A historic 'bomb cyclone' was drenching California on Sunday, forcing evacuations in areas hit by wildfires, and ushering in stay-at-home orders in other parts of the state.
The weather system was the strongest recorded since records began, beating the previous record, set in 1977.
A 'bomb cyclone' occurs when the barometric pressure drops quickly, falling 24 millibars in 24 hours or less. The standard surface pressure on Earth is 1013.2 millibars, and the lower the pressure drops within a cyclone, the more intense a storm it creates. The Portland office of the National Weather Service said the pressure fell as low as 942.5 mb, recorded by a buoy 300 nautical miles from Aberdeen, Washington state.
Power lines were downed, mudslides triggered and roads closed as the storm hit.
In Floriston, in the midst of heavy rain, a truck which collided with a bridge wall and caught fire, forcing one lane of the I-80 eastbound.
More than 168,000 people were without power in California on Sunday, along with nearly 172,000 in Washington state and more than 30,000 in Oregon, according to Poweroutage.us.
The worst outages were in northern California.
Utility company PG&E said as of 2:15pm PT more than 130,000 customers were without power in the Bay Area, including 50,576 in the North Bay, 43,556 on the Peninsula, 21,773 in the East Bay, 7,523 in the South Bay and 7,234 in San Francisco.
Rocks and vegetation cover Highway 70 following a landslide in the Dixie Fire zone on Sunday
Huge chunks of rock and mountains of earth were dislodged on Sunday in Plumas County, following the heavy rain
Caltrans maintenance supervisor Matt Martin walks by a landslide covering Highway 70 in the Dixie Fire zone on Sunday
Cars drive by a sign on Highway 101 on Sunday in Corte Madera, California. Up to 10 inches of rain are expected to fall along the west coast
Up to 10 inches of rain was expected to wash over the West Coast, said meteorologist Marc Chenard of the Weather Prediction Center at the National Weather Service.
'It's an atmospheric river already moving through northern California,' he added.
The weather whiplash follows the busiest wildfire season in California history and heightens threats of flash flooding.
Much of the region is in severe, extreme or exceptional drought, as classified by the U.S.
