Storm-weary West on track to be doused with more rain, feet of Sierra Nevada snow
The storm-weary West will not catch a break from the rounds of travel-disrupting rain, wind and mountain snow, AccuWeather forecasters say. Another stretch of busy weather will continue into early this week ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, this time reaching as far south as Los Angeles.
The ongoing pattern across the Northwest and Northern California has produced rounds of drenching rainfall, mountain snow and intense coastal winds over the last week.
Earlier last week, power outages in Washington alone rose to at least 600,000 customers due to intense winds across the region from a bomb cyclone. A bomb cyclone is a storm that strengthens so fast that the central atmospheric pressure plunges 0.71 of an inch (24 millibars) or more in 24 hours or less, often bringing damaging winds as the storm rapidly intensifies.
The next storm began to impact the California coast Sunday and will eventually make its way inland and push snow across Nevada, Utah and parts of Colorado into Tuesday.
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Forecasters say that there will be a notable difference with this next round -- apart from the location along the West Coast being impacted.
"Unlike the storms that have been bringing the flooding to Northern California last week, the atmospheric river, or stream of moisture into California, won't be as strong or as intense. The areas of low pressure spinning and coming in from the Pacific will be weak and won't steer a steady stream of the remaining moisture into any one place," highlighted AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Houk.
However, because of the tremendous natural wall created by the Sierra Nevada, the tall mountain range will still squeeze out tremendous amounts of moisture in the form of heavy snow.
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Snow levels across the Sierra Nevada are projected to range from 5,000-6,500 feet. One to perhaps 2 feet of snow is forecast to fall on Donner Pass, California, along Interstate 80. The pass is about 7,000 feet above sea level and will be well within the bulk of the snow during the storm.
However, the heaviest snow will focus on the central and southern Sierra Nevada with this storm.
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Some of the central and southern Sierra Nevada will end up with whopping snowfall totals of several feet. The AccuWeather Local StormMax™ snowfall for this storm is 10 feet.
Travel will be wintry over the passes, and roads could even close.
As moisture plunges southward across California early this week, showers will creep toward the Central Coast and even Los Angeles.
"Currently, it looks like Tuesday would be the best opportunity for rain in Los Angeles," noted Houk.
While rain totals early this week as far south as Ventura and Los Angeles counties in California will not be notably high, any rain that reaches the Los Angeles International Airport will be welcome as the last time the site recorded measurable precipitation was on Nov. 2.
Farther north across the state, rainfall totals will be a bit heftier in comparison but still not on the order of the prior rounds of rain observed over the last week.
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