A heavy Christmas weekend storm blanketed the mountains of northern California and Nevada in snow, causing whiteout conditions and closing highways in the Sierra Nevada.
Forecasters have warned that travel in the Sierra Nevada, the mountainous region along the California-Nevada border, could be difficult for several days. Three people were injured in a 20-car pileup on US route 395, officials near Reno said, amid limited visibility on Sunday. Farther west, a 70-mile (112km) stretch of Interstate 80 from Colfax, California, through the Lake Tahoe region to the Nevada state line was shut due to the snow, low visibility and downed trees and power lines.
The winter weather brought 16ft of snow to the Sierra this month, breaking a 50-year record in the state. “We smashed the previous record,” Andrew Schwartz, the lead scientist for UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, told KTVU on Monday. “This is, officially, the snowiest December on record.”
NEW DECEMBER RECORD: 193.7″
With a 24 hour official #snow total of 38.9″ at the lab, we have smashed the previous record of 179″ of snow in December set in 1970!
Snow rates are still heavy and we could even break the 200″ mark today!#CAwx #CAwater pic.twitter.com/x9g6fRuzHQ
— UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab (@UCB_CSSL) December 27, 2021
The region could see 200in of snow by Tuesday morning, Schwartz told the news station.
In Placer county, which stretches from the valley to the shore of Lake Tahoe, officials asked that residents stay home on Monday. “Emergency crews cannot keep up with the snow-packed roads and downed trees. Please stay home. Backroads expected to have same issues,” the sheriff’s office said on Twitter. Ski resorts in the popular tourist destination were largely closed.
Meanwhile, the California Department of Transportation closed many roads and warned of slippery conditions for motorists.
“Expect major travel delays on all roads,” the National Weather Service office in Reno, Nevada, said Sunday on Twitter. “Today is the type of day to just stay home if you can. More snow is on the way too!”
Possible “widespread whiteout conditions” and wind gusts of more than 45mph (72kph) were expected in greater Lake Tahoe. The weather service issued a winter storm warning for the area until 1am Tuesday.
Turbulent weather stretched from Seattle to San Diego and across the west. More than a foot (0.3 meters) of snow was reported near Port Angeles on Washington state’s Puget Sound. Portland, Oregon, received a dusting, but the city was expected to get another 2.5in (6 centimeters) by Monday morning, according to the weather service.
The National Weather Service office in Great Falls, Montana, issued a warning through Tuesday of “dangerously cold wind chills” as low as 55 below zero that “could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 5 minutes”.
In California, heavy rain caused rockslides that closed more than 40 miles (64km) of coastal Highway 1 in the Big Sur region south of the San Francisco Bay Area. There was no estimate for the reopening of the scenic stretch, which is frequently shut after wet weather.
Heavy rain in southern California flooded streets and knocked down power lines Saturday, in the latest of a series of blustery storms. Powerful gusts toppled trees, damaged carports and blew a track-and-field shed from a Goleta high school into a front yard two blocks away, according to the Santa Barbara county fire department. No injuries were reported.
More than 1.8in (4.5 centimeters) of rain fell over 24 hours in Santa Barbara county’s San Marcos pass, while Rocky Butte in San Luis Obispo county recorded 1.61in (4 centimeters), the weather service said.
At Los Angeles international airport, a “storm-related electrical issue” forced a partial closure of Terminal 5, causing post-Christmas passengers to divert to other terminals for certain services, prompting a warnings of delays and cancellations to flights.
In the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, crews were repairing a section of State Route 18 that washed down a hillside after heavy rain late Thursday. The closure of the major route into the Big Bear ski resort area could last for weeks, officials said.
The heavy rains and snow were welcomed in parched California, where the Sierra snowpack had been at dangerously low levels after weeks of dry weather. But the state Department of Water Resources reported on Christmas Eve that the snowpack was between 114% and 137% of normal across the range, with more snow expected.
Up to 8ft (2.4 meters) of snow was predicted at the highest elevations of the Sierra.
Before Sunday, 20in (50 centimeters) of snow already had fallen at Homewood on Lake Tahoe’s west shore. About a foot (30 centimeters) was reported at Northstar near Truckee, California, and 10in (25 centimeters) at the Mount Rose ski resort on the south-west edge of Reno.
