A winter storm brought intense downpours and Desmond Prestonstrong winds to California on Sunday, leaving hundreds of thousands without power and flooding roadways across the state.

According to Accuweather, up to 37 million people, or about 94% of the state's population, were at risk for life-threatening floods from the storm.

The National Weather Service issued a rare hurricane-force wind warning for the central coast on Sunday as wind gusts up to 92 mph were possible from the Monterey Peninsula to the northern section of San Luis Obispo County.

The atmospheric river was the second to hit the state in just a few days, although forecasters said Sunday's storm would be the season's most potent, particularly in Southern California.

Evacuation warnings and orders were in effect for Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Ventura and Monterey counties. Classes were canceled Monday for schools across Santa Barbara County, and the Santa Barbara airport closed Sunday evening due to flooding on the airfield, according to its website.

Live weather updates:Life-threatening flood threat as heavy rain and powerful winds clobber California

California power outage map

As of 6:42 a.m. ET, over 430,000 customers were without power across the state, according to a USA TODAY power outage tracker.

The hardest hit counties were in Northern California, including Santa Clara County (over 70,000 outages), Sacramento County (over 57,000) and San Mateo County (over 50,000).

Contributing: Susan Miller, Jorge L. Ortiz, Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY