Thousands of Californians still without power; parts of state brace for more snow
Tens of thousands of Californians were still without power on Monday morning, after an unusual bout of winter weather battered the state with rain and snow this weekend.
Nearly 45,000 customers across the state had no electricity, with almost 6,000 of those households located in Los Angeles County, according to outage tracking website PowerOutage.us.
More than 13,400 outages were concentrated in Mariposa, Madera and Fresno counties — located in the south-central Sierra Nevada and the adjacent San Joaquin Valley regions — where mountaintops were pummeled with snow.
Northern California counties of Humboldt, Mendocino, Lake, Butte, Yuba and Nevada collectively had more than 10,000 outages by Monday morning, PowerOutage.us reported.
As of Sunday morning, snow totals in the mountainous regions of San Diego County climbed above 7 feet in some spots, according to the regional branch of the National Weather Service (NWS).
Some of San Diego County’s coastal cities received more than 3 inches of rain, with the region’s valley and mountain towns getting even more.
In mountain areas north of Los Angeles and Oxnard counties, snow accumulation reached up to 6 feet at certain high-elevation points, NWS data showed.
Beverly Hills and Bel Air were awash in nearly 7 inches of rainfall, while some cities in the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and Santa Clarita Valley received between 8 and 11 inches of rain.
One Los Angeles Department of Power and Water crew member sustained a serious injury while conducting repair work amid severe weather conditions, the agency announced on Saturday.
Late into the night on Sunday, the department tweeted that its “crews won’t stop until all are restored.”
As the initial bout of wintry weather began wrapping up this weekend, the NWS Los Angeles branch warned on Sunday that “another (weaker) storm will impact the area” through Wednesday.
Although this storm will likely be weaker along the coast, meteorologists warned of potentially treacherous conditions at higher elevations across California.
The NWS announced a blizzard warning on Monday morning for the San Joaquin and Yosemite Valley regions, where the Sierra Nevada mountains could receive up to an additional 6 feet of snow and winds as high as 75 miles per hour through Wednesday.
A winter weather advisory was also in effect for mountain ranges above 4,500 feet in San Diego and Riverside counties, which could see an added 8 to 18 inches of snow over the next few days, according to the NWS.
The agency’s Sacramento office, meanwhile, cautioned against driving, as “heavy mountain and foothill snow is currently causing dangerous travel conditions” and leading to conditions of “near zero visibility.”
The Sierra Avalanche Center in Truckee, Calif., issued a backcountry avalanche warning for the Central Sierra Nevada, including in the Greater Lake Tahoe area.
“High avalanche danger will occur through Wednesday Morning,” the agency stated.
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