Snow, ice and shivering cold blasted normally mild cities from Seattle to Las Vegas to San Francisco on Tuesday as winter weather sweeping across the US west shuttered schools, made travel treacherous and closed all roads in Yosemite National Park.
Winter storms have been hitting the west for several days and brought a surprise dusting to peaks overlooking San Francisco — the city’s first notable snow in eight years. Snow also piled higher at ski resorts, closing runs in Lake Tahoe and the California mountains as snow reached 2m to 3m since Saturday.
“We don’t get snow up here in the area,” said Jess Moseley, who traveled from the San Francisco Bay Area to snowy Mount Diablo State Park 64km away. “You have to go to Tahoe or wherever to play in the snow, so we just came up to see if it was still here, and it is.”
Photo: AP
In the Pacific northwest, lows plunged into the teens in Seattle, making roads slick and closing schools throughout the area for a second day. Unusual snow fell a day earlier, causing crashes and canceling flights, and lower-than-normal temperatures were expected throughout the week.
Rare snow and cold also walloped Portland, Oregon, where it shut schools and left some higher elevation roads slick.
Natalie Razey, 9, of Lake Oswego, Oregon, said that when the snow flurries started on Monday, her teacher shared some advice for ensuring a snow day on Tuesday.
“Our teacher let us do a snow dance while it was snowing at school yesterday, and I flushed ice cubes down the toilet and I put spoons under my pillow,” she said during a break from sledding and snowball fights.
In Nevada, the National Weather Service reported light snow in northwest Las Vegas.
Lake Tahoe-area ski resorts celebrated the biggest storm of the season, with 1m recorded over 24 hours. That brought the total to about 2m at Heavenly Ski Resort and Kirkwood Mountain Resort since Saturday. However, so much snow fell, they could only open limited trails.
About 190km south, Mammoth Mountain Resort reported 3m of snow since Saturday and closed all but a few trails.
Yosemite’s ski area also shut down, while restaurants had shorter hours and shuttles were not running because of snow-covered roads.
“It’s beautiful and we certainly need the snow, but we’re asking people to stay indoors,” park spokesman Scott Gediman said.
California is still recovering from a drought that led to tight water restrictions and contributed to severe wildfires.
In Utah, a semi-trailer slid off an icy highway in a canyon and hit a sheriff’s deputy in Rich County, sending him to the hospital with serious injuries and closing the road. The unnamed Rich County sheriff’s deputy is expected to survive. It was one of several crashes across Utah as several centimeters of snow fell.
Montana residents braved the third day of subzero temperatures and biting wind chill.
Wind and fresh snowfall led officials to warn of high avalanche danger in southwestern Montana near Yellowstone National Park, and an avalanche warning was in place for the Centennial Mountains in eastern Idaho.
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