Storm Batters Northern California With Rain, Snow and High Winds
A powerful winter storm moved across Northern California on Friday, shutting down two major highways and bringing rain, hail, snow and strong winds.
Interstate 80 over the Donner Summit near Truckee and U.S. 50, the main east-west route to Lake Tahoe, were closed for most of the day by heavy snows and high winds, the California Highway Patrol reported. The roadways were reopened around 7:30 p.m., but chains were required.
Snowfall amounts through today may total 12 to 15 inches in the Shasta-Siskiyou region, the National Weather Service said. The higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada may receive two to three feet of snow.
The storm brought widely scattered showers to the San Francisco Bay Area, causing minor flooding at some intersections. Hail was reported in Oakland and San Francisco.
The storm produced sporadic rainfall of about half an inch in the Bay Area during the early morning. Novato in Marin County had more than two inches later in the day.
Rain gauges in the Santa Cruz Mountains indicated that some areas received more than an inch of rain overnight.
As the cold front moved through the Bay Area, some locations reported winds gusting to near 50 m.p.h.
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