Forecasters warned of more high winds heading into the battered Pacific Northwest as an atmospheric river continued to dump heavy rain on California.
More than 200,000 homes and businesses in Washington state, which was hit this week by winds of up to about 75 miles per hour as part of a “bomb cyclone” off the coast, were without electricity Thursday evening, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us.
Two people were killed by falling trees in the state during the storm, which began Tuesday, officials said.
And more high winds are on the way for the Pacific Northwest, in the forecast range of 45 to 65 mph starting Friday due to a low-pressure system off the coast, the National Weather Service said.
“Power outages are possible and unsecured items could be blown over,” the agency warned.
In California, an “atmospheric river” dumped more rain in the northern part of the state. The greatest risk of life-threatening flooding was forecast for Thursday, but flooding will remain a threat through Friday, the weather service said.
Police officers help a woman through a flooded parking lot outside Sutter Health in Santa Rosa, California, on Thursday.
Santa Rosa, a city of about 170,000 residents in California’s Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, received more than 10 inches of rain in 48 hours on Thursday evening, the city said. Roads and parking lots were flooded and police asked everyone to avoid unnecessary travel.
The storm brought snow in the Sierra Nevada. The California Highway Patrol in Truckee said a semi slid off the highway on Thursday, and earlier this week parts of key Interstate 5 near the Oregon border were closed. They have since reopened.
Landslides and rockslides have closed some or all lanes on highways in Humboldt and Lake counties, the weather service in Eureka, California, said.
Including parts of California, about 14 million people were under winter storm warnings or winter weather warnings Thursday evening, although only about 2.5 million people were warned, according to the meteorological agency’s website.
Snow is on the way in New York state and Pennsylvania thanks to “a strong upper level low sweeping across the region,” the weather service said.
New York City was not under any advisory, but northeastern New Jersey and the lower Hudson Valley were, and some areas could see up to 4 inches of snow or a mix of snow and rain, forecasters for the region said.
The Johnstown, Pennsylvania, area, which could see as much as a foot of snow, is under a winter weather warning until 7 a.m. Saturday, with the highest amounts expected for mountain ridges, the weather service said.
In the Binghamton and Ithaca regions of New York State, valleys could see 1 to 4 inches of snow, and at higher elevations above 1,500 feet, it could be as much as a foot. On Friday, the area was under a winter weather warning until 4 p.m.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
