Weather

A major Nor'easter threatens to shut down travel due to heavy snow and strong winds from Washington, D.C., to New York City and Boston early this week, as weather forecasters on Sunday put the U.S. East Coast on a blizzard watch, warning some 50 million people of potential snowfall from 12 to 18 inches, coupled with wind blasts in some areas from Monday night into Wednesday. New York City issued a snow alert for Monday night, preparing its fleet of snow plows to deal with the fallout.

According to French electricity grid operator Enedis, winter storm Zeus which unleashed hurricane-force winds across much of southern France, has left more than 600,000 French households without power as of 4pm on Monday. The company's website advises that the power cuts have affected 175,000 customers in Brittany, 190,000 in Auvergne Rhone Alpes, 130,000 in Nouvelle Aquitaine, 80,000 in Pays de Loire, and the company advises that more than 3,500 technicians from Enedis are working in the field to deal with “very major” storm damage.

The mother of all storms is set to hit California in the near future, with large sections of the State at risk of severe flooding, according to the National Weather Service. According to scientists, the recent bout of storms across the West coast of America are just a precursor to a much bigger storm that will be of “biblical proportions” compared to recent weather. Recent research has shown that every 200 years for the past 2,000 years or more, California has experienced massive floods that have swept through the state causing thousands of deaths.

While the series of major storms hitting California have begun to subside, residents of San Jose are being warned to keep away from affected homes until water levels decrease to a safe level. Flash floods along the west coast of the US have seen thousands of people forced to leave their homes and a state of emergency declared by California governor Jerry Brown. The majority of mandatory evacuation orders have now been downgraded for areas including Sutter County around the Oroville Dam Spillway, which sparked panic one week ago when it threatened to collapse during the floods.

Update: according to an update posted moments ago by the Nevada Weather Service in Reno, the Flash Flood Warning has been canceled as the water has receded in the Dayton Retention Pond and it is no longer expected to fail.

4:25 PM UPDATE: Lyon County Emergency Management - water has receded in the Dayton Retention Pond and it is no longer expected to fail. pic.twitter.com/IetvjiH3AH

— NWS Reno (@NWSReno) February 22, 2017

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