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Heavy snow and rain lashed large swaths of California on Friday, while thousands of Michigan homes suffered power outages as the country was hit by one of the worst ice storms in decades.
The Hollywood sign was engulfed in thick clouds as kids in the Golden State made the most of the rare icy weather to start snowball fights.
‘Storm Olive’, as it has been coined, also wreaked havoc on airlines with thousands of flights delayed and hundreds cancelled.
The extreme weather caused major vehicle collisions and road closures. Many schools also closed their doors.
It comes as the storm claimed its first casualty Wednesday when a Michigan firefighter was killed by a downed power line. The weather had already dumped more than two feet of snow on parts of Utah earlier in the week.
The Hollywood sign was photographed through heavy clouds on Friday, February 23 during a rare winter spell in Los Angeles.
Eight-year-old Gael Guzmán is pictured making a snowball with his family, including his 11-year-old brother Aziel.
In the photo, Aziel makes the most of the rare freezing weather in the Golden State by having a snowball fight with his family.
The National Weather Service warned of a “cold and dangerous winter storm” that would last through Saturday in California.
Blizzard warnings were posted for the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges and southern California, where up to 5 feet (1.5 meters) of snow was expected.
“Simply put, this will be a historic event for the amount of snow on the highest peaks and the lower elevation snow,” the regional weather office said.
Interstate 5, the main north-south highway on the West Coast, was closed south of the Oregon border when snow fell to the floor of the Sacramento Valley and into a high mountain pass north of Los Angeles, where they were in effect blizzard warnings.
Smaller roads were also closed.
Forecasters warned of severe thunderstorms that could create waterspouts off the southern California coast.
A blizzard warning was in effect for part of Nevada.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, hundreds of people drove up 2,500-foot Mount Tamalpais to play in the snow, including Julian Skerrett, 19, of Corte Madera.
“Looks like we’re almost to Tahoe,” he said as the flakes steadily fell. ‘It’s like a powder day, pretty fluffy snow.’
However, in other storm-battered parts of the country, the beauty was lost for most.
More than 300 flights were canceled and more than 3,000 delayed as of noon Friday, according to FlightAware.com.
A ventusky map shows parts of the area, marked in purple, covered with up to 30 inches of snow
Snow covers mailboxes in Angwin, California, on Friday afternoon. A major winter storm brought overnight snow to parts of Napa Valley
A vineyard sign is covered in snow as the storm battered parts of California and knocked out power to 820,000 Michigan homes.
Much of Portland, Oregon, remained closed Friday and icy roads were not expected to thaw until Saturday after the city’s second-heaviest snowfall on record this week — nearly 11 inches.
The storms have knocked out power to nearly 1 million homes and businesses from coast to coast.
Michigan was hardest hit after a storm this week covered branches, power lines and utility poles with ice up to three-quarters of an inch, leaving more than 820,000 customers in the dark at any given time.
By Friday, that had dwindled to fewer than 700,000, most in the populous southeast corner of the state around Detroit.
Power is expected to be restored on Sunday, though temperatures are expected to climb back above freezing by then.
Apurva Gokhale, of Walled Lake, Michigan, said: “That’s very vague and very long.”
It’s four days without electricity in this weather. It is unthinkable.
His home lost power early Thursday morning. That night, the temperature inside had dropped to 55 degrees (12 degrees Celsius). She, her husband and her son spent the night with relatives.
Tom Rankin, 70, said he and his wife were unable to reach their 100-year-old mother-in-law Friday morning by phone.
The couple drove to her home in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, and found her in bed “with lots of blankets,” Rankin said.
A car drives through snowy weather in the San Gabriel Mountains in the Los Angeles National Forest on Friday.
A truck drives down a snow-covered highway in Angwin, California. The National Weather Service warned that the ‘cold and dangerous winter storm’ would last through Saturday.
Other parts of the Golden State were affected by heavy rain. A passerby carries an orange umbrella in the rain at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles on Friday.
The Venice Beach boardwalk appeared virtually empty Friday afternoon as locals avoided the rain
He was fine and the temperature in his house was about 65 degrees after he lost power Thursday afternoon.
A Michigan firefighter died Wednesday after coming into contact with a downed power line in Paw Paw, authorities said.
“We haven’t had an ice storm in the last 50 years that has impacted our infrastructure like this,” said Trevor Lauer, president of DTE Electric.
In southern California, the latest storm began to move Thursday with flurries of rain and snow.
Flood watches and warnings were in effect through Saturday afternoon for some coastal and valley regions, and the possibility of rains causing flooding and debris flow in some areas burned by wildfires in recent years.
Parts of Interstate 80 in California and Wyoming have been closed, including a roughly 70-mile (112-kilometer) stretch over the top of the Sierra Nevada that links California and Nevada.
Evacuation warnings have also been issued in Ventura County for four areas considered unstable after being hit hard by storms last month.
The storm added to significant rainfall from December and January ‘atmospheric rivers’ that improved California’s drought prospects, but officials who allocate water to farms, cities and industries remain cautious due to a recent history of abrupt changes. in hydrological conditions.
A blanket of snow covers the property at the Castello di Amorosa winery on February 24 in Calistoga, California.
The rare winter blizzard was one of the first to hit California in more than 30 years. A vehicle stuck on a road in the San Gabriel Mountains is photographed
The weather service said temperatures could drop well below normal in the region, posing a particular risk for the homeless.