Boston: Heavy rains and quarter-sized hail fell in Southern California as the National Weather Service predicted lightning and wind gusts approaching (97 kph) in the mountain area earlier in the day.

The California storm was moving south from the Sierra Nevada, where areas around Lake Tahoe received about a foot (30 cm) of new snow and Mammoth Mountain reported up to (45 cm) by Sunday morning. A day earlier, the resort was forced to close several ski lifts after a (147-kph) wind gust was recorded.

The National Weather Service also warned of what it called a significant winter storm over central regions of the country on Monday.

Heavy snow is expected to spread across central and eastern Montana and expand into the northern Plains and upper Midwest through Sunday and into Monday. There is a greater than 70% chance of at least (20 centimetres) of snow moving from central South Dakota to northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin, the weather service reported.

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