by LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rare snowstorm warnings were issued for the mountains of southern California early Friday as forecasters called for 5 feet of snow at higher elevations while other parts of the country were still packing. recovering from a big winter storm.
More than 700,000 homes and businesses in Michigan, including in the Detroit metropolitan area, lost power early Friday after what one utility president called a historic ice storm.
Out west, Portland, Oregon, had its second snowiest day on record Wednesday, at more than 10 inches, the National Weather Service said. The 80-year record of 14.4 inches was established 21 January 1943, according to weather service records.
Heavy snowfall wreaked havoc on travel.
So many stuck cars were abandoned that the city said it would not issue tickets to towed vehicles for blocking travel lanes.
“I probably won’t see him until Monday, if that’s the case”, Eric Zavala told Portland’s NBC affiliate KGW about his car, which he had to leave after it got stuck.
The Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office was investigating a possible hypothermia death that occurred in Portland on Wednesday. the county saidbut it has not been confirmed if the person died from the cold.
The snow eased in Portland Thursday, but a wind chill advisory remained in effect until noon Friday, with temperatures of minus 5 degrees possible, according to the weather service.
In California, the San Diego weather service has issued blizzard warnings for the mountains of San Bernardino County, in a first to The Office
Blizzard warnings were also in effect for the mountains in Los Angeles and Ventura counties for the first time since 1989, the said the weather service.
The advisories were in effect from 4 a.m. Friday to 4 p.m. Saturday. Areas from 2,000 to 4,000 feet could have up to 1 foot of snow, and higher up could have 5 feet, forecasters said.
Below the snow line, heavy rains could cause flooding. Parts of the Los Angeles area, including downtown, were under a flood watch Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm. The state faced threats from what the weather service called “an unusually cold and slow-moving winter storm.”
or snow or graupel — which is a brittle type of frozen precipitation also called soft hail — fell on Mount Lee in Los Angeles, where the Hollywood sign is located, the weather service said after examining video.
The California Department of Transportation urged drivers to stay home in affected areas.
Traffic was halted Thursday on Highway 50 in Meyers, south of Lake Tahoe, due to detours, the agency said, and Interstate 80 in the Sierra Nevada, from the Nevada state line to Colfax, was closed on both addresses. Some cameras in the area were frozen.
Drivers were also briefly stranded at the San Marcos Pass on Highway 154 near Santa Barbara, a Santa Barbara County fire spokesman said. Plows cleared the way, but intermittent closures were possible in the future.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, much of the Midwest and Northeast was recovering from a major winter storm that hit this week.
The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul received more than 1 foot of snow, and parts of Michigan were battered by an ice storm that downed trees and power lines.
More than 724,000 electricity customers were without power as of early Friday, according to the outage tracking website. poweroutage.us.
DTE Energy, the state’s largest power and gas company, said it had 3,000 downed lines Thursday night.
“We are in the midst of a historic ice storm, one we haven’t seen in Michigan in more than 50 years,” Trevor Lauer, president of DTE Electric, a DTE subsidiary, said Thursday.
Lauer urged people to stay inside. Downed energized lines can be hidden by tree branches, and if they are on a fence, the fence can become energized. “It’s an extremely dangerous condition right now that we have,” she said.
In Van Buren County, on the western side of the state, a volunteer firefighter died Wednesday after a falling tree limb downed a power line, the fire department said.
Paw Paw Volunteer Fire Lt. Ethan Quillen, 28, was electrocuted, he said.
About half an inch of freezing rain fell on Wayne County, where Detroit is located, according to the weather service.
Lauer expected 95% of DTE customers without power to get power back on Sunday. Another utility, Consumers Energy, also had major outages, but expected many customers to have power on Sunday.
In the Northeast, snow and ice are forecast to lessen on Friday, the weather service said.
