Thousands left without power as California storms bring rain, snow and cold

Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters) – Nearly 85,000 households and businesses in the Los Angeles area were left without power on Saturday as hurricanes continued to hit parts of California, bringing snow on highlands and raining hail on the plains.

Interstate 5, the largest freeway leading north out of the city, remained closed on a steep grade known as the Grapevine due to heavy snowfall, while several other southbound freeway points in and around Los Angeles were closed due to -for flooding, according to the California Department. said transport.

In Northern California, record low temperatures were expected in San Francisco on Saturday, and the National Weather Service warned residents of the state capital, Sacramento, to avoid travel Sunday through Wednesday as rain and snow returned after a pause on Saturday.

“The extreme impacts of heavy snowfall and wind will cause extremely dangerous or impossible driving conditions and likely widespread road closures and impact on infrastructure!” — said the agency on Twitter.

The next series of storms, expected to hit Sunday, will bring wind gusts up to 50 mph (80 km/h) in the Sacramento Valley and up to 70 mph in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains. Yosemite National Park was closed until Wednesday due to harsh winter conditions.

According to Brian Jackson, a forecaster at the NWS Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, the reason for the unusual conditions was a massive low pressure system brought in from the Arctic.

In Southern California, “this is a rare occurrence of a severe cold storm,” Jackson said.

A sight that must have delighted many Angeleno residents on Friday, snowflakes even fell around the Hollywood sign atop Mount Lee in the hills above the city, known for its sunny days and palm trees.

Rain, hail and a mixture of snow and moisture called “porridge” will bring showers and scattered thunderstorms to the area on Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

The story goes on

The weather service said a separate storm that hit the US Plains, Midwest and Great Lakes regions earlier this week broke into the Atlantic on Friday after passing over New England. More than 400,000 DTE Energy customers in Detroit were left without power on Saturday, Detroit News reported.

Even before the latest storm, much of California experienced an unusually rainy and cold winter that began with a string of deadly “atmospheric river” storms that caused widespread flooding, downed trees and mudslides in a state that had been plagued by drought and wildfires for a long time.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; edited by Sandra Mahler)

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