LOS ANGELES -- The latest winter storm to blast California waned early Wednesday, while forecasters warned a new, powerful weather system will affect most of the lower 48 states this week.
“The system is going to be moving generally east-northeast and fairly fast, so it’s going to cross the country in a few days,” said meteorologist David Roth. Six to 12 inches (15 to 30 centimeters) of snow could eventually fall in upstate New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, Roth said.
Elsewhere, record high temperatures are possible in the Gulf Coast into the Ohio Valley and a threat of tornadoes from the southern Plains to the mid-South, according to the National Weather Service.
Even as the winter storm tapered off in California, major highways were subject to closures and chain restrictions, and authorities warned of high avalanche danger at all elevations of the backcountry.
In Southern California, snow and ice forced closure of Interstate 5 in Tejon Pass through mountains north of Los Angeles.
In the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, ski resorts reported at least 2 feet (over half a meter) of new snow early Wednesday, while the Snow Valley resort reported a seven-day total of 10 feet (3 meters).
All roads to the resorts and mountain communities have been closed to the general public since last week, and a local emergency was declared Monday.
Two highways were opened for traffic heading down the mountains, and on Tuesday the California Highway Patrol began escorts for residents heading back up to their homes.
Northwest of Lake Tahoe, on the California-Nevada border in the Sierra Nevada, an avalanche struck a three-story apartment building Tuesday evening, according to the local sheriff’s office, but no injuries were reported.
Yosemite National Park, closed since Saturday because of heavy, blinding snow, postponed its planned Thursday reopening indefinitely.
The heavy snow was expected to end Wednesday afternoon after an additional 1 to 2 feet (30 to 60 centimeters) falls in the region, according to the weather service.
The University of California, Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory near Donner Pass reported that nearly 41.7 feet (12.7 meters) has fallen since October, more than in any snow year since 1970 and second only to the record of 66.7 feet (20.3 meters) in 1952.
Mammoth Lakes, traditionally one of the snowiest places in California, had nearly 4 feet (1.2 meters) of snow over the past three days. Snow drifts were taller than houses, and crews worked around the clock to keep roads and sidewalks clear.
The Sierra snowpack provides about a third of the state’s water supply and the water content of the snowpack Tuesday — in a state grappling with years of drought — was 186% of normal to date, according to the state Department of Water Resources’ online data.
The storm came a week after bad weather that stretched from the Pacific Coast to the northern Plains and is now blamed for two deaths in Portland, Oregon. One of them died of hypothermia Tuesday, according to a medical examiner.
The next, larger weather system expected to spread across much of the country Thursday, and areas such as the lower Mississippi Valley and Tennessee Valley could see heavy rain, thunderstorms and some flash flooding. The high could top 100 degrees (38 Celsius) across far south Texas, and windy, dry conditions would make for a critical risk of wildfire in parts of the Southwest for the next few days, according to the weather service.
Recent storms have delayed travel, shuttered schools and overwhelmed crews trying to dig out of the snow and repair downed power lines. More than 60,000 customers were without power Wednesday morning in Michigan, which is still recovering from ice storms, and about 105,000 in California, according to PowerOutage.us.
In Arizona, snow began falling Wednesday morning as the California storm moved eastward. It could dump 18 inches to 2 feet of snow in northern areas of Arizona by Thursday morning, the weather service said.
Flagstaff received nearly 33 inches of snow in February, just shy of double the city’s annual average of 18.6 inches for the month, and has already received 118 inches of snow this year, topping the annual average of 90.1 inches, with 10 months of the year remaining, the weather service said.
In North Dakota, the Legislature postponed Wednesday morning meetings as ice- and snow-covered roads were closed, including major highways between the two largest cities, Fargo and the capital, Bismarck.
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Associated Press writers Walter Berry in Arizona and Trisha Ahmed in St. Paul, Minnesota, in contributed to this report.
