Sediment sent into the San Francisco Bay by this winter's seemingly endless wave of stormy weather has turned its waters an unappealing shade of brown and has prompted the US Coast Guard into issuing a debris warning for local boaters.

SF Gate reports that the Bay, which is typically "emerald green," has been turned brown by "fine sediment washed by back-to-back storms from the slopes of the Sierra Nevada and the soils of the Central Valley and into rivers" which then "carry the fine silt into the Bay where it's dumped along with surges of fresh water and is further stirred up by wind, tides and wave action."

Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California, tells the Gate that photos like the comparison ones from NASA that you see above "are great because you're seeing this once-a-decade kind of event when we get very large flows on the two main rivers of the Central Valley — the Sacramento and the San Joaquin...When these flows are high, they carry high amounts of very fine clay sized particles. That's what you're seeing."

Though it looks less photogenic than the water's typical coloration, the sediment influx is actually good because they "help build up the mud flats and marshes at the Bay's edges," both areas that preserve wildlife and protect against rising sea levels.

According to James Cloern, a senior scientist with the USGS who spoke with the Gate, "If we took away the sediment, those mud flats would disappear. Those mud flats are important habitat for birds that migrate along the Pacific Flyway. They either stay in San Francisco Bay or use it as a resting area. There are about a million shorebirds that come to the Bay during spring migration. They feed on small shrimp and fish."

But this stormy upheaval isn't all upside for the Bay, as ABC 7 reports that the "Coast Guard will be issuing a warning Wednesday to anyone on or near the San Francisco Bay--beware of debris."

That's because "debris is floating down through the San Pablo Bay from the Sacramento Delta after big storms and high water," leading to "an endless train of garbage from the Richmond-San Rafael bridge."

ABC 7 claims that a "giant floating blob of debris washed up on the water at Pier 27 in San Francisco," and that similar issues have struck the Berkeley Marina, a boat launch on Mare Island, and even a navigational buoy near Antioch.

A Berkeley boat owner characterizes the Bay's sudden junk problem as "very unusual" and says she's seeing "logs in the water, even pieces of wood from a dwelling maybe."

"Be on the lookout," Coast Guard Lieutenant Megan Mervar warns boaters on the Bay. "Know that when you go out. These hazards exist."