Storm Pounds Bay Area; L.A. May Be Next

A storm blowing through Northern California on Thursday took out power, closed roads with soaking rain and brought snow to peaks as low as 1,000 feet in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Blizzard-like conditions by the evening also closed Interstate 80 from the Sierra Nevada foothills to the Nevada state line.

The thunderstorms, hail, high winds, heavy rain and snow are expected to head toward Central and then Southern California.

“This storm is going to dive down and affect the Los Angeles area on Friday--it’s going to be a nasty situation,” said meteorologist Joel Beguhl of Weather Central Inc. “There will be a lot of rain and high winds, and snow is definite in the mountains.”

Cars heading toward Reno and Lake Tahoe on Interstate 80 were stopped in Auburn. State police said they closed the highway in both directions from Auburn to the Nevada state line Thursday evening because of whiteouts and accidents.

Throughout the day, flooding closed roads temporarily across the Bay Area.

Flights at San Francisco International Airport fared no better. An airport spokeswoman reported that high winds made two-hour delays common, with waits as long as four hours for some travelers.

The storm poured more than two inches of rain in some areas of Sonoma and Marin counties, and brought heavy rains to other Bay Area cities. Thunderstorms and pea-sized hail hit areas throughout the region.

Lightning that hit a house just before 1 p.m. near Santa Rosa blew light switch covers off the walls, but no one was injured, a Sonoma County fire dispatcher said.

Snowfall descended as low as 1,000 feet in the Santa Cruz Mountains. By evening, an inch of snow covered the ground on Mt. Hamilton, just outside San Jose. Mt. Two inches fell on Diablo, the National Weather Service said.

Power outages occurred throughout the region.

Lights went out in more than 13,000 households in Sonoma County, 6,000 in Marin County and 18,000 in the Sierra foothills, said Pacific Gas & Electric.