03/06/2023
3/2/2023 Repost:
Snow has engulfed mountainous regions of California in the past week, shutting down long stretches of roadways, closing Yosemite National Park and burying many communities.
The extreme weather forced Yosemite to close on Saturday, initially for a few days and now indefinitely. Structures in the park and rangers’ homes remain encased in deep snow, and power is intermittent, Scott Gediman, a park ranger and spokesman, said. Higher-elevation areas of the park have recently recorded as much as 15 feet of snow, while 40 inches accumulated on Tuesday alone in Yosemite Valley, breaking a record of 36 inches set in 1969, Gediman said.
The record snow amount in Yosemite is the latest extreme precipitation to pummel California this winter — deluges that have led to repeated episodes of flooding, power outages and evacuations. Last week, heavy snow fell in the mountains of Southern California, including in some spots that almost never see snow. People living at lower elevations there also faced floods triggered by unusually heavy rainstorms.
Among the weather records set in the process: Los Angeles International Airport received a record amount of rain and Los Angeles County issued its first blizzard warning since Feb. 4, 1989.
As of Wednesday night, more than 18 million people across a large, north-to-south band of California were under a freeze warning. And more snow was forecast for the weekend, including up to two feet in the Yosemite area.
Photos by Mario Tama/Getty Images in Los Angeles; National Park Service via in Yosemite National Park; Mario Tama/Getty Images in Palmdale; Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock in Los Angeles; Eugene Garcia/ in Oak Hills; Salgu Wissmath/San Francisco Chronicle via in South Lake Tahoe; Marcio Jose Sanchez/ near a vineyard in Palmdale; and Jae C. Hong/ of State Route 138 near Hesperia.
