LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Heavy rains and flooding along rivers forced the evacuation of thousands of people in a California wine making region and an area of Nevada east of Lake Tahoe on Monday, officials said, with more storms on the way.

Regions of California and Nevada, two states which have suffered from drought for years, were walloped by storms over the past week from a weather system called the "Pineapple Express" that sent moisture streaming from Hawaii.

The storms have knocked out power for more than 570,000 customers of Pacific Gas and Electric in northern and central California since Saturday, but electricity has been restored to almost all of them, said company spokesman Tom Schmitz.

The storms are the latest in a wet winter expected to put a considerable dent in California's years-long drought.

Just north of San Francisco, rains caused the Russian River in Sonoma County to flood early on Monday, the county Sheriff's department said.

That led to the evacuation overnight of more than 3,000 residents in the area of Guerneville, Jonathan Gudel, a spokesman for the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, said by phone.

In Nevada, residents of about 400 homes in Reno were ordered to evacuate on Monday as rains swelled the Truckee River, which flows through the city, Washoe County health agency spokesman Phil Ulibarri said by phone.

Officials in both California and Nevada said they were still assessing flood damage on Monday.

Over the past week, the storms brought 10 to 15 inches (25 to 38 cm) of rain and snow to the Sierra Nevada mountains in California and lesser amounts of precipitation in western Nevada, meteorologist Bob Oravec of the Weather Prediction Center said by phone.

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