Latest Bay Area storm milder but damage continues; Heavy snow forecast for Sierra
SACRAMENTO — A powerful weather system from the Gulf of Alaska swept into northern California on Tuesday, bringing more wind, rain and snow to a state battered by months of storms.
Forecasters warned of heavy snowfall in the coastal mountains and Sierra Nevada, where accumulations of up to 1.2 meters (4 feet) were possible, highway chain requirements went into effect and a backcountry avalanche warning was issued for the Lake Tahoe area.
The National Weather Service said the storm is expected to bring a plume of Pacific moisture into California as it moves south, but rainfall was not expected to be as intense as the atmospheric flows that have hit the state in recent weeks have.
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Other effects of Tuesday’s stormy weather included downed trees and landslides along Highway 9 in the Santa Cruz Mountains, resulting in multiple closures and other sections of road being reduced to one open lane. Caltrans said some of the closures could last for days.
In Menlo Park on Tuesday, a tree fell on a house on Marmona Court near Willow Road, marking the house in red. Nobody was hurt.
Tuesday’s storm had less of an impact on power supplies, although downed trees, road accidents and landslides were reported due to the weather. Wet and windy weather problems in the Bay Area on Tuesday Tuesday were far less than recent storms, according to numbers released by PG&E.
As of 4:30 p.m., only about 1,700 PG&E customers in the Bay Area remained without power. More than 6,000 PG&E customers were without power in the Bay Area as of midday, the utility said.
The storm, which hit the Bay Area on March 21, initially left more than 100,000 PG&E customers without power as winds in excess of 50 mph swept through the region.
After a dozen previous atmospheric flows and blizzards fueled by arctic air, the total water content of snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevada is more than twice as high and in the southern Sierra almost three times as much.
Since the attack began in late December, damage has included buildings destroyed by snow, flooding of communities and agricultural fields, and homes threatened by landslides.
Crews demolished a historic Santa Cruz County pier Monday that was in danger of collapsing. The 500-foot (152-meter) long boardwalk at Seacliff State Beach was severely damaged by a large surf in January. Built in 1930, the pier connected the beach to the SS Palo Alto, a World War I-era grounded steamboat known as the “cement ship.”
On the plus side, the storms have brought much-needed water. The state’s two largest reservoirs, Shasta and Oroville, have risen above their historical averages to date after being significantly depleted.
Cities and farmers who rely on the Central Valley Project, the state-managed water system, got a big boost in their allotments on Tuesday.
More than 250 agencies — mostly irrigation counties — enter into contracts with the federal government for specified amounts of water each year, and the US Bureau of Reclamation announces how many of those contracts can be met each February, updating it as conditions change.
The storm in supply means many suppliers of irrigation water supplied by the CVP are seeing the amount they can source grow from just 35% of their total contracted volume to 80%. Vendors for urban and industrial uses will be allowed 100% of their historic usage instead of just 75%, the bureau said.
In Southern California, the Metropolitan Water District is bringing water from the north to fill its vast Diamond Valley Lake, a reservoir that had dropped to 60% of its capacity after three years of drought. It should be full again by the end of the year.
“Nature has given us a lifeline,” MWD chief executive Adel Hagekhalil said Monday as officials watched water pour into the reservoir.