"Bomb cyclone" in the USA 600,000 households without power - 2 people die
A severe storm has claimed the lives of at least two people in the north-west of the USA and caused widespread power outages. A woman died in Lynnwood in the US state of Washington when a large tree crashed onto a homeless camp, the South County Fire Department announced via the online platform X.
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- The northwest of the USA is hit by a severe storm.
- Falling trees have claimed the lives of two people.
- Hundreds of thousands of households have lost power.
A tree also fell on a house in Bellevue, east of Seattle. A woman died as a result on Tuesday evening.
More than 600,000 power outages were reported in Washington early Wednesday morning (local time), but that number dropped to around 110,000 during the morning, according to poweroutage.us. More than 8,600 households were affected in Oregon, 32,000 in California and 1,000 in Nevada.
Flooding and hurricane-like storms
On Tuesday evening, the storm, classified as a "bomb cyclone", brought strong winds and rain to the northwest of the USA. This is the name given to a cyclone that is rapidly intensifying. The weather center predicted excessive rain for the region until Saturday. It also warned of hurricane-force winds. Meteorologists expected flooding in areas north of San Francisco. A winter storm warning was issued for the northern Sierra Nevada; up to 28 centimetres of snow could fall within two days.
California and the so-called Pacific Northwest, which includes the states of Oregon and Washington, are experiencing the strongest atmospheric river of the season. According to the German Weather Service, this weather phenomenon refers to a band of moisture-saturated air with a width of around 500 kilometers and a length of around 2000 kilometers. Such systems transport a large proportion of the water vapor outside the tropics.
dpa