Heavy rain and mountain snow are returning to California on Tuesday, continuing a relentless weather pattern across the West that has proved dangerous, deadly and disruptive to millions of people in recent months.
The latest powerful Pacific storm will move inland early Tuesday and linger through Wednesday, delivering rain over the Central California coast, the National Weather Service said. The higher elevations of the northern coastal ranges and the Sierra Nevada are expected to be hit the hardest, with up to 3 feet of snow predicted.
“The main impact is going to be very heavy snow over the Sierra Nevada mountains,” said Craig Shoemaker, a meteorologist with the weather service in Sacramento, California, adding that snowfall rates would most likely be in the 2-4-inch-an-hour range for much of Tuesday.
It’ll begin midmorning and pick up in the afternoon.
“As far as the valley goes, we’re expecting through Thursday morning anywhere from three-quarters of an inch to an inch and a half of rain,” he said.
Strong winds associated with this weather system will bring gusts up to 45 mph in Northern California. Similarly gusty conditions are forecast for southern Oregon and western Nevada, forecasters said.
“Avoid travel if possible,” the weather service in Sacramento advised Tuesday morning.
This storm will have a weaker punch compared with previous storms.
“We’ve also had a little break; it hasn’t rained for about a week or so,” Shoemaker said. “The break has also helped allow those rivers and streams to reduce in their flow.”
In anticipation of the storm, the city of Sacramento said Monday that it was opening weather respite centers through Wednesday morning.
In addition, the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District in Nevada County, which is northeast of Sacramento, said schools in the district would be closed Tuesday.
The Sierra Avalanche Center in Truckee, California, warned of “high avalanche danger” in the backcountry of the Central Sierra Nevada from Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning.
“Heavy snow could cause large and destructive avalanches,” the weather service said.
Last week, at least five people in California were killed and several others were injured by falling trees, prompted by another storm system.
That storm also spawned two tornadoes, one that touched down in a mobile home park in Carpinteria, about 11 miles east of Santa Barbara. A second tornado touched down in Montebello, a suburb of Los Angeles.
At least a dozen atmospheric rivers have slammed the state since late last year, flooding communities and trapping residents in snow.
With another storm set to bring a mixed bag of precipitation to California this week, some residents may be asking when the weather will finally shift.
“While we’re continuing in a fairly active pattern, we have been seeing longer breaks in between systems here over the past couple of weeks,” Shoemaker said, adding that the short breaks between systems should continue.
In a few weeks, weather-fatigued residents may see some much needed relief from the ongoing rain and snow.
“It looks like the pattern is going to gradually dry out as we head into the middle part of April,” Shoemaker said. “Inevitably, it will shut off.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times .