Hundreds are without power as storms in California deliver cold, rain, and snow.
Reuters, 25 February – On Saturday, storms continued to batter areas of California, pouring hail and rain in the flatlands while dumping snow at higher elevations. Almost 85,000 homes and businesses lacked power in the Los Angeles area.
According to the California Department of Transportation, several more southern points of the motorway in and around Los Angeles were closed due to flooding, while Interstate 5, the largest highway leading north out of the city, remained closed at the steep grade known as the Grapevine due to heavy snow.
The National Weather Service advised residents of Sacramento, the state capital, to avoid travel from Sunday through Wednesday as rain and snow resumed after a respite on Saturday. In Northern California, San Francisco was anticipated to endure record-low temperatures on Saturday.
The ministry posted on Twitter that “severe impacts from heavy snow and winds will produce extremely dangerous to impossible driving conditions and possibly extensive road closures and infrastructure impacts.”
The following storm system is anticipated to arrive on Sunday and produces wind gusts of up to 50 mph (80 kph) in the Sacramento Valley and up to 70 mph in the close-by Sierra Nevada mountains. Due to the harsh winter weather, Yosemite National Park was closed until Wednesday.
Bryan Jackson, a forecaster at the NWS Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, claimed that a significant low-pressure system that was driven from the Arctic was to blame for the unexpected weather.
“This is an unusual occurrence of a cold, major storm event,” Jackson said of the storm in Southern California.
On Friday, snowflakes even fell around the Hollywood sign on Mount Lee in the hills above the city, which is famed for its bright days and palm trees. This site must have delighted many Angelenos.
The National Weather Service said that Saturday would see sporadic showers and isolated thunderstorms that would bring rain, hail, and a mixture of snow and moisture known as “graupel” to the region.
Earlier this week, a different storm that pounded the American Plains, Midwest, and Great Lakes regions blasted out to the Atlantic on Friday after passing over New England, according to the weather service. On Saturday, Detroit News reported that more than 400,000 DTE Energy (DTE.N) customers were still without power.
Even prior to the most recent storm, a large portion of California had been hit by an unusually wet and chilly winter, beginning with a string of deadly “atmospheric river” storms that unleashed widespread flooding, felled trees, and caused mudslides in a state long afflicted by drought and wildfires.
