Forecasters through the US issued warnings that another round of winter weather could complicate travel leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday, while California and Washington state continue to recover from storm damage and power outages.
In California, where a person was found dead in a vehicle submerged in floodwaters on Saturday, authorities braced for more precipitation while grappling with flooding and small landslides from a previous storm.
The national weather service office in Sacramento, California, issued a winter storm warning for the state’s Sierra Nevada for Saturday through Tuesday, with heavy snow expected at higher elevations and wind gusts potentially reaching 55mph (88kph). Total snowfall of roughly 4ft (1.2 meters) was forecast, with the heaviest accumulations expected on Monday and Tuesday.
The midwest and Great Lakes regions will see rain and snow on Monday and the east coast will be the most affected on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, forecasters said.
A low pressure system is forecast to bring rain to the south-east early Thursday before heading to the north-east. Areas from Boston to New York could see rain and breezy conditions, with snowfall possible in parts of northern New Hampshire, northern Maine and the Adirondacks. If the system tracks further inland, there could be less snow and more rain in the mountains, forecasters said.
“The system doesn’t look like a powerhouse right now,” Hayden Frank, a meteorologist with the national weather service in Massachusetts, said Sunday. “Basically, this is going to bring rain to the I-95 corridor so travelers should prepare for wet weather. Unless the system trends a lot colder, it looks like rain.”
Frank said he isn’t seeing any major storm systems arriving for the weekend anywhere in the country so travelers heading home on Sunday can expect good driving conditions. Temperatures, however, will get colder in the east while warming up out west.
About 36,000 people in the Seattle area were still without electricity after this season’s strongest atmospheric river, a long plume of moisture that forms over an ocean and flows over land.
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What is an atmospheric river? And other weather terms explained
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What is an atmospheric river? And other weather terms explained
Here’s a short breakdown of the different kinds of storms that have lashed the west coast of North America this winter.
Atmospheric river
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration refers to these as “rivers in the sky” for good reason. Characterized by long streams of moisture in the atmosphere, the average atmospheric river carries an amount of water vapor that rivals the flow at the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River – and strong ones can hold up to 15 times that amount. That moisture is released as rain or snow when ARs make landfall and typically are accompanied by strong, gusty winds adding to their destructive tendencies.
Pineapple express
These particularly strong atmospheric rivers are named for their origin. Pulling moisture from the Pacific around Hawaii, Pineapple Express storms have been known to unleash torrents of precipitation when they reach the west coast of the US and Canada – and have dumped roughly 5in of rain on California in a single day, according to the National Ocean Service.
Bomb cyclone
These low-pressure storm systems help create atmospheric rivers, pushing them from the Pacific to the coast. Unlike hurricanes or other storms where the center is the strongest, bomb cyclones can generate the worst weather at their edges.
El Niño
This is a climate pattern characterized by unusually warm surface ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific. Along with its counterpart La Niña – which, in turn, refers to a period of colder-than-average sea surface temperatures – these patterns can impact weather around the world. While the weather doesn’t always align, El Niño is associated with warmer temperatures, and generally delivers drier conditions in the northern US and Canada, and wetter ones – bringing increased flood risks – through the south.
– Gabrielle Canon, US climate and extreme weather correspondent
Another storm brought rain to New York and New Jersey, where rare wildfires have raged in recent weeks, and heavy snow to north-eastern Pennsylvania. The precipitation was expected to help ease drought conditions after an exceptionally dry fall.
“It’s not going to be a drought buster, but it’s definitely going to help when all this melts,” said Bryan Greenblatt, a national weather service meteorologist in Binghamton, New York.
Heavy snow fell in north-eastern Pennsylvania, including the Pocono Mountains. Higher elevations reported up to 17in (43cm), with lesser accumulations in valley cities including Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Around 35,000 customers in 10 counties are still without power, down from 80,000 a day ago.
In the Catskills region of New York, nearly 10,000 people remained without power on Sunday morning, two days after a storm dumped heavy snow on parts of the region.
Precipitation in West Virginia helped put a dent in the state’s worst drought in at least two decades and boosted ski resorts preparing to open their slopes in the weeks ahead.
