A violent winter storm threatens the sun-drenched west coast state with snowstorms, flooding, avalanches and freezing temperatures this weekend. More than 100,000 customers in California were already without power on Saturday night, according to the "poweroutage.us" website.

The National Weather Service temporarily issued a flood warning for Los Angeles and other cities. Downtown Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara were among those affected. The broadcaster CNN already reported flooded streets in and around Los Angeles on Friday and during the night. For the first time in decades, parts of the US state have also received a blizzard warning. This is what violent snowstorms with severe temperature drops are called in North America.

Snow-covered mountains could already be seen in pictures from California on Friday. Meteorologists expected more snow at higher altitudes and thunderstorms at lower altitudes for Saturday. In isolated cases, up to 2.5 meters of snow could fall, CNN reported, citing the weather service. Snow has even fallen in unusual places: near the famous "Hollywood" sign, snow or sleet is said to have been sighted on Friday, the weather service reported on Twitter.

A violent winter storm caused chaos not only in California. In the US state of Michigan, around 465,000 customers were still without electricity on Saturday night, as "poweroutage.us" reported. Previously, the number of affected households was even higher there.