Meteorologists across the United States issued warnings that another round of winter weather could complicate travel ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, while California and Washington states continue to recover from storm damage and power outages.
In California, where a person was found dead in a car submerged in floodwaters on Saturday, authorities braced for more rainfall while facing flash flooding and small landslides from a previous storm.
The National Weather Service office in Sacramento, California, issued a winter storm warning for the state’s Sierra Nevada region from Saturday into Tuesday, with heavy snow expected at higher elevations and wind gusts that could reach 55 mph (88 kph).
Total snowfall is expected to reach about 4 feet (1.2 meters), and heavy accumulations are expected Monday and Tuesday.
Forecasters said the Midwest and Great Lakes regions will see rain and snow on Monday, and the East Coast will be most affected by Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
The low pressure system is expected to bring rain to the southeast of the country early Thursday before heading to the northeast. Areas from Boston to New York could see rain and breezy conditions, with snow possible in parts of northern New Hampshire, northern Maine and the Adirondacks. If the system moves inland, there could be less snow and more rain in the mountains, meteorologists said.
“The system doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere right now,” Hayden Frank, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Massachusetts, said Sunday. “Basically, this will bring rain to the I-95 corridor so travelers should prepare for wet weather. Unless the system is cooler, it will look like rain.”
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Frank said he doesn’t see any major storms arriving for the weekend anywhere in the country, so travelers heading home Sunday can expect good driving conditions. However, temperatures will become cooler in the east while temperatures will rise in the west.
Deadly ‘bomb cyclone’ on West Coast
Earlier this week, two people died as the storm reached the Pacific Northwest. Hundreds of thousands were without power, most of them in the Seattle area, before strong winds moved across Northern California.
A “bomb cyclone” that hit the West Coast Tuesday with extreme speed brought strong winds that damaged homes and vehicles. The system caused similar damage north of the border in British Columbia.
Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Rob DeLeon said rescue teams in Guerneville, California, recovered a body inside a car that sank in floodwaters around 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, noting that the deceased was supposed to be a victim of the storm, but an autopsy had not yet been performed. . Run.
Santa Rosa, California, experienced its wettest three-day period on record, with nearly 12.5 inches (32 centimeters) of precipitation by Friday evening, the National Weather Service in the Bay Area reported. Vineyards in nearby Windsor, California, were flooded on Saturday.
About 36,000 people in the Seattle area remain without power after the strongest atmospheric river of the season, a long column of moisture that forms over the ocean and flows over land.
The northeast of the country gets the necessary rainfall
Another storm brought rain to New York and New Jersey, where rare wildfires have broken out in recent weeks, and a heavy snowstorm in northeastern Pennsylvania. The rainfall was expected to help ease drought conditions after an exceptionally dry fall.
“It’s not going to eliminate the drought, but it will certainly help when all of this melts away,” said Brian Greenblatt, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Binghamton, New York.
Heavy snow fell in northeastern Pennsylvania, including the Pocono Mountains. Higher highs of up to 17 inches (43 cm) were reported, with smaller accumulations in Valley cities including Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. About 35,000 customers in 10 counties remain without power, down from 80,000 the day before.
In New York’s Catskills region, nearly 10,000 people remained without power Sunday morning, two days after a storm dumped heavy snow on parts of the region.
Rainfall in West Virginia has helped curb the state’s worst drought in at least two decades and bolstered ski resorts’ readiness to open their slopes in the coming weeks.
Associated Press writer Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.
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