Flood warning for millions in north California

Northern California is bracing for another lashing of deadly rains and winds as the extreme weather that has battered the state moves north.

At least 17 people have died in the storms, which started in late December and have stretched into the new year.

The barrage of wind and rain have left neighbourhoods under water, downed trees and caused rockslides.

California Governor Gavin Newsom told the BBC he had never seen storms of this scale before.

More than 4.5 million Californians were under flood watches early on Wednesday, with thousands still displaced.

The storms have come during a decades-long drought in the state and surrounding region.

Mr Newsom said Californians must get used to "this weather whiplash", or bouts of extreme dry to extreme wet, as they will become more common as a consequence of climate change.

"We're likely to see more of this in our future," he said.

The historic stretch of rain combined with weather phenomena like atmospheric rivers and bomb cyclones have packed repeated punches.

Audrey Baxter, 17, lives in Felton Grove near Santa Cruz on California's central coast, a region that was thrashed by storms.

Her family left the house when flood waters began to reach their home. She returned to find many possessions had been destroyed. Furniture, rugs and other household items were piled up by their home ready to be taken to the dump.

"It's all personal stuff, like stuffed animals from when I was younger, school projects I made in elementary school - just soaked through. Photos that have been smashed," she told the BBC.

Her home now is surrounded by a mess of water and mud. They are trying to remove the mud from their home, but she's worried the flood water will come back.

"The worst thing is, when it floods so frequently, the river doesn't have enough time to drain out. So every time it floods, it floods higher and higher," she said.

This newest round of storms is expected to pummel the state's northern coast with torrential downpours and gale force winds, the National Weather Service (NWS) said, with the threat of flooding in place until Friday.

Some Californians should see a little relief soon, after the near constant onslaught of the past two weeks.

After the rain tapered off in southern California on Tuesday evening, power was restored for many residents.

Around 50,000 residents are still in the dark, about one-fifth the number on Tuesday. And in Santa Barbara County - home to celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle - all evacuation and shelter-in-place orders were cancelled.

Later this week, the storms are expected to shift further north, pushing much of the rainfall into the Pacific coast states of Oregon and Washington.

But that pause will be short-lived for California: the rain will return this weekend for another soaking from widespread precipitation.

This round will impact a larger area of California "with even more heavy rainfall threats", the NWS said. More flooding is expected in the already soggy state.