you do get a sense of the colour of the yellow river there. ey laugh this fine soil carried by the river formed fertile plains... ..that were crucial to the development of early chinese cultures. they created striking painted pottery, at the heart of the city, china's national museum is home on the upper yellow river around 5,000 years ago. it's not hard to see where the artisans found their inspiration. there is a very bold and simple beauty, really, to the semi—abstract decoration on this urn that, to my mind, immediately suggests surging, watery forces, just from above. and then down below, things are considerably more placid, tranquil. the waters seem gentle. wang yueqian is a curator at the national museum. inspired majiayao art thousands of years ago. but there's another, even more remarkable culture further along the river. my next stop, 800km south—west of beijing, is the city of luoyang in henan province. this is erlitou, one of the most extraordinary it was built on a prime location within the yellow river basin. at the dawn of chines

river right now. of course, this area of yellow right here in the middle of the day.there is a heavy pocket of rain and right in the middle of one of our busiest corridors in the bay, which is the maze over the bay bridge right into downtown san francisco. some really heavy rain right in here as well as across the golden gate. this is coming along with stronger winds, too. so really the theme of today is to stay home, if you can, would be great to take that work from home day. if many cases you may be watching because you are at home and just slow it. if you do have to get out there to do a little bit of driving, of course, we are going to see continued rain along with this. and with that some very heavy rain right in the middle of the evening commute tonight as the east northeast trajectory of this atmospheric river moisture continues. it is going to funnel up a lot of additional rainfall, our direction and what will actually see as well along with that is the frontal boundary crossing right in just before your evening commute, which offer up some of the strongest wi

yellow scooting through. after that showers shift to the north bay. any flooding potential with this first peak of the atmospheric river will largely occur the first half of the day on saturday. let's look at how much rain we've added up so far. to this point in the atmospheric river it hasn't been a whole lot thus far, only a few hundredths of an inch in san jose and dublin, over 0.2-inch for san francisco and petaluma, over 0.8-inch of rain already. there's definitely more on the way. mentioned this is a double-peaked atmospheric river. if this first peak was a stand alone atmospheric river, it would rank as an ar2 on our 1 to 5 scale. the second one is headed our way monday night into tuesday would rank an ar1, but both add up to an impact of an ar3, usually brings a balance of beneficial rainfall, but the hazards of localized flooding. that's something we'll have to watch as that next peak rolls inner next week. some localized flooding is possible tonight and tomorrow, no reports yet. we'll take a look farther with futurecast coming up in the full forecast. >>> oakland zoo will be closed tomorrow due to the rain. y

yellow, orange and red is on the radar. that's some cooler air stacked up behind this atmospheric river. and with that, we do see a punch of those strong winds of those heavy rains right there together right before you're leaving work tonight. so something to also anticipate for your latter half of the day to skies will clear out nicely into tomorrow before our next system and a colder system that into thursday. this first one resulting in the worst opportunity of flooding. we, as i mentioned, have that flood warning up along the russian river. flood advisories for the entirety of the rest of the bay area. futurecast shows that drying happening tomorrow. but only briefly as we move into thursday, it is a colder system. this will still bring rain for the bay area. but some amazing news for the sierra absolutely getting buried in some heavy snowfall in the sierra come thursday. that's exactly what we needed after last month. you can see the feet up on feet of snowfall. that is going to be piling up. 68 inches of it up at areas around donner summit. so this is great news doing some catch-up

with that atmospheric river coming in, we can see the also pockets of heavy rain where we see the yellowsnd the oranges on the radar here, but most of it is green, indicating some light to moderate rainfall. a closer look shows that we are seeing some pockets of rain in the north bay, with some breaks here and there, so as you're driving, you may see some heavy rain and then all of a sudden it eases up and then you can drive for a while without any rain. but you do have to turn the windshield wipers off and on throughout that commute. this morning, as we are seeing some heavy rain around fremont and livermore. it is a ltle bit lighter for parts of the delta, and it is now starting to pick up for san jose, where the rain has been lighter. but as it comes over the santa cruz mountains, we expect the intensity to increase. and for the bay area, there is a flood watch in effect until 4:00 tomorrow morning. so with the coastal mountains and some of the creeks and streams that may rise very quickly, you want to make sure that you do not drive where water covers the road. the russian river, guer

