Half a million people and businesses in California are without electricity due to bad weather

Heavy rains and strong winds have left hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without electricity in California. Area residents are preparing for bad weather.

More than 540,000 homes and businesses are still without power in California, it turns out from PowerOutage.us data.

Meteorologists meanwhile warn that more rain and snow is coming to the area.

The National Weather Service warns that California will face so-called “atmospheric rivers” next week.. These are long streams of moisture-saturated air, from which large amounts of rain and snow can fall.

The first storm is expected tomorrow. Flooding could occur in much of northern and central California. Up to 12 inches of rain is expected in the Sacramento area.

At least six people have died since New Year’s weekend in California’s ongoing storms, inclusive a child that he was in a mobile home when a tree fell on it.