Storms in California and the Northeast

[Jeb]

Storminess galore

12/7/2004 ET 12/7/2004

 

B. Bernard, Senior Meterologist, The Weather Channel

 

 

Heavy rain and heavy snow are shifting southward through California this morning, while a line of strong thunderstorms pushes from Alabama into Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. Meanwhile, some wintry precipitation is icing roads in parts of New England.

 

In California, a band of heavy rain is charging southward through the San Joaquin Valley and along the coast south of San Francisco now, taking aim on the L. A. Basin. Winds gusted to 54 mph in San Francisco early this morning as the area of rain swept through. In the Sierras, the precipitation is falling as snow, and lots of it. Snowfall rates of up to 2 inches per hour will shift out of the central Sierras into the southern Sierras over the next several several hours. Much of the West is unsettled today, and winter storm warnings are posted for areas as far east as the Wasatch Range in Utah.

 

In the East, a band of strong but weakening storms continues to race eastward through the Deep South this morning and expected to be pushing through the eastern Carolinas by evening.

 

In New England, patchy snow and freezing rain extend from interior eastern Massachusetts into northern New England now. Wintry precipitation will tend to increase over Upstate New York and northern New England over the next several hours, but will also tend to change to rain as the afternoon goes on and milder air works northward. By this evening, only southern Maine and the far northern reaches of Vermont and New Hampshire may be seeing freezing rain or ice pellets; farther north in Maine, light snow will be beginning. Overnight, heavy snow could pile up in northern Maine.