Flooding threat from melting snow prompts Yosemite park closures

Most of Yosemite valley – the tourist center of the famed national park – will close this weekend as warming temperatures threaten the region

to push the Merced River beyond its banks. Forecasters have warned that runoff from California’s historic snowpack, set high along the peaks of the Sierra Nevada range, could cause widespread flooding.

“Downslope there will be problems,” said the National Weather Service meteorologist David Spector,…