The violent winter storm that strikes the west reaches California



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A winter storm in the western United States crossed California on Tuesday, threatening floods, avalanches and blinding snow on Sierra Nevada roads.

Heavy rains began to fall on Monday and the National Meteorological Service issued flood warnings and flash flood alerts for the San Francisco Bay Area and many parts of the Sacramento area until On Thursday morning.

The last storm will be a "marathon rather than a sprint," predicted the meteorological service.

A few small streams and streams were flooded and the weather service warned that the Napa and Russian rivers could overflow from their shores by Wednesday morning.

However, while some areas may receive at least 15 centimeters of rain over the next two days – and up to 30.5 centimeters in some mountains, the intensity will not be intense enough to cause devastating landslides. . in areas denuded by a series of devastating fires, such as the counties of Shasta and Lake, said the meteorological service.

Despite this, some areas remained on alert. Sonoma County, where some areas were marked by wildfires in 2017, has activated its emergency operations center.

"The time has come to locate your emergency kits and review your evacuation plans with your family," said David Rabbitt, chairman of the county's supervisory board.

In the Sierra Nevada, along the California-Nevada line, forecasters have warned of bleaching in the high passes. The mountains could see up to 2.4 meters of snow at higher altitudes and winds gusting at 225 km / h over ridges.

"Heavy snow and gale force winds will create dangerous avalanche conditions" on Thursday morning for the Lake Tahoe region, warned the National Weather Service.

Several mountain highways, including the Interstate 80 at the Summit Donner, were repeatedly closed on Monday for short periods due to swarming or avalanche risk.

The storm has already crossed other parts of the West, flipping trucks and trees, causing power outages and shutting down roads and schools from Oregon to Montana.

The snow forced the cancellation of flights at the Portland airport and set off a blizzard warning in parts of Montana, where Butte public schools canceled classes Tuesday for the first time since at least 20 years.

Buses were blocked and Montana Standard was told by a manager that the district's snow plows were not able to keep up.

An electricity outage affected several thousand people in the Reno-Sparks area of ​​Nevada.

The storm is the latest in a chain that has poured record levels of snow and rain this winter.

The culprit is an atmospheric river of moisture coming from the north of Hawaii. The phenomenon has become quite common for California scientists to introduce an intensity intensity ranging from 1 to 5 for atmospheric rivers, similar to that used to evaluate hurricanes.

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