STORMS DUMP HEAVY RAIN, SNOW ON PARTS OF WEST

A winter storm pummel the western U.S. on Thursday with ferocious wind gusts, heavy rain and more than 2 feet of snow, closing hundreds of miles of roads and discarding a snowy mix of precipitation on the edges of Phoenix.

 

Officials closed a road into Yosemite National Park in California after a rock the size of a dump truck tumble onto the road, and strong winds created snow dunes on rooftops, front yards and streets across precipitous areas of Arizona.Snow and ice forced an hours-long closure of the two major thoroughfare in northern Arizona, stranding motorists south of flagpole and the Grand Canyon. People in Phoenix were stunned at the sight of snow-type flurries that the National Weather Service said were a arrangement of hail and snow that melts before it hits the ground.

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HOMES EVACUATED AS NEW MONSTER STORM HEADS FOR CALIFORNIA

After days of relentless rain, Southern California is awaiting the most intense storm system yet, with evacuations ordered, rescue crews on standby and residents anxiously eyeing already saturated mountainsides denuded by wildfires.

Forecasters expected more rain across the state Wednesday, but the focus clearly was on Southern California where a monster storm was expected to bring torrential rain, thunderstorms, flooding, hail and possible tornadoes and water spouts. Forecasters warned of possible rainfall rates of .75 inch to 1 inch an hour and thunderstorm rates of 2 inches an hour in the region.Steady rain began falling late Tuesday and was expected to intensify into early Wednesday.

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BURNING DOWN THE 'BOMB FACTORY'

There were so many explosive chemicals littering a California house that bomb technicians have set the alleged "bomb factory" of George Jakubec ablaze rather than try to remove the material.

Jakubec, an unemployed software engineer, faces federal charges of bank robbery and bomb making after the discovery late last month of what may be the largest cache of homemade explosives ever assembled in the U.S. On Thursday, authorities closed Interstate 15 and evacuated a neighborhood before setting Jakubec's rented Escondido house on fire just after 11 a.m. local time. To protect nearby houses from the flames, firefighters had surrounded the home with a 16-foot-tall dry-wall fence and then smeared the barrier with fire gel before igniting the fire by remote control. The fire was expected to last four hours.

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2 MASSIVE CROSS-BORDER DRUG TUNNELS PUT SAN DIEGO WAREHOUSE DISTRICT UNDER SCRUTINY

People come and go at odd hours. The walls vibrate from jackhammers. Tenants pay rent in cash.In San Diego's Otay Mesa industrial area, these are signs that warehouses may be housing cross-border tunnels used to smuggle huge amounts of drugs from Tijuana, Mexico.

After two major underground passages were discovered last month less than two blocks from one of nation's busiest border crossings for cargo, federal authorities are knocking on doors of warehouse owners and tenants to ask for help.They hope to learn more about the 12,000 businesses that occupy Otay Mesa's nondescript warehouses and low-slung office parks. The streets hum with cargo trucks by day and fall silent on nights and weekends. Outlets for the tunnel found last week were in bustling office parks, only 800 feet part. Looking back, neighbors said they missed clear warning signs.

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