At Bay Area airports, 52 flights had been canceled by noon, including 20 at San Francisco International Airport and 16 each at Mineta San Jose Airport and Oakland International Airport. Travel also is expected to be treacherous during the storm. The utility warned that the upcoming storm could cause extended outages for some customers, because storm-related damages may affect the ability to assess what repairs are needed.Īs of Thursday morning, more than 22,000 PG&E customers still were in the dark. The storm also is expected to wreak havoc on Pacific Gas and Electric customers, many of whom still were without power Thursday after heavy winds caused outages earlier this week. Graupel, a soft kind of hail, may also fall.Ī freeze warning is slated to go into effect at midnight Thursday. Louise Moran, who runs the Crest Ranch Christmas Tree Farm in Santa Cruz, said some of her trees looked snow-covered Christmas-ready before noon, but not so much by the afternoon.Īccording to the weather service, the storm’s heaviest wave is expected to bring heavy snow above 2,000 feet, as well as heavy rains, thunderstorms and hail at lower elevations. Temperatures are expected to dip into the 30s throughout the region and may fall into the 20s as low as 500 feet.Īs the first wave moved south into Thursday afternoon, much of the snow that stuck below 1,500 feet began to melt. However, Caltrans reported that Interstate 5 was reduced to three lanes about 10 miles north of Santa Clarita due to a mudslide.įorecasters said that as the second band of the storm approaches, winds will increase and may gust up to 35 mph. Interstate 5 remained open over the Grapevine early Thursday. It was expected to be even worse in Southern California, where blizzard conditions and 75 mph wind gusts were expected in the Southern Sierra Nevada and the Transverse Ranges. “It’s gonna be a giant mess,” National Weather Service meteorologist Brayden Murdock said. Overall, about 4-12 inches of snow were expected to fall in the Santa Cruz Mountains, East Bay Hills, the North Bay interior and coastal mountains, and the Monterey and San Benito mountains. “We usually get a few snowfalls each winter.” Paul Lynam, an astronomer at the 3,600-acre observatory operated by the University of California, said earlier this week that staff there had been bracing for snow all week and keeping their generators working. The Lick Observatory atop 4,200-foot Mount Hamilton reported on social media that 2 feet of snow fell overnight and that they are expecting at least 33 inches total. I would not be astonished to see accumulating snow in areas even below 500 feet.” “It’s possible that any place in Northern California could see flakes of some kind,” Swain said. The local rain figures are all from Sentinel weather observers. But Happy Valley’s season total stands at 45.84 inches. Happy Valley recorded 0.20 inches in the past 24 hours. Soquel recorded 0.30 inches to bring its total since Oct. La Selva Beach posted 0.53 inches of rain in the past 24 hours. The cold storm also left rain showers in Santa Cruz County. “That will come with slightly colder air aloft that will drag the snow level down to at least 500 feet through most of Northern California.” “The more organized band (of moisture) arrives Thursday night,” climate scientist Daniel Swain said via a YouTube broadcast early Thursday. Forecasters expected the storm to batter the state with snow, hail, thunder, lightning and gusty winds from the Oregon to Southern California borders. That was just the appetizer, weather forecasters said.īehind the band of moisture that caused snow to fall in Boulder Creek, 500 feet up in the Santa Cruz Mountains, will be a second wave that’s colder and more intense, they said. The Bay Area saw snow descend from above Thursday, with the white stuff landing on such unusual places as the Oakland Hills and causing snowy road conditions in places not even 100 feet above sea level.
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