On Saturday, nearly 85,000 households and businesses in the Los Angeles area faced power outages as severe storms continued to batter California. Snow blanketed higher elevations, while rain and hail hit lower areas.
Interstate 5, a major northbound highway from Los Angeles, was closed at the Grapevine due to heavy snow. Additional closures affected southern segments of the freeway because of flooding, according to the California Department of Transportation.
In Northern California, San Francisco braced for record-breaking cold temperatures. The National Weather Service advised residents of Sacramento to avoid travel from Sunday through Wednesday as more rain and snow were forecasted.
Nearly 85,000 lose power as severe storms batter Los Angeles and Northern California.The service warned of “extremely dangerous to impossible driving conditions” and potential road closures due to heavy snow and winds.
The next round of storms, beginning Sunday, is expected to bring wind gusts up to 50 mph in the Sacramento Valley and 70 mph in the Sierra Nevada.
Yosemite National Park will remain closed through Wednesday due to severe winter weather. Bryan Jackson, a forecaster at the NWS Weather Prediction Center, attributed the unusual weather to a massive low-pressure system from the Arctic.
Southern California is experiencing an unusually severe cold storm event, with even snowflakes spotted around the Hollywood sign—a rare sight for the region. On Saturday, scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms were forecasted to bring a mix of rain, hail, and “graupel,” a type of soft snow.
Earlier in the week, a separate storm affected the U.S. Plains, Midwest, and Great Lakes before moving out to the Atlantic. Over 400,000 DTE Energy customers in Detroit were still without power.
California, already dealing with a notably wet and chilly winter, had previously been hit hard by atmospheric river storms that caused flooding, tree falls, and mudslides.