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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A cold and blustery winter storm unleashed downpours and extensive snowfall on Southern California, triggering a tornado and snarling post-Christmas travel on major routes Thursday.

Snow shut down Interstate 5 over Tejon Pass north of Los Angeles and Interstate 15 over Cajon Pass in the inland region to the east. Both passes are at about 4,000 feet elevation.

I-15 reopened in both directions in the afternoon but authorities later shut down about 45 miles of the freeway farther east, from Baker, California, to Primm, Nevada, because of snow and ice. That stretch remained closed as of 6:30 Friday morning, according to the CalTrans website.

I-5 remained closed on Friday morning for a 40-mile stretch between Grapevine and Parker Road in Castaic.

Snow closures also remained in effect Friday morning on these mountain and high desert roads in Southern California, CalTrans said:

  • Highway 58 (the Barstow-Bakersfield Highway) was closed over Tehachapi Pass. That closure is between Towerline Road, near Edison, and Mojave.
  • Highway 33 was closed through Los Padres National Forest, from 6 miles north of Ojai to the Santa Barbara County line, near Ventucopa.
  • Highway 2 was closed through the San Gabriel Mountains, between La Cañada Flintridge and 5 miles west of Big Pines.

Chain controls were imposed on stretches of several highways in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains.

Interstate 8 in eastern San Diego County was closed for a time on Thursday but was open Friday.

In San Diego County, a passenger died Thursday when a car veered off a snowy road near Warner Springs and crashed into an embankment. The passenger, a 60-year-old woman, wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and the driver was going too fast to control the car, California Highway Patrol Officer Jeff Christy told KSWB-TV.

Famed Palomar Observatory in the San Diego County mountains said it would be closed at least through the weekend because of heavy snowfall.