LOS ANGELES—Two people died in a submerged car, evacuations were ordered for wildfire-scarred California, and Seattle and Portland faced the rare chance of snowy streets as a wave of storms rolled through the West.
An atmospheric river—a sky-born plume of moisture from the Pacific Ocean—was fueling the weather, which could dump rain and snow over much of the region through Christmas, while the Pacific Northwest was looking at a dayslong cold snap.
