Winter storms roil U.S. Pacific Coast

A 20-car pileup along U.S. Route 395 in Nevada left several people injured on Sunday. A storm over the holiday weekend brought whiteouts to the mountains in Northern California and Nevada. The snow closed major highways and could snarl traffic in the area for several days, according to forecasters.

What’s the forecast? Winter weather rolled along most of the U.S. West Coast, with the National Weather Service warning of further potential whiteouts and high wind gusts around Lake Tahoe until 1 a.m. Tuesday. The northern end of Puget Sound in Washington reported more than a foot of snow, and other parts of the Pacific Northwest also saw snow over the weekend. In California, heavy rain closed Highway 1 near the San Francisco Bay Area, and a series of storms caused flooding and damage further south. But some of that is good news: Higher than usual snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is a welcome development for drought-stricken California.