Snowfall and Flash Flood Warnings in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range South of Yosemite and Eleven Thousand Thousand Thousand Miles South
The Sierra Nevada Mountain Range has winter storm warnings in place that could bring more snow before the sun comes up.
In the Sierra, about 10 inches (25 centimeters) of snow already had fallen Saturday afternoon at Mammoth Mountain ski resort south of Yosemite where more than 10 feet (3 meters) of snow has been recorded since early November.
A 70-mile (112-kilometer) stretch of eastbound U.S. Interstate 80 was closed “due to zero visibility” from Colfax, California to the Nevada state line, transportation officials said. Many of the I-80 mountains from Reno to Sacramento had chains on them.
The U.S. Forest Service posted a warning for the area in the mountains west of Lake Tahoe due to several feet of snow and strong winds.
The National Weather Service said gusts of wind could reach 100 mph over the Sierra foothills by early Sunday.
A slight risk of excessive rainfall along the Northern California coast is included in the Bay Area on Friday. It extends to the Los Angeles area on Saturday. The foothills of the Sierra Nevada are also under a level 2 threat of excessive rainfall Friday and Saturday.
The weather service issued a flash flood warning on Saturday when inches of rain fell on burn scars left by wildfires south of Monterey and farther south of Big Sur.
Snowfall and High Winds in Sacramento, California, and Duluth, Minnesota, caused by a First Big Storm on Saturday afternoon
More than 30,000 customers were without power in the Sacramento area at one point Saturday morning, but it was restored to all but a few hundred late in the day. The drivers and passengers of five cars that had been trapped between downed power lines escaped unharmed, the Sacramento Bee reported.
San Francisco Bay Area officials reported power outages and fallen trees, some of which damaged cars and homes. In Monte Rio, a small town along the Russian River in Sonoma County, firefighters responded to multiple reports of downed trees crashing into homes.
Four different down trees damaged houses in the area, but no one was injured, according to the Monte Rio Fire Department Chief.
This is our first big storm and we’ve had several years of dry weather. Now they’re filling up with water and starting to topple over,” Baxman told the television station.
The storm blanketed some mountain areas of drought-parched California with thick snow, including Soda Springs in the northern part of the state, which received 60 inches of snow in 48 hours.
A multi-day severe storm threat begins Monday for parts of the South and southern central US. A slight threat for severe weather has been issued for parts of western and central Kansas and Oklahoma into northwestern Texas.
The threat does, however, strengthen as the system heads east Tuesday, likely impacting a large swath of the Lower Mississippi River Valley. Areas including Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport in Louisiana and Jackson, Mississippi, could see tornadoes, high wind gusts and damaging hail.
To the east, residents in Fargo, North Dakota, are expected to see snowfall over 6 inches and will be under a winter storm watch from late Monday night until late Wednesday night. Duluth, Minnesota, could also see 6 inches of snow and will be under a winter storm watch starting Tuesday morning.
The National Weather Service office in Reno expects the snow to be less than 25% normal, but it is more than that.
“It looks a lot like Christmas out here,” Deutschendorf said. “It didn’t come with a lot of wind, and it stuck to everything. It’s like a picture postcard.”
The snow totals so far are impressive, but we arecautiously optimistic that this precipitation will cause a large part of the state to get back on its feet.
Snowfall and Floods in the Bay Area and Central Valley of Southern California During a “We’re Buried” Snowstorm on December 1st
“We’re Buried,” the ski resort wrote on its website on Sunday, sharing pictures of thick snow on the slopes.
This is definitely one of the most severe storms I have ever seen. We have now gotten 7.5 feet of snow since December 1st. In one day in Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon, we received more than 35 inches of snow, the 6th largest snowfall total on record.
There was a system in the East that left thousands without power in Oregon and an interstate closed in Colorado. Rain showers will befall the Northeast Saturday as the storms hit the South.
New Year’s Eve celebrations will likely be disrupted in New York City and Washington, DC. It’s expected to be a wet new year in Los Angeles.
An atmospheric river is a large area in the atmosphere that can store a lot of water. This weekend, there will be wind gusts of up to 50 mph and heavy rain in Southern California.
The entire Bay Area and Central Valley are under a flood watch that will be in effect until Saturday night. Rain could ease Saturday evening before the calendar turns to 2023.
Rain will also fall in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday, adding to the melting snow and prompting localized flood concerns as the city continues to recover from its deadly blizzard. Additional rain is expected early next week.
The Sierra Foothills: Flood Watches and Warnings for the Second Day of Dec. 21 – 24 Dec. 21, 2019 at the National Weather Service
“The slight risk area mostly highlights places that are already high in soil moisture, burn scars and urban areas,” the Weather Prediction Center said.
A stretch of I-70 in Colorado reopened after being closed for nine hours because of heavy mountain snow, rain and strong winds.
State police said there were five people dead after trees fell on vehicles due to the dangerous conditions.
Landslides already had closed routes in the San Francisco Bay Area, between Fremont and Sunol, as well as in Mendocino County near the unincorporated community of Piercy and in the Mendocino National Forest, where crews cleared debris into Friday night.
Humboldt County, where a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck on Dec. 20, also saw roadways begin to flood, according to the National Weather Service’s Eureka office. A bridge that was temporarily closed last week due to earthquake damage may be closed again if the Eel River, which it crosses, gets too high, officials said.
It was the first of several storms expected to hit California in the next week. The current system is expected to be warmer and wetter, while next week’s storms will be colder, lowering snow levels in the mountains, said Hannah Chandler-Cooley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sacramento.
The California Highway Patrol reported that some of the roads in eastern Sacramento had water in them on Friday. The weather service said that over the past 24 hours, nearly 5 inches of rain had fallen at Blue Canyon, which is in the Sierra foothills.
The American River is a spot where many unhoused people live and the fire department wanted to warn them of the danger from a helicopter and boat.
The weather service said strong winds could cause tree damage and cause power outages, as well as capsize small vessels.
On the Sierra’s eastern front, flood watches and warnings continue into the weekend north and south of Reno, Nevada, where minor to moderate flooding was forecast along some rivers and streams into the weekend.
The Susan River was predicted to rise from about a foot to a foot by Saturday morning in Susanville, California, causing flooding that could affect some.
Three Years of California’s Driest Statistical Supercluster: Precipitation, Weather, and the Continuum Regime
The rain was welcomed in drought-parched California, but much more precipitation is needed to make a significant difference. The past three years have been California’s driest on record.