yellows retreating to the north. a break for the rest of us throughout the afternoon. but more to come, steph. >> all right, lisa, thank you. an atmospheric river moving in might be the last thing they want to see in santa cruz. it was just last month that a huge section of the wharf collapsed into the water during a storm. now, the wharf just reopened a few weeks ago. here's abc seven news reporter lauren martinez. >> on a cold and misty friday night. the santa cruz wharf is still lively. upstairs, at a wine bar called vino by the sea, the band summit soul performs. >> further down. it's a little bit closed off, but down here there's a lot of action. >> the wharf is cut off here just past dark narrows on december 23rd. the end of the wharf, then under construction, collapsed into the ocean. 20 businesses and restaurants on the wharf were closed for nearly two weeks during christmas and new year's. on january 4th, the wharf reopened. this couple from morgan hill is glad to show support. >> for the community and all the people and yeah, yeah, i mean, there's just a lot of history here. >> a historic and family-owned shop on the wharf is marini's

river. and here's where i think it will get pretty heavy as we go on into the mid morning hours and into lunchtime, we see those spots of yellow for the north bay, p pars of the east bay shoreline there and into the tri-valley. and really the activity there will be built through the center part of the day, giving us a little bit of a break into the afternoon where you can finally go stretch your legs outdoors. but it's a morning to stay indoors and that scattered activity. i see it continuing on into our sunday morning plans where everybody, just about everybody, will get a break except those showers continuing for parts of the north bay. and there is more. that's why that flood watch will continue to be into effect and possiblbly stretched out into our next workweek. those atmospheric rivers just lining up, bringing us a lot of moisture stretching through the pacific, stretching into parts of hawaii. so here we go. our next system that could potentially be a little bit more dangerous is as we go on into monday and tuesday, there it is, filling in possibly heavy spots of rain through the santa cruz mountains and that snow that

of the roadway typically floods whenever you see the russian river get above flood stage, which it is so behind us. if you follow this yellow line here on the road, you can see it just sort of fades into this submerged giant pool, or really almost looks like a lake of water here. this road is impassable. off to the right you can see what used to be a mobile home park. now, most of the people who live here, we talked to one of the residents. he says most of the people who live here got the evacuation notices. they were able to move their mobile homes out of the way. you can see a couple did not get out in time, and you can see the top of a pickup truck just sort of poking out of the water there. and some cars also submerged in what was the parking lot here. we talked to the man who lived here, and he says he gave us his thoughts on what it's like living so close to the russian river every time it floods. >> it's stressful and it wears on you, and it takes all the luster out of this place. you know, you want to live somewhere and just feel safe all year. and once winter hits here, you don't feel safe. you're paranoid. >> now,

yellow that you're seeing right now. so definitely not a calm morning for everyone necessarily we are still seeing some flood advisories for the north bay. good news is that flood warning along the russian river has expired but any sort of standing water on roadways that the past few days have taught us anything poses a life-threatening risk. so if you do see any streams that are higher than normal crossing roadways, do not even attempt to do that. winds are a lot calmer than yesterday. we had winds in excess of 50 to 60 miles per hour yesterday, aggressively strong, windy and rainy day yesterday. today, the very last of any sort of residual rainfall towards midmorning and then we're done with it for the weekend with saturday and sunday looking absolutely gorgeous, albeit cold during our evenings. we'll start to see a few snow showers are turning to the sierra towards tuesday. rainfall really in the rest of the bay area towards wednesday and temperatures will be cold enough wednesday that we might even see some mountain top snowfall right here in the bay, too. so definitely a wintry forecast wednesday into thursday and possibly even into the remainder of next week, looking pretty wet and sock

river last week is just beginning. workers using cranes to pull what is left of the plane from the icy water. you see that piece? if you look closely above the yellowoks like maybe they hoisted the plane's engine, they're hoping to find the remains also of victims who remain missing. 55 of the 67 people killed have now been identified. and yesterday, grieving families gathered on the runway where their loved ones were supposed to land for a somber memorial service. nbc's aaron gilchrist is live near the crash site. aaron, the salvage operation just now getting underway, what all is involved and how long could this take? >> well, anna. >> we were told that it would get underway at first light today. and in the last 20 minutes or so, we did see, in fact, the crane you're looking at here start to lift pieces of the airplane out of the water. you noted that we believe we're looking at the plane engine sitting on this barge that is also carrying that big crane. we were told yesterday that we should expect to see the army corps of engineers and the navy supervisor of salvage start to move these pieces out of the water. again, this is video of that engine