Heavy snow, downpours, twisters and record-breaking warmth — the country saw it all over the weekend.
A storm in Southern California on Friday that dropped 6 inches of snow at higher elevations created rain, hail and thunderstorms elsewhere. The winter weather will continue to blanket the Northwest and the Rockies with snow while trapping a weeklong deluge of rain on the West Coast forecasters said Sunday night.
"It's going to pull down some much cooler air and work its way across the country," said Bonnie Schneider, a forecaster for The Weather Channel.
Sunday's snow targeting Oregon, Washington and the Rockies could linger until Monday, while total snowfall could approach 2 feet in the Cascades and the Siskiyous and more than a foot in parts of the northern Rockies.
Significant accumulations are also expected in some lower elevations in parts of Montana, Wyoming and Utah. Salt Lake City, Utah, hasn't seen "snow like this in years," Schneider said — not since 13.3 inches fell on the city in a couple of days in January 2013, forecasters said.
The snow will then move east into the northern and central Plains states by Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service, which said it should reach the northern Plains, the Upper Mississippi Valley and the northern Great Lakes by Wednesday.
Another storm system that brought at least one tornado to Texas Saturday, leaving 50 homes damaged, was winding down, but the Southwest was still at small risk of seeing some tornado activity, said Greg Forbes, a tornado expert for The Weather Channel. The destructive tornado registered as an EF-2, the National Weather Service said Sunday.
Meanwhile, a good part of the country was seeing anything but typical holiday weather. Arctic air that has been locked up in Canada isn't budging, making for record-high temperatures from the South through the Plains and into the Northeast. Temperatures in those regions soared to 15 to 30 degrees above average.
Preliminary data show that at least 574 record daily highs were tied or broken across the U.S. during the first 10 days of December, and that number will rise drastically when temperatures from Friday through Sunday are documented, meteorologists said.
Islip, New York, where the average high for December is 44 degrees, saw the mercury hit 68 degrees Saturday, and record highs were set at New York's LaGuardia Airport, where the thermometer read 66 degrees, as well as at JFK Airport and in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which both saw spring-like weather, NBC New York reported.
"It's roasting," said Niall Traynor, who was in New York on business with two co-workers from Belfast, Northern Ireland. His colleague Mack Murtagh said the trio hadn't expected the balmy weather.
"We kind of packed for 0 degrees [celsius], and now all our clothes are too hot ... and without buying something else, we're kind of stuck — so we have to just walk around really hot all day," Murtagh said.
Arshad Shahadat, who sells paintings on the street near Rockefeller Center, said he didn't mind the uncharacteristic weather because he is selling substantially more this Christmas season than any other year. "I like the warm," he said.
Many revelers who took part in New York's Santa Con on Saturday took advantage of the Christmas-in-July temperatures, donning un-Santa-like shirt sleeves, shorts and tropical wear.
