Wet weather rips through Lode; dry days ahead

Dry weather is expected to return to the Central Sierra this week, after a series of storms over the weekend dumped much-needed rain and snow, knocked down trees and cut power to thousands.

Storms Thursday through this morning dropped about 4 inches of rain in Sonora and also brought several inches of snow to the mountains. Dodge Ridge Ski Area, off Highway 108, reported receiving 8 inches of snow overnight. An opening date had not been announced as of this morning.

The National Weather Service forecast is for mostly cloudy skies tonight and Tuesday followed by mostly sunny skies through Friday with foothill highs back into the 60s.    

The stormy weather, which was expected to start last Wednesday, took its time. The first rain arrived in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties Friday afternoon, and it soon became a downpour.     

At one time or another over the 24-hour period ending Saturday afternoon, PG&E spokeswoman Jana Morris said, there were 7,900 PG&E customers without power in the Sonora area, 6,800 customers in the Twain Harte area, 3,500 in the Mi-Wuk Village area, 462 in Strawberry, and 143 in Tuolumne.   

In Calaveras County, the biggest outage was caused by a broken power pole at 5:08 a.m. Saturday, cutting power to 1,486 PG&E customers in the areas of Mountain Ranch, Mokelumne Hill, Glencoe, Rail Road Flat and Wilseyville.    

Other small outages occurred over the weekend in both counties.    

“Because of the extent of the winter weather, we believe all of the outages were storm-related,” Morris said, “but there will be an investigation for each outage we experienced.”    

At least two trees fell during the storm, and several rock slides were reported.    

A 3-foot-diameter oak tree fell across Elm Street at Pine Street in Tuolumne about 6:40 a.m. Saturday.    

The tree was in the yard of a house where Philip Hard and his grandmother, Mary Wheat, were having their morning coffee.    

“It wasn’t that loud,” he said. “it just sounded like a thud. Then I went outside and looked, and it was all over the road, so I called 911.”   

The enormous old oak tree splintered, and its branches completely covered Elm Street, which was closed until crews could clean up the mess.    

Hard said the tree stood just outside his grandmother’s bedroom window, and he was grateful it fell the way it did, completely missing houses and power poles.    

It did lift parts of the house as it fell, though, he said, and in portions of the house, the woodwork is about 4 inches higher than before.  

“We probably have more damage that we haven’t seen yet,” he said, “but it is insured. That’s a good thing.”   

According to the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s log, another tree was reported down in the road on the 14800 block of Alder Lane at 10:18 p.m. Friday.    

A rock slide blocked Parrotts Ferry Road just south of the Calaveras County line at 10:04 p.m. Friday, and a rock slide was reported on O’Byrnes Ferry Road near the hairpin turn south of the Calaveras County line at 1:24 a.m. Saturday.    

Large rocks were in the roadway on Jacksonville Road near Highway 120 at 7:34 a.m. Saturday, and at 8:22 a.m., Tuolumne Road was flooded at Cherokee Road, possibly because of a clogged drain.   

Tuolumne County Roads Superintendent Barry Bynum said he was surprised that it was relatively quiet, considering it was touted as the first really significant storm of the season, and there was a significant power outage Friday in Sonora while he was still at work.    

“The plows are out working, but there hasn’t been enough snow to be overly concerned for this time of year,” he said Saturday, “and there haven’t been any big tree issues to deal with.”    

In fact, he is concerned that not enough snow and rain will fall to bolster the snowpack.    

He said he heard a forecast that predicted today’s storm may be the last significant one for the rest of the weather year, which runs from July 1 through June 30. If so, it would be a record-breaking drought year in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.