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Major storm drops record rain, downs trees in Northern California after devastation further north

Emergency crews assess the damage from a downed tree on a property, Thursday, Nov. 21, in Forestville, Calif. Associated Press

FORESTVILLE, Calif. — A major storm moving through Northern California on Thursday toppled trees and dropped heavy snow and record amounts of rain after damaging homes, killing two people and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers in the Pacific Northwest. Forecasters warned the risk of flash flooding and rockslides would continue. Scores of flights in and out of San Francisco's airport were canceled.

In Washington, more than 320,000 people — most of them in the Seattle area — were still without power Thursday as crews worked to clear streets of electrical lines, fallen branches and debris. Utility officials said the outages could last into Saturday.

Meanwhile on the East Coast, where rare wildfires have raged, New York and New Jersey welcomed much-needed rain that could ease the fire danger for the rest of the year.

The National Weather Service extended a flood watch into Saturday for areas north of San Francisco as the region was inundated by the strongest atmospheric river — a long and wide plume of moisture that forms over an ocean and flows through the sky over land — so far this season. The storm system roared ashore Tuesday as a “bomb cyclone,” unleashing winds that brought down trees and left two dead in Washington.

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