| A powerful storm dropped a record amount of rain, causing flooded and
slippery roadways and dozens of fender-bender accidents and leaving more
than 40,000 customers without power Monday in the Valley. Fresno received
a record 1.05 inches in the nine hours before 10 p.m., outpacing the
season total of 0.65 since July 1. The deluge was the most rain on Nov.
12, easily exceeding the previous record of 0.71 inch of rain in 1960.
The storm was accompanied by thunder, lightning and winds gusting to 35
mph that downed power lines and trees.
The California Highway Patrol was busy with about three times more
incidents than a normal weekday, officer Ralph Caggiano said.
The most serious was a three-vehicle collision about 1:30 p.m. that
resulted in the death of a 3-year-old girl south of Chowchilla in Madera
County on westbound Highway 152, west of Highway 233. Additional
information was not available late Monday.
Electricity outages were reported throughout the Valley and in the
foothills. Hardest hit was Kern County, which had 20,000 customers without
power into the early evening hours, said Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
spokeswoman Maureen Bogues in San Francisco.
Another 3,400 PG&E customers in Tulare and Kings counties,
primarily near Dinuba and south of Hanford, were without electricity, she
said. And an additional 600 customers in southern Merced County, 280 near
Selma and 200 in the foothills near Oakhurst were without power late
Monday night.
Southern California Edison Co. reported about 16,000 customers without
power in Tulare and Kern counties Monday night.
Other rainfall totals reported by 10 p.m. included: Visalia, 0.92 of an
inch; Hanford, 1.39; and Madera, 0.91. More than an inch of rain fell in
the foothill communities of Squaw Valley, Mariposa and Wawona.
Rain was expected to leave the Valley early today and give way to
patchy fog tonight and possibly dense fog Wednesday and later in the week.
High temperatures will be in the 60s, with lows in the mid 40s.
As night fell in the Sierra, snow did, too. Accumulations were
beginning in Fish Camp, and by this morning as much as a foot of snow was
expected in some mountain communities and possibly more at higher
elevations, said Carlos Molina, a National Weather Service meteorologist
in Hanford.
Highway 120 at Tioga Pass remains closed inside Yosemite National Park
because of snowfall.
Boomer Devaurs, a spokesman at Sierra Summit near Huntington Lake, said
that ski season could open by Thanksgiving weekend if enough natural and
manufactured snow accumulates. The resort reported no measurable snow from
a storm that passed through Saturday.
"The earliest we could open would be Thanksgiving," Devaurs
said. "I can't say how much we need. It depends on what kind of snow
we get. If it is wet and heavy, we don't need as much as if it is dry and
light. But it is going to take a good snow."
For farmers, the rain gauge was half full and half empty.
Valerie Jasper, operations manager at Anderson Farms, a Huron area
lettuce and vegetable grower, described her split view of the rain. She
was happy to see an enhanced water supply, but not as happy to see wet
cotton remaining on plants.
"We have a little left to pick," she said. "Rain also
makes it a little harder to get into the fields for lettuce, and brings
more chance of decay and other problems."
Harvest manager Griseldo Duarte said that only two more days remain in
Anderson's lettuce harvest.
"I was happy to see it," he said. "We are almost done
with the lettuce, and we are planting spring lettuce."
At the Rollin dairy west of Caruthers, Don Rollin said that milk and
water often don't mix. Rollin said rain can diminish production by
providing moisture conducive to mastitis infection in cows' udders and
problems with their feet.
Cows produce more milk in a comfortable environment, he said, and less
when they must stand in deep mud or suffer discomfort and illness linked
to weather.
The dairy has invested about $750,000 recently to build cover for most
of the dairy cows. Such preventive work makes rain less troubling, Rollin
said. |