California storms leave state battered as next one approaches

Californians plagued by the extraordinary snow, rains and flooding that have recently lashed the Golden State are girding for another storm that promises to bring more foul weather Sunday evening.

But the next round — which could bring several more feet of snow to the mountains, 50 mph wind gusts to the Sacramento Valley and about a half inch of rain to already-sodden Southern California — will pale in comparison to the high-powered storm that’s clobbered the West Coast over the past few days, according to ABC7

That weather system, which according to the National Weather Service was one of the strongest to ever sweep across southwest California, left in its wake rain-swollen rivers and a snow dusting atop the famed Hollywood sign.

The storm’s fearsome winds also took down trees and electrical wires, knocking out the power for more than 120,000 residents.

Dramatic footage showed an RV falling off an embankment and being swept into the Santa Clara River on Saturday as the flooding worsened, according to KTLA. No one was inside the motorhome at the time.

Many such rivers, which are usually either dry or mostly empty, filled with runoff waters that pushed them to new heights. The Los Angeles Fire Department had to rescue by helicopter four homeless people who were stranded in a major flood control basin.

Major highways stayed closed Sunday, and may remain so through the first part of the week.

Meanwhile, five feet of snow packed itself onto Donner Summit, according to the University of California Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab. And three feet fell on Mount Baldy, which is near downtown Los Angeles.

Yosemite National Park will stay closed through Wednesday. Interstate 5, which is the biggest highway that leads north out of Los Angeles, closed because of heavy snows and ice in Tejon Pass through the northern mountains.

Flooding closed other parts of the highway in and around the city.

Rainclouds dropped 4.3 inches of rain on LA, while Pasadena endured nearly 8 inches. Officials also shuttered 24 miles of LA county beaches for two hours because of lightning near the shoreline.

The peculiar conditions have been caused by a large low-pressure system from the Arctic, Bryan Jackson, a forecaster at the NWS Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

“Quite a remarkable storm the last few days with historic amounts of precip and snow down to elevations that rarely see snow,” the LA-area weather office wrote.

Officials also issued an avalanche warning for the Sierra Nevada backcountry by Lake Tahoe, near the state’s border with Nevada. Two feet of snow had fallen by Friday, and the next storm is expected to bring up to another five feet, according to the weather service.

With Post wires