate impact on Black residents in west Altadena, razing nearly half of the Black households in Altadena.
- Even before these fires, Altadena had struggled with years of gentrification that had made housing there increasingly unaffordable and decreased the town’s proportion of Black homeowners.

A new study found that human-caused climate change is bringing more excessive heat to West Africa, which produces 70% of the world’s cocoa.
- Climate change added about 40 days per year with maximum temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit in cacao-growing regions of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which together account for over half of global cocoa production.
- Prices of cocoa surged by 136% between July 2022 and February 2024.
- Hot days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit limit chocolate production and are dangerous for cocoa farmworkers and their families.