A winter storm has brought rare blizzard warnings to southern California as snow began dusting the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles County.
Rain and hail began falling on southern California on Thursday night as the storm approached from the Pacific Ocean. The rain began turning into snow as temperatures started to plummet.
The National Weather Service (NWS) declared a blizzard warning for parts of Los Angeles County around 4am on Friday morning. It will currently stay in effect until 4pm Friday afternoon.
It’s the first blizzard warning in drought-stricken Los Angeles County since February 4, 1989.
The mountainous parts of the county could see up to 4 or 5 feet of snow, the NWS said. Storms in the mountains could sustain wind gusts up to 80 miles per hour.
The storm is expected to continue dropping precipitation on southern California through Saturday.
Although the blizzard warning doesn’t extend to the city limits of Los Angeles itself, the NWS is warning residents to take precautions for the possibility of flooding or avalanches.
‘There is the potential for widespread snow impacts, and road closures, including whiteout and blizzard conditions with an increased threat of avalanches,’ the agency said. ‘Impacts from the rain include hazardous travel with flooding of roadways, possible river flooding, and mud and debris flows from recent burn areas.’
The NWS also confirmed that snow or graupel – soft hail pellets that look like snow – fell at their monitoring station on Mount Lee – where the Hollywood Sign is located.
Another blizzard warning was declared for the Sierra Nevada mountains, where snowstorms are much more common this time of year.
Meanwhile, several communities in neighboring Ventura County were given evacuation warnings as the storm made landfall.
Warnings of waterspouts – large tornado-like vortexes of seawater – were declared for the Ventura County coastal areas, including close to the cities of Santa Barbara and Port Hueneme.
Forecasters also warned of severe hailstorms and possible ‘landspouts’ – another type of cyclone similar to a tornado – near San Augustine, Oxnard, and Las Cruces.
Earlier this week, a devastating ice storm froze large portions of the upper Midwest, including much of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas.
Cal Transit has closed portions of Interstate-5, including the portion known as the Grapevine, which connects the state’s Central Valley to Los Angeles.
In Michigan, severe ice buildup on power lines caused outages in several parts of the state. About 730,000 customers were still out of power on Friday, mostly concentrated in the state’s southeastern Detroit suburbs.
Meanwhile, the Southeast and parts of the Mid-Atlantic are experiencing record warm temperatures for February. Temperatures are expected to reach as high as 80 degrees Fahrenheit in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina over the weekend.
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