California storm causes power outages
Los angELEs: Tens of thousands of people lost power after a powerful winter storm swept through Northern California, while another storm system in the southern part of the state unleashed mudslides in wildfire burn areas and trapped motorists on a major highway.
The deluge loosened hillsides where a major blaze burned last year in and around Malibu, clogging the Pacific Coast Highway with mud and debris yesterday.
A stretch of the scenic route northwest of Los Angeles was expected to remain closed in both directions until yesterday while crews tow away stuck vehicles and clear lanes.
No injuries were reported. The rapper Soulja Boy was among those whose cars were mired in the muck that was up to 1.2m deep in some areas.
He retweeted a photo of the mudslide and posted: “My car got stuck too almost went into the ocean”, along with a prayer emoji.
An automated rain gauge in the western Santa Monica Mountains showed nearly 2cm of rainfall in one hour, said the National Weather Service.
“These are heavy rates,” the weather service tweeted.
Up to 3.8cm of rain fell in coastal and valley areas, while mountain communities got heavy snow.
Flash flood watches and warnings were eventually lifted for areas burned by the fires that scorched over 404sq km of brush and timber acres in November, destroyed about 1,600 structures and claimed three lives.
The sun emerged in Los Angeles on Sunday and the red carpet for the evenings Golden Globe awards were expected to remain dry.
Scattered showers were possible later in the night.
To the north, wind and rain forced delays or cancellations of flights out of San Francisco International Airport for a second day.
A wind advisory was in place until 10pm yesterday.
The San Francisco Bay Area could get up to 3.8cm of rain.
Strong winds and downed trees knocked out electricity for at least 80,000 customers across the Sacramento region on Sunday night.
The National Weather Service said on Sunday that winds gusted up to 79 kph.
Saturday’s storm brought about 30cm of snow to the Sierra Nevada with twice that amount expected on Sunday. A winter storm warning was in effect until 4am yesterday.
Avalanche warnings were posted in parts of California, Nevada and Utah. The Sierra Avalanche Center issued a backcountry avalanche warning for the Lake Tahoe area stretching south into the Sierra along the California-Nevada line from noon on Sunday until 7am yesterday.
The National Weather Service said blizzard conditions with galeforce winds could trigger widespread avalanche activity.
About 61cm of snow was reported at Mammoth Mountain 241km south of Tahoe. Over 30cm fell in the upper elevations around Tahoe.
Windstorms that pummelled parts of Washington state and Oregon over the weekend left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity. — AP