By Stefano Paltera, AP
Gino McGowens asses (sic) the damage to his Inglewood, Calif., home after wind blew a tree onto it.
Posted on 12/30/2004 10:30:30 AM PST by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES - A slow-rolling series of storms that battered the West this week brought snowfall and high wind Thursday to parts of California, where weather-weary residents have already endured lashing rain, heavy snowfall and a destructive tornado.
Since the wild weather began slogging ashore Monday, five deaths in California and two in Colorado have been blamed on storms. Two canoers were missing in Arizona.
By Thursday morning, up to a foot of snow had fallen on Colorado mountains. An avalanche warning was issued for the San Juan mountains in southwestern Colorado, and the north-central section was under a winter storm warning.
Conditions were improving Thursday in Arizona, as water levels quickly fell in a Sedona-area creek fattened from a trickle into a river of mud, forcing a dozen neighborhoods to evacuate. Damage assessments was expected to begin Thursday.
Large recreational vehicles had floated down Granite Creek in Page Springs, and authorities in Prescott resumed their search Thursday for two students missing after their canoe capsized. Part of the canoe was recovered Wednesday.
California had been taking the brunt of the Pacific barrage, and more rain and wind were forecast for the Northern California coast by Thursday night.
Inland, a winter storm warning was posted around Lake Tahoe on the Northern California-Nevada line. A combination of heavy snow and winds gusting to 100 mph over the higher elevations shut down Interstate 80 and U.S. 50 overnight, halting traffic for a time in the area.
Scattered showers were forecast Thursday in Southern California, where two days of downpours have brought up to 12 inches of rain.
A tornado struck the Los Angeles suburbs of Inglewood and Ladera Heights on Wednesday, snapping trees and damaging cars, but causing no injuries. Power outages hit more than 140,000 customers across five counties and portions of several highways were closed because of flooding, mud or snow.
The bad conditions turned Southern California freeways into a virtual demolition derby. The California Highway Patrol logged 220 crashes between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning — more than three times the normal amount.
High wind around San Diego snapped off the top 170 feet of a radio tower, and bits of it struck about 20 cars. Two radio stations and a cable television station were knocked off the air.
In southern Nevada, more than 1 1/2 inches of rain fell in 24 hours at the Las Vegas airport — a third of the city's normal yearly total of 4.43 inches. More than a foot of snow was recorded in the southern mountains. Authorities reported hundreds of crashes, and firefighters rescued stranded motorists, including a North Las Vegas police officer whose patrol car was swamped. There were no reports of serious injuries or damage.
As the storm moved east, three Colorado highways were closed. One was shut down by a flurry of traffic accidents, and two others by avalanches.
Elsewhere, freezing rain put an icy layer on roads in the northern Plains early Thursday, sending vehicles into ditches.
"We have a layer of ice and we have rain falling on top of that, and it's just treacherous," North Dakota Highway Patrol Sgt. Jim Prochniak said. "It's even very dangerous for people to try and walk."
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On the Net:
National Weather Service (news - web sites): http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov
Intellicast: http://www.intellicast.com
AccuWeather: http://www.accuweather.com
We should be hearing about how this PROVES global warming is happening real soon now...
California storm spawns twister
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2004-12-29-la-torndo_x.htm?csp=34
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The storm that's been dumping rain on California since Monday spawned a tornado in the Los Angeles area on Wednesday.
Gino McGowens asses the damage to his Inglewood, Calif., home after wind blew a tree onto it.
By Stefano Paltera, AP
The tornado struck the Los Angeles suburbs of Inglewood and Ladera Heights around 1:30 a.m., ripping the roof off a house, snapping trees and damaging cars, but causing no injuries. Dan Keaton, a National Weather Service meteorologist, confirmed that it was a twister after examining the damage.
Resident Derek Williams told KCAL-TV he awakened when the tornado blasted out his bedroom window. "I heard sort of a low rumbling noise, sort of like a freight train and shortly after that, I heard a ripping noise - obviously, that was my roof," Williams said. "Thank God everyone was OK in the house."
"I didn't expect a tornado out here in Los Angeles. I mean, that's back in the Midwest where I'm from," he said.
In its 4 p.m. PT Tuesday storm alert, the Los Angeles area National Weather Service office had said that storm could bring "intense rainfall events, small hail, local wind gusts over 50 mph, waterspout and funnel cloud formation as well as isolated small tornadoes."
More than 30 tornadoes have been recorded in Los Angeles County since 1918, but no deaths from them have been reported.
A waterspout is a tornado over water and a funnel cloud is a tornado that does not touch the ground.
In San Diego County, high winds — not a tornado — snapped off the top 200 feet of the KSON radio tower in National City and bits of the falling tower struck about 20 cars. The mishap took two local radio stations and a cable television station off the air, KURS director Larry Thompson told The San Diego Union-Tribune.
In Orange County, wind toppled a brick wall onto a carport roof in Costa Mesa, crushing more than a dozen vehicles.
Gino McGowens asses (sic) the damage to his Inglewood, Calif., home after wind blew a tree onto it.
Congratulations, you passed your final exam to become an enlightened liberal with flying colors!
Yep. The bug-eyed wack-jobs are already blaming Bush not signing Kyoto for causing the tsunami, and for all the bad weather everywhere in the world for the past four years. They don't bother to ask who caused all the bad weather that ever happened everywhere for the previous 5 billion or so, though.
Missa Moore looks at a large hole in her backyard in Hesperia.
And today the weather is glorious - blue skies, lots of sun, temps. in the low sixties.
Do we need anymore evidence that Texas doesn't belong in the Rose Bowl?
Why thank you. It took years and years of study ;- )
That's Bush's fault too.
It will be bush's fault when Malibu and the Republic of Santa Monica slidddddddde off the hills. (wishful thinking)
More proof of Global warming is that it snowed in the UAE for the first time ever.
Some of these people have no common sense, but then we knew that already.
God hit Inglewood because Kobe played ball in that area. That had to be it.
Now that Haliburton moved Sri Lanka out of the way of their new pipeline it was only a matter of time before they started working on SoCal....#;-)
LOL!
I hear ya.
The Cal Bears play this evening.. they should be in the Rose Bowl
Heck, my Golden Gophers play tomorrow and they were middle of the pack.
Bowl season is a 3 week event these days.
Who cares about tradition anyway? Show me da bling.;-)
Funny, I recently heard some high muckety-muck weather people on KFBK (Sacramento) lamenting that the current drought would take 8 years to be over. Guess they were wrong (again)
Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it (they said the same thing in 77-78 and 96-97)
God Bless El Nino
I've got free tickets to the Emerald Bowl at Pac Bell park if you wanna go today. Too much rain for me:-) GO NAVY
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