One of the strongest storms on the West Coast in decades knocked out power for thousands of people and unleashed strong winds that toppled trees and left two dead in Washington before making its way through Oregon to Northern California.

A powerful storm is bearing down on the West Coast and bringing with it a scary-sounding weather term.

If roughly 45,000 U.S. longshoremen make good on their threat to strike beginning Tuesday, they could shut down 36 ports from Maine to Texas that handle about half the goods shipped into and out of the United States.

Although Helene is tracking along Florida's Gulf Coast, Central Florida's East Coast could still see some big impacts as far as wind, storm surges and potential erosion.

U.S. wildlife officials next year will scale up efforts to kill invasive barred owls that are crowding out imperiled native owls from West Coast forests.

The National Weather Service says that around 134 million people in the U.S. are under alerts as an extremely dangerous and record-breaking heat wave broils much of the country.

U.S. wildlife officials are embracing a contentious plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill almost a half-million barred owls in coming decades.

Federal researchers indicate the gray whale population along the West Coast is showing signs of recovery five years after hundreds washed up dead on the coasts of California, Oregon, Washington state and Alaska, as well as Canada and Mexico.

Gasoline prices rose by several cents on average nationwide over the last week.

Bulldozers have built giant sand berms to protect beachfront homes in one of the California coastal cities hit hard this week by extraordinary waves generated by powerful swells from Pacific storms.

A meteotsunami was recorded in Florida last week as a line of thunderstorms tracked onto the coast.

It’s 4/20, the high holiday for marijuana enthusiasts, and it’s falling this year as the U.S. government reviews its cannabis policy and as more states have legalized the drug.

Legal marijuana growers along the West Coast are struggling with oversupply, low prices and limited outlets for selling their product.

A giant seaweed blob twice the size of the US is heading towards Florida. It's already causing health problems with red tide on the West coast of the state and scientists say it will also have an affect on the East coast.

The biggest story of the month is not so much the temperatures, but the amount of rainfall across a big swath of the country.

The West Coast quick service chain Cupid’s Hot Dogs is getting ready for the soft opening of its first location on the East Coast on Monday.

The first few days of February brought more typical Florida weather back to the region. That was after a cold and at times ugly stretch of weather that felt and looked more like the West Coast for the second half of January.

A lack of security allowed dozens of men to ambush rapper Drakeo the Ruler, who was beaten and stabbed to death backstage at a Los Angeles music festival.

Drew Timme scored 23 points, Chet Holmgren added 22 and top-ranked Gonzaga beat San Francisco 78-62 in a makeup game after their Jan. 6 contest was postponed by COVID-19 issues.

A West Coast rapper known as Drakeo the Ruler was fatally stabbed in an altercation at a Los Angeles music festival.

It looks like Central Florida is going to have some of the best weather in the country when it comes to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That is, unless you like it feeling festive.

Cross-country travel is looking pretty good, whether you’re taking to the skies or traveling by car for Thanksgiving.

The US Open is back at Torrey Pines and back to prime-time for East Coast viewers.

FILE - In this Jan. 3, 2019, file photo, a mobile phone customer looks at an earthquake warning application on an iPhone in Los Angeles. An earthquake early warning system operated by the U.S. Geological Survey has been activated in Oregon on the 10th anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)SALEM, Ore. – People in Oregon will be better prepared for earthquakes — particularly important in the Pacific Northwest because experts say “the big one" is coming — as an early warning system launched Thursday, the 10th anniversary of a devastating quake and tsunami in Japan. California already has the system, while Washington state will join in May to complete coverage of the West Coast. “When a Cascadia event happens, the critical seconds of notice ShakeAlert warnings provide will save lives and reduce damage to important lifeline systems,” Oregon Gov.

An atmospheric river storm pumped drenching rains into the heart of California on Thursday as blizzard conditions buried the Sierra Nevada in snow. (Andy Richard/Caltrans District 9 via AP)LOS ANGELES – Evacuations were ordered Thursday in wildfire burn areas prone to mudslides as an atmospheric river storm pumped drenching rain into Southern California while blizzard conditions buried the Sierra Nevada in snow. The system then dropped into Southern California, bringing threats of flash floods and debris flows to areas scorched by recent blazes. Scenic Highway 1 was closed near Big Sur after a section of the roadway collapsed when the cliffside below gave way amid torrential rain. The atmospheric river is part of a major change in weather for California, which had significant drought conditions for months.

A series of storms will ride down the West Coast of the U.S. bringing lower elevation rain and heavy mountain snow to California. An atmospheric river (narrow green stripe) will set up on the West Coast of the U.S. by the middle of the week producing heavy rain and mountain snow for much of California. An atmospheric river is a narrow flowing column of moisture responsible for producing significant rain and/or snow. These are most common along the West Coast of the U.S. with developing Pacific storms. West Coast StormAn upper-level low sliding down the California coast will induce the atmospheric river allowing for continuous heavy rain and snow for days.

WASHINGTON – Election Day ushered in skirmishes near the White House and relatively minor demonstrations in California and elsewhere on the West Coast, but none of the widespread unrest that some had feared in the hours after the polls began closing around the country. In Washington, D.C., police created a wide security perimeter around the White House, where President Donald Trump watched the election returns and hosted guests. Mostly peaceful protests overtook streets near the White House earlier this year following the killing of George Floyd, who was Black, by a Minneapolis police officer. Hundreds of people gathered in a generally festive mood Tuesday night on a street near the White House that was recently renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza by the city's mayor, who is Black. Seattle police advised residents in a tweet about a pair of marches moving through separate neighborhoods.

NEW YORK – Dodgers star Mookie Betts supplanted Yankees slugger Aaron Judge on Friday for baseball's top-selling jersey in his first year on the West Coast. 50 is the first Dodgers uniform to top the list since MLB began releasing sales rankings in 2010. Betts is in the running to become the second player, after Frank Robinson, to win MVPs in both leagues. Judge slotted second ahead of Philadelphia Phillies slugger Bryce Harper, who is in the second season of a $330 million, 13-year deal. The Chicago Cubs (Javier Baez, Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant) and Yankees (Judge, Cole, Giancarlo Stanton) were the only other teams with three players in the top 20.

Smoke from the West Coast wildfires has tainted grapes in some of the nations most celebrated wine regions. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)TURNER, Ore. – Smoke from the West Coast wildfires has tainted grapes in some of the nation's most celebrated wine regions with an ashy flavor that could spell disaster for the 2020 vintage. Day after day, some West Coast cities endured some of the worst air quality in the world. No one knows the extent of the smoke damage to the crop, and growers are trying to assess the severity. In 2018, a California company abruptly canceled contracts to buy grapes worth millions of dollars from southern Oregon vineyards, claiming fears they were tainted by wildfire smoke.

The smoke from dozens of wildfires in the western United States is stretching clear across the country and even pushing into Mexico, Canada and Europe. While the dangerous plumes are forcing people inside along the West Coast, residents thousands of miles away in the East are seeing unusually hazy skies and remarkable sunsets. (Elizabeth Laird via AP)The smoke from dozens of wildfires in the western United States is stretching clear across the country — and even pushing into Mexico, Canada and Europe. While the dangerous plumes are forcing people inside along the West Coast, residents thousands of miles away in the East are seeing unusually hazy skies and remarkable sunsets. But Solum said there's always a chance for more smoke and haze to shift around.

– President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden are focusing the presidential campaign on the wildfire-scorched West Coast, with Trump meeting fire officials in California on Monday while Biden declares the fires underscore an urgent need to address climate change. Trump has repeatedly discounted the impact of climate change, walked away from a major international climate agreement and proudly rolled back environmental regulations. Amid that disapproval from the left, Biden over the weekend offered his most pointed criticism connecting Trump’s climate change denialism to the fires. Trump often casts doubt on climate change. In 2015, he stated bluntly: “I’m not a believer in global warming, I’m not a believer in man-made global warming.” After the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report concluded climate change would hurt the economy, Trump said he read it but didn’t believe it.

Jay Inslee on Sunday called climate change “a blowtorch over our states in the West." “The debate is over around climate change. “This is truly the bellwether for climate change on the West Coast," she said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation." “And this is a wake-up call for all of us that we have got to do everything in our power to tackle climate change." “Talk to a firefighter, if you think that climate change isn’t real," the Democratic mayor said on CNN's “State of the Union."

ORLANDO, Fla. – Storm chances will remain elevated, especially west of Orlando Saturday. Chances to see rain Saturday aren’t zero west of Orlando, but they will be lower as the West Coast sea breeze develops and weakens as it moves inland. Highs will top out in the mid-to-upper 90s with feels like temperatures of around 105 degrees. Slightly higher storm chances return Sunday and especially Monday. Beach forecast:Moderate threat for rip currents SaturdayIt will be mainly dry at the beach Saturday, with a moderate risk for rip currents.

ORLANDO, Fla. If your plans take you outside to close out the holiday weekend, pay close attention to the weather. Just like Saturday, storms will develop around the 75 corridor and march east along the West Coast sea breeze. The highest concentration of storms will be close to the 95 corridor as the sea breezes collide. The week ahead remains unsettled with elevated rain chances through at least Wednesday as a storm system moves in from the west. Beach forecast:The highest concentration of storms will be close to the 95 corridor as the sea breezes collide.

FILE- In this June 26, 2015, file photo, heavy traffic moves away from and toward the downtown area of Nashville, Tenn. From the middle of the Obama administration to the midpoint of the Trump administration, household income grow the most in growing tech and entertainment centers like in Austin, Nashville, Pittsburgh and large chunks of the West Coast, while it declined the most in former manufacturing and mining hubs like High Point, N.C., and Scranton, Pa., according to new figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

Other congressional districts that had the highest household income growth were in or around Houston; Pittsburgh; Provo, Utah; parts of South Florida and the wealthy retirement haven of Sarasota, Florida. Most of the income growth in these areas came from wages, said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities. Household income grew more in Democratic-leaning districts than Republican ones, according to an Associated Press analysis of the data by congressional districts. Household income grew by an average of more than $12,000 in Democratic-leaning congressional districts, compared to more than $9,000 in Republican-leaning districts. In other areas, income growth was significantly more modest.

OAKLAND – The Jacksonville Jaguars will head to the West Coast to play against the Oakland Raiders at 4:05 p.m. on Sunday. The Jaguars have lost the last five games the team has played in. Oakland is 6-7 on the year and the Jaguars are 4-9. The total for points scored between both teams has been set at 45.5.Who do the Jaguars play in Week 16? Atlanta FalconsWho do the Raiders play in Week 16?