Wild weather weekend forecast for the West
- Heavy rain could lead to mudslides and floods
- World record snowfall of 18 feet possible at Mount Shasta
- Storms to continue into next week
The two big weather stories this weekend will be the continued onslaught of storms for the West Coast and the near-record warmth forecast to spread over the central and eastern USA.
In the West, a series of intense storms will continue to pelt northern California, western Oregon and western Washington with rain, snow and wind through the entire weekend.
Heavy rain will drench coastal and valley areas, and rainfall totals are likely to top a foot in some spots in northern California, according to the National Weather Service.
"The cumulative effect of the storms has the potential to bring flash, urban and stream flooding, as well as mudslides and debris flows to northern California," says AccuWeather meteorologist Ken Clark.
He says the rain could loosen debris on hillsides and potentially wash away portions of secondary roads.
The rain has already been impressive this week: Almost 9 inches of rain has fallen near St. Helena, Calif., since Tuesday, according to the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center. St. Helena is west of Sacramento and north of San Francisco.
Friday, heavy winds and fallen trees resulted in more than 15,000 Pacific Gas & Electric customers without power in the San Francisco Bay Area.
More than 4,500 customers in the Peninsula area, 3,700 in the South Bay area and 7,600 in the North Bay area are without power this morning, according to PG&E.
Travel was impacted: The California Highway Patrol reported 77 accidents today on Bay Area roads, while delays of more than three hours occurred at San Francisco International Airport.
Along the coast, howling winds will lead to rough seas and beach erosion.
Phenomenal amounts of snow will pound the mountains. At elevations of more than 7,500 feet in the northern Sierra Nevada, the storms could bring 6 to 10 feet of snow with blizzard conditions at times because of winds of over 100 mph, AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski forecasts.
Even worse conditions are in store for Mount Shasta in northern California, where one weather service forecast shows 18 feet of snow is possible from the series of storms. This total would set an all-time world record for a single "snow event," according to Weather Channel meteorologist Nick Wiltgen. (This would count as a single event since it's been snowing there non-stop for days.)
Heavy snow, from 2-4 feet, is also likely in the Cascades of Oregon and Washington and the Bitterroots of Idaho and Montana.
The snow will raise the risk of avalanches: "There is a possibility of significant snow slides, especially over the weekend into next week," Sosnowski says.
The Western storms will continue into next week.
While the West endures dismal weather, this first weekend of December will see some unusual warmth across the rest of the country. Saturday and Sunday, widespread temperatures of 10-20 degrees above normal will probably spread from the Rockies into the Ohio and Tennessee valleys and into the Southeast.
High temperatures will soar into the 60s as far north as the Dakotas and into the 50s in the Midwest. Many locations will flirt with record highs.
The warmth should continue into the first part of next week.
Contributing: Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY