Valley rain, mountain snow, thunderstorms heading for Northern California this week
Light to moderate rain and snow will hit Northern California this week, bringing a bit more much-needed precipitation to the region.
Sacramento and the valley could see showers starting around midday, with gusts up to 23 mph possible later Monday night. Wet weather will likely continue Tuesday and Wednesday as well, according to the latest National Weather Service forecasts, though Sacramento may only get about a tenth of an inch each day.
In the mountains, the NWS predicts snow could fall as low as 2,000 feet, as roughly a foot or more of snow total is expected to fall at pass level over those two days. A weaker system that started Sunday is already dropping a few inches in the Sierra Nevada range. Chain controls, low visibility and delays on mountain highways are all anticipated.
Isolated thunderstorms scattered throughout the Sacramento Valley are also possible, the NWS advises.
Though the calendar officially flipped to spring over the weekend and the city already saw a heat record fall earlier this month with a not-very-winter-like 82-degree day, Sacramento will return to brisk conditions this week. After a high of 65 Monday, the capital will be in the mid to upper 50s Tuesday and Wednesday, with overnight lows dipping below 40 degrees Wednesday night, forecasts show. High temperatures should rebound back up into the 60s by later this week and into the weekend.
So far, just over 1.4 inches of rain have fallen at Sacramento Executive Airport this month, after February set an all-time record low with only “trace” precipitation measured at the NWS site.
Power mostly restored after last week’s storm
A heavier winter storm that pounded the Sierra and surrounding foothills with feet of snow between March 14 and last Tuesday caused significant damage to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. equipment, leaving at one point more than 30,000 homes and businesses in the foothills without power.
The power has finally been essentially completely restored, according to PG&E’s online outage map, but not before roughly 10,000 PG&E customers experienced multiday outages amid frigid weather last week.
A PG&E spokesperson in updated statements said the low snow event required more than 100 crews to work simultaneously multiple days in a row to repair damage to power lines and other equipment.
