Northern California braces for deep snow

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ERIE, Pa., Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Northern California braced for a big snow fall with high winds Saturday night, with forecasters saying 2-4 feet was possible.

The storm also will produce winds whipping at 40-60 mph, Accuweather.com said.

The most snow was expected in Mount Shasta City, Dunsmuir, McCloud and Tennant. Sections of Interstate 5 near Mount Shasta City and Highway 89 near Snowman's Summit were expected to be impassable at times, the weather agency said.

Several inches of heavy, wet snow was forecast for the Coastal Range and Northeast Foothills, with snow reaching down to the northern Sacramento Valley, including the city of Redding.

Accuweather said the combination of wet snow and high winds would likely produce power outages.

Winds up to 40 mph fanned a fire destroyed a church in Millville, N.J., Saturday afternoon, the South Jersey Times reported.

The In His Presence Worship Center was charred and half its roof was gone by the time firefighters were able to bring the blaze under control. There were no injuries reported.

The cause of the fire had not been determined, the newspaper said.

"This is not what you want during a fire," one Millville firefighter told the Times. "This amount of wind makes it extremely difficult for us to work."

AccuWeather.com said a snowstorm will hit the Northeast in time for Christmas. One to 3 inches expected to spread from northern Ohio and Pennsylvania to central and southern New England Monday into Tuesday.

Warmer air to the south will likely mean rain across southern New Jersey, central and southern Delaware, southern Maryland, Washington, D.C., and most of Virginia.

"In the swath from northern Maryland, Philadelphia and [far] northern Delaware to central New Jersey, New York City and Long Island, part rain and part snow are most likely," AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said, adding northern Virginia also could get a white Christmas.