California declares emergency in counties buried by snow as latest storm moves east
Rare snowstorms hit the typically warm federal state in the past week.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared states of emergency in more than a dozen counties as the normally warm state faces infrequent snowstorms.
Wednesday’s emergency proclamation in Amador, Kern, Los Angeles, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Nevada, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Sierra, Sonoma and Tulare counties will free up state resources to support disaster response and relief efforts . The governor also activated the California National Guard to be ready to support the operations.
A series of severe winter storms battered the West Coast over the past week, burying Southern California’s mountain communities under snow mountains and stranding thousands of residents. Mount Baldy in the San Gabriel Mountains and Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains, both in California’s San Bernardino County, have accumulated 106 inches of snow. As of Saturday, Soda Springs in California’s Nevada County has received 114 inches of snow, or 9.5 feet.
In the past week, the Palisade Tahoe ski area in California’s Placer County in the Sierra Nevada has received a whopping 146 inches of snow, or more than 12 feet. That brings the total for the season to 500 inches, or nearly 42 feet, making it the snowiest October-February period since 1970. Palisade Tahoe, the largest ski complex in the Lake Tahoe area, was closed Tuesday due to the amount of snowfall. Other ski areas in the area also had to close temporarily.
The latest storm system to hit the west coast was expected to exit the region on Thursday and bring severe weather to the south. More than 90 million people in 36 states were now on alert for severe avalanches, flash floods, strong winds and intense tornadoes. The cities of Dallas, Texas; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Little Rock, Arkansas, were on the storm’s forecast path for Thursday.
The system is expected to advance into the Southeast and into the Ohio Valley region on Friday, hitting a number of major cities including Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; Charlotte, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Lexington, Kentucky. The main threat will be destructive winds and possibly multiple tornadoes.
Meanwhile, heavy rain could trigger flash flooding from Oklahoma to Ohio with local rainfall totals of 3 to 5 inches.
The same system could also bring the biggest snowstorm of the season to Chicago on Friday. The Illinois city could get more than 6 inches of snow.
The whiteout is expected to spread across the Northeast Friday night, bringing a wintry mix from New York City to Boston, with heavy snow inland from New York state to Maine. Locally, parts of the inland northeast could see more than 6 inches of snow.