Wind gusts reaching 55 mph late Tuesday knocked out PG&E power service to at least 3,290 PG&E customers in Manteca, Ