Third storm in less than week drenches NorCal
By | Associated Press – 2 hrs 4 mins ago- Enlarge PhotoAssociated Press/Noah Berger - A traffic control vehicle transits a flooded underpass in San Rafael, Calif., on Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012. Days of heavy rains have left the region saturated and several rivers are
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Enlarge PhotoA vehicle transits a flooded underpass …
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Residents of Northern California
endured the brunt of another powerful storm that drenched the area with
yet another round of pounding rain and strong winds, but damage from
the storm was less than expected, officials said.
The latest storm
system — the third to hit the area in less than a week — moved across
the region late Saturday and early Sunday dropping as much as an inch of
rain per hour in some areas, toppling trees and knocking out electrical
service to tens of thousands of people, officials said.
Rivers
across Northern California swelled from the deluge, but did not flood
as extensively as had been expected, officials said.
Forecasters had issued flood warnings for the Napa and Russian rivers, two rivers north of San Francisco
with a history of flooding, as well as the Truckee River, near Lake
Tahoe, but by Sunday afternoon had canceled the warning for the Russian
River.
"It (the storm) moved
through a lit bit faster than it was looking like it would, so it didn't
plant on top of us and keeping raining," said Austin Cross, a
meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "The period of heavy rain didn't last as long."
In
Napa, where officials had handed out more than 8,000 sandbags and about
150 tons of sand before the storm hit, officials breathed a sigh of
relief Sunday afternoon after the heaviest rain moved out of the area
and the city appeared to avoid any major damage from the storm.
"We've had some minor street flooding and some of the intersections were flooded," Napa city spokesman Barry Martin said.Flood construction projects were credited with keeping the river within its banks through the city, while most of anticipated flooding, expected around 6 p.m. Sunday, was expected to hit a mostly agricultural area outside of the city, officials said.
In
Truckee, 30 miles west of Reno, city officials were focusing on snow
removal Sunday afternoon instead of flood control after the town
received 4 to 5 inches of snow in the morning, said Assistant City Manager Alex Terrazas.
"We
continue to keep an eye on the river, but things are certainly better
than they could have been," he said. "We'll transition back to flood
management if we need to."
Besides
the speed in which the system moved through the area, weather officials
were heartened by colder temperatures than expected in the mountains,
meaning more snow and less rain fell.
In far Northern California, flood warnings remained in effect Sunday for the Eel, Navarro and Mad rivers.
Meanwhile,
as Pacific Gas & Electric crews worked on restoring power, about
57,000 people from Santa Cruz to Eureka, including about 13,000 people
in the San Francisco Bay area, remained without electricity Sunday
afternoon as the powerful winds from the storm knocked down trees and
sent broken tree limbs and branches across power lines, officials said.
"It really did broadside California," PG&E spokesman Joe Molica said of the storm.
About 2,000 PG&E crews were working Sunday to try to restore power, Molica said.
Wind
gusts, recorded as high as 60 miles per hour in parts of the Bay area,
were blamed for knocking over a big rig truck as it drove over the
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge at around 5 a.m. Sunday.
Tow crews had to wait for the winds to subside later in the morning before they could remove the truck, officials said.
Also,
train service on the Bay Area Rapid Transit system was disrupted for
about an hour Sunday morning because of an electrical outage blamed on
the weather.
___
Associated Press writer Martin Griffith contributed to this report.
end quote from:
As I watched the Satellite Radar live I noticed that the far north like St. Helena and Napa were spared the main brunt of the storm. Instead it hit from Big Sur to the Golden Gate Bridge mostly and then another part of the storm hit from Ventura to San Luis Obispo and then inland as far north as Bakersfield and Fresno and then over the Sierras as snow.
note: If you have an IPad there is an app called WeatherBug that you can watch relatively live weather radar for anywhere in the U.S. and you make the map larger or smaller with your fingers just like with GPS or photographs and you can access it through your WIFI or whatever you have access to.
note: If you have an IPad there is an app called WeatherBug that you can watch relatively live weather radar for anywhere in the U.S. and you make the map larger or smaller with your fingers just like with GPS or photographs and you can access it through your WIFI or whatever you have access to.
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