Winter storm brings high winds, steady rain but little snow to Sacramento region

A cold winter storm swept over the Sacramento region Friday, closing Interstate 80 for hours, leaving thousands without power temporarily and bringing early-morning wind gusts of 75 mph, steady rain and warnings of snow to lower elevations.

By noon Friday, I-80 had reopened and a steady drizzle was falling between Folsom and Placerville, where chain controls were in place on Highway 50, just east of town, headed toward Tahoe.

But the only obvious snow between there and Sacramento was packed onto rooftops of vehicles returning east on Highway 50 from the Lake Tahoe area or the dusting visible on the coast range mountains west of Sacramento.

The Sierra Nevada received more than 2 feet of snow overnight, with the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab reporting 26.2 inches through 24 hours ending at 8 a.m.

“It’s deep out there!” the snow lab said in a social media post, adding the lab was expected to receive another 7 to 14 inches of snow through the day. Another batch is expected Sunday, it said.

“We are now at 120% of our average seasonal snowfall (432” this year, 360” normally) and 176% of our normal snowfall to this date in the season,” the snow lab said.

Snow was reported throughout California, forcing the closure of I-80 over the Donner Summit until about 11 a.m. Friday. Passenger traffic was being allowed through after it reopened, with chain restrictions in effect between Applegate and the Nevada state line.

Commercial vehicles, including big-rigs, were restricted from the mountain pass due to snow and visibility issues.

In Southern California, north of Los Angeles, Interstate 5 was closed over the Grapevine because of a 20-mile stretch of snow, some of it a foot deep. And Interstate 5 was closed from Fawndale in Shasta County to Edgewood in Siskiyou County.

Highway 58 over the Tehachapi Pass also was closed because of snow, and snow in the Santa Cruz Mountains closed Highway 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose.

In Sacramento, where New Year’s week storms toppled trees throughout the region, flooded huge swaths of the south county and killed several people whose cars were flooded or who were crushed by falling trees, there appeared to be minimal damage.

Before dawn, area roadways were littered with tree branches and debris from overnight winds, but there were no widespread reports of trees down or other damage.

At the popular Aioli restaurant at 18th and L streets, a large yellow awning had been knocked down overnight, but most of the midtown and downtown areas appeared to be without damage.

That was despite fierce winds that were reported overnight, including gusts of 46 mph at Sacramento International Airport, 52 mph at McClellan Airport, 75 mph at Mather Airport and 92 mph at Alpine Meadows in Placer County.

The fiercest winds appeared to have swept through starting at 2 a.m., and SMUD reported outages affecting 14,000 homes at 2:30 a.m. Most of those had power restored by mid-morning.

The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said the widest outages statewide were reported by PG&E in Lake County, with more than 24,000 homes and businesses affected.

National Weather Service meteorologist Katrina Hand said the strongest winds are over for the Sacramento region, but the area can expect rain to continue at least through Wednesday.

In the northern Sacramento Valley, snow stuck to the ground in places such as Redding and Red Bluff, which each location getting 6 inches. As a result, Caltrans stopped Interstate 5 traffic between Fawndale and Edgewood.

West of the capital, snow also blanketed the Bay Area. Contra Costa residents awoke to see layers of white at least two-thirds of the way down Mount Diablo, the 3,489-foot mountain. In Santa Clara County, astronomers atop 4,265-foot Mount Hamilton measured more than a foot of it.

Flurries of snowflakes fell and stuck on the East Bay hills of San Ramon, Dublin and southeast Pleasanton. Accumulating snow also fell on the highest peak of the Pleasanton Ridge National Park and along Patterson Pass in Alameda County, and on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County.

Even lower, in Cloverdale, a weather spotter for the NWS recorded 2-3 inches of snow on the ground. The Sonoma County town is only 250 feet above sea level.

Southern California also received a dose of snow with the weather service issuing a rare blizzard warning for the mountains above Los Angeles. Officials in Ventura County also evacuated homes through Saturday morning due to the potential for flooding and debris flows.

The weather service also said it recorded 201 lightning strikes that struck the ground throughout the region.

The low pressure that caused the wild weather was moving down the coast, curtailing its intensity, NWS meteorologist Jeff Lorber said.

The strong winds also caused choppy waves up to 14 feet high on the Bay Area’s southern coastline at their peak. Those swells were mostly 11 to 13 feet by Friday afternoon and expected to get down to 9 feet by Saturday morning.

The precipitation in the capital region, however, was light. The weather service said one-day totals for Sacramento by Friday afternoon measured 0.79 inches. Most spots around the city were less except in Davis, which received an inch.

Still, that was enough to push Sacramento’s rainfall total for the water year (October 1 to September 30) past the average for the same period. Meteorologists said the downtown gauge topped 19.20 inches in 146 days — 200 days remain in the water year, and more rain is expected.

“A constant light rain starting later tonight and going all the way through Saturday morning,” said Bill Rasch, a weather service meteorologist. “The rain should be mostly done by about noon tomorrow.”