More snow was forecast in northern California on Monday after an intense blizzard dropped more than 7ft of snow in places.
Highways and ski resorts were closed this weekend amid dangerous whiteout conditions in mountainous areas of California and neighboring Nevada.
While most of the storm has passed through the Sierra Nevada by Monday morning, some additional snow was expected. Scattered thunderstorms were likely and another 2 feet of snow was possible at higher elevations, the National Weather Service office in Sacramento said.
Communities across the region were beginning to dig out from the snowdrifts which had reached the roofs of some homes, and trapped people indoors.
Power had mostly been restored by Monday after more than 40,000 homes suffered outages this weekend. Still, more than 7,500 customers remained without power, according to utility tracker poweroutage.us.
Palisades Tahoe ski resort said that it planned to open on Monday - but that it wasn’t guaranteed. The largest resort on the north end of Lake Tahoe was among several ski mountains that closed most or all chairlifts this weekend because of snow, wind and low visibility. Palisades reported a three-day snow total of 6 feet.