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Saturday, from the coast of Northern California to Lake Tahoe, a winter storm packing strong winds, heavy rain, and perhaps several feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada shut down mountain highways, uprooted trees, and caused flood watches and avalanche warnings.
From north of Reno to south of Yosemite National Park, more than 250 miles of the Sierra remained under a winter storm warning at least through Sunday night or early Monday morning.
In the upper elevations near Lake Tahoe, as much as 4 feet of snow is expected by the end of the weekend, and as much as 6 feet in the Sierra’s most remote regions to the north and south.
Transportation officials said that a 70-mile stretch of westbound U.S. Interstate 80 between Colfax, California and the Nevada state line was closed due to zero visibility. Much of the remainder of I-80 in the mountains from Reno to Sacramento required chains.
The California Highway Patrol reported that a portion of California State Route 89 between Tahoe City and South Lake Tahoe was also blocked due to severe snowfall.
The United States Forest Service has issued an avalanche warning for the mountains west of Lake Tahoe.
AP
The U.S. Forest Service issued an avalanche warning for the backcountry in the mountains west of Lake Tahoe due to “several feet of new snow and strong winds”
According to the National Weather Service, winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour on Saturday, which caused trees to crash into homes in Sonoma County, might reach 100 mph over Sierra ridgetops by early Sunday morning.
From San Francisco to the Sierra crest, heavy rain was predicted for the weekend, with up to 2 inches in the Bay Area and up to 5 inches in Grass Valley, northeast of Sacramento.
A 70-mile section of westbound Interstate 80 in the United States was closed “because to zero visibility.”
Over Saturday, the meteorological service issued a flash flood warning after inches of rain fell on wildfire burn scars south of Monterey and further south of Big Sur.
Saturday morning, more than 30,000 people in the Sacramento area were without power, but by the evening, all but a few hundred had their power restored. The Sacramento Bee reported that the drivers and passengers of five cars caught between downed power lines escaped uninjured.
Officials in the San Francisco Bay Area reported power outages and fallen trees that damaged vehicles and homes. In Monte Rio, a small village along the Russian River in Sonoma County, there were multiple reports of trees crashing into homes due to winds of 50 miles per hour.
In the higher altitudes surrounding Lake Tahoe, as much as four feet of snow could fall by the end of the weekend.
Steve Baxman, chief of the Monte Rio Fire Department, told KRON-TV that four distinct downed trees had caused property damage and no injuries were recorded.
“This is our first major storm; we’ve seen several years of drought, and these trees were completely parched. Now that they are filling with water, they are beginning to tumble,” Baxman told the news channel.
In the Sierra, approximately 10 inches of snow had fallen by Saturday afternoon at the Mammoth Mountain ski resort south of Yosemite, where more than 10 feet of snow had been recorded since the beginning of November.
Lauren Burke, a resort representative, remarked, “It seems like every week or so, another significant storm arrives.”
The weekend forecast was for 18 to 28 inches of snow at lake level and up to 4 feet at elevations above 7,000 feet, along with 50 mph winds and gusts of up to 100 mph.
A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 p.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Sunday for Reno, Sparks, and Carson City on the eastern slope of the Sierra, with snow accumulations of 1 to 3 inches on valley floors and up to 8 inches over 5,000 feet.
»Heavy precipitation, wind, and snow move from California to Sierra Nevada«