Bomb cyclone hits northwest US, thousands without power

A powerful storm is clobbering Washington state, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands while wreaking havoc on road travel and causing at least two deaths. A woman was killed on Tuesday when a tree fell on a homeless encampment in Lynnwood, just north of Seattle, local fire department officials said on social media. In Bellevue, east of Seattle, a tree fell onto a home, killing a woman Tuesday night.. Two people were also injured when a tree fell on their trailer in Maple Valley, southeast of Seattle. Schools across western Washington cancelled classes or postponed the start of school on Wednesday. The storm with tropical storm force winds of 80km/h felled trees and power lines overnight. It knocked out electricity to more than 600,000 homes and businesses in Washington, Southwest Oregon and Northern California, according to the Poweroutage.us. A bomb cyclone rapidly intensifies in 24 hours or less when a cold air mass from the polar region collides with warm tropical air in a process that meteorologists call bombogenesis. The weather service has issued a plethora of warnings and watches across the Pacific Northwest for high winds, flood watches and warnings, and including blizzard warnings from Northern Washington to the Sierra Nevada Range. According to the state's department of transportation, the storm was making road travel treacherous. Downed trees and weather conditions were slowing traffic across the state, as the department warned motorists to be cautious while on the roadways.