Beyoncé's career in 📷 Solar eclipse guide 😎 Previous US disasters Play to win 🏀
Floods

Heavy rain, floods swamp Southern California

Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

A powerhouse storm slammed into southern California on Friday, bringing flash floods and mudslides and leading to traffic chaos across much of the region. 

Destroyed vehicles sit caked in mud at the river mouth on El Capitan Beach in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Jan. 20, 2017.

A flood on the southern Santa Barbara County coast swept several cabins and vehicles down El Capitan Canyon, the Associated Press said. Photos on social media showed cars and buildings buried in mud.

Firefighters had to perform several swift-water rescues for about a dozen campers that had been trapped in cabins or cars, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Flash flood warnings remained in effect Friday as the second in a trio of storms hit the state. 

The storm is forecast to bring heavy snow across portions of the Sierra later on Friday and into Saturday. It will also dump snow and rain across much of Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico over the weekend.

After a lull early Saturday, yet another storm is poised to slam into California late Saturday and Sunday, the National Weather Service said. "This second system will spread rain and mountain snow along nearly the entire West Coast Saturday night into Sunday," the weather service said.

That storm is expected to be the strongest, dumping as much of 3 inches of rain across many parts of the area and up to 5 inches of rain and snow in the mountains, the weather service said.

Featured Weekly Ad