Winter Weather Watch

Major winter storm headed in

Snow will come to California’s Sierra Nevada a bit earlier than usual.

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URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SACRAMENTO CA
407 PM PDT SAT OCT 23 2010

…POWERFUL PACIFIC STORM TO BRING HEAVY SNOW TO THE HIGHER
ELEVATIONS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA AND LASSEN PARK…

Weather Update: Significant Mountain Snow in Addition to Wind and Rain

URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SACRAMENTO CA
433 AM PST SUN JAN 17 2010

…HEAVY SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH TUESDAY MORNING…

.THE FIRST OF SEVERAL PACIFIC STORM SYSTEMS WILL BRING HEAVY SNOW TO THE MOUNTAINS OF INTERIOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA THIS AFTERNOON INTO EARLY MONDAY MORNING QUICKLY FOLLOWED BY A STRONGER STORM MONDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH TUESDAY MORNING. SNOW LEVELS WILL BEGIN AROUND 4500 FEET IN THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS TO 6000 FEET SOUTHWARD OF INTERSTATE 80 AS SNOWFALL INCREASES ALONG THE WEST SLOPE OF THE SIERRA. SNOW LEVELS WILL DROP TO AROUND 4000 TO 5000 FEET BYTUESDAY MORNING.

PERIODS OF HEAVY SNOW AND WIND GUSTS IN EXCESS OF 50 MPH CAN BE EXPECTED OVER THE MOUNTAINS. SNOW IS EXPECTED TO TAPER OFF MONDAY MORNING AND THEN INCREASE AGAIN MONDAY AFTERNOON WITH THE NEXT SYSTEM AND THEN TAPER OFF AGAIN TUESDAY MORNING.

BE AWARE THAT ADDITIONAL STORM SYSTEMS ARE LIKELY TO IMPACT THE REGION THROUGH THE END OF THE WEEK.

Finding electrical outages in your area

PG&E now offers an interactive map of electrical outages in Northern California. Click the map below to be taken to the PG&E page, then click on the dots in cities of interest to you.

This map shows the current outages in our 70,000-square-mile service area. To see more details about an outage, including the cause and estimated time of restoration, click on the color-coded icon associated with that outage.

You can also report outages with this PG&E web page.

At present there are a number of minor outages, mainly due to tree limb and wind issues, but no single outage affecting more than 5000 customers.

Storm Update – tapering off

Update from KPAY Meteorologist Anthony Watts 6PM PST

Satellite Updated every 30 minutes - click to loop

As you can see in the sat image above, the center low pressure center of the storm remains off the California Coast and has mirgated north. More wind is expected tonight lasting into the predawn hours of Wednesday, but the heaviest rain and wind appears to be over with. As indicated by our Doppler radar, we are seeing a clearing to the west. Scattered showers will continue tonight, with possible light thunderstorms.

See our Doppler Radar

Already this storm has brought 1.26 inch of rain to Chico at the Bidwell Ranch Weather Station and 1.31 inch at the Chico Enterprise Record weather station, with reports of 2-4″ inches in the foothills. A flood advisory remains in effect for the northern Sacramento Valley. Motorist should be watchful for flooded roadways. Here’s a summary of the wind and rain today.

Another series of winter storms headed in

There’s a series of winter storms approaching that will bring rain, snow and strong winds to northern California through much of the coming week.

Click for animated loop

A large low pressure system over the eastern pacific will pivot a number of weather systems through northern California over the next several days before finally moving inland around mid week.

The first very wet frontal system will move into northern California Saturday night bringing rain and high elevation snow to the Sierra Cascade range by Sunday morning. Snow levels will start out high and generally above the main pass levels. Colder air will start moving into the area behind this first system and snow levels are expected to drop to pass levels of interstate 80 and highway 50 by late Sunday night. The rain and snow will continue Monday and Tuesday as subsequent weather disturbances pivot through the north state. Snow levels will continue to fall to as low as 5000 feet by Monday afternoon and to as low as 3000 to 4000 feet by Tuesday morning.

The main low pressure system is currently forecast to move into northern California on Wednesday. By mid week, several feet of new snow will be likely at the highest elevations. In addition to the snowfall, strong winds are forecast. Winds gusts of up to 50 mph will be possible as weather systems move through which combined with the heavy snowfall will cause periods of white out conditions. Although a brief break in the heavy snowfall will be possible around Wednesday afternoon, more heavy snowfall will be possible towards the end of the coming week.