A dangerous winter storm is slamming Northern California with rare blizzard conditions and fierce winds as it threatens to unload up to 10 feet of snow in the mountains and snarl travel.
In the Sierra Nevada, the storm is delivering heavy snow, reduced visibilities, toppled power lines and hurricane-force winds over 75 miles per hour, which are expected to roar through the weekend.
Over three feet of snow has been measured so far, and an additional one to two feet is likely in higher elevations and six to 10 inches elsewhere, according to the National Weather Service.
About a half million people are under blizzard warnings in the Mountain West, with another 6 million under winter weather alerts across the region.
Extreme snowfall at high elevations
The weather service on Friday warned of “high to extreme” avalanche danger through Sunday afternoon in the Central Sierra and Greater Lake Tahoe area.
The most extreme conditions are unfolding at the highest elevations, where snowfall rates could top three to five inches an hour through Saturday, threatening road closures and increasing the risk of avalanches.
The ski resort Sierra-at-Tahoe in Twin Bridges, California, is closed after at least three to four feet fell at the top of the resort. An image shared with CNN shows how wind drift caused snow to pile up against the door of the resort’s maintenance shop. Another shows a car in the resort’s guest parking buried in snow that fell overnight.
“We, along with most other resorts, will be closed today so our lift operations team can focus on clearing the roads,” Shelby Dunlap, communications manager at the resort, told CNN.
Models are showing an additional 3 feet of snow at high elevations by Saturday morning, and blizzard conditions continuing through the day. Those blizzard conditions will move into eastern Nevada Saturday morning, and blizzard warnings are in effect from Saturday morning into Saturday evening.
Whiteout conditions on…
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