Snow Season Continues

California's Sierra Nevada received another batch of heavy snow yesterday, just over a week after parts of the state were buried under 6 feet of precipitation. This latest round—which is expected to transition to heavy rain today and into the weekend—may hamper efforts to dig out from historic snowfalls in recent weeks. Across the northern central US, a separate system stretching from Wyoming to Michigan could drop up to a foot of snow.

California's mountain ranges have seen a total of 48 feet of snow so far this winter, partly the result of nine atmospheric rivers battering the region since December. Also known as "rivers of the sky," the phenomena are narrow, 1,000-mile-long conduits of warm, tropical air tending to track jet streams toward the poles (see explainer). The area could also see flash floods as heavy rains melt the several-foot thick snowpack.

Snow in the Plains and Midwest will likely disrupt major cities like Chicago and Detroit, while Minneapolis approaches one of the snowiest seasons on record. The same system could also cause flash flooding in many areas of the South. See national weather charts here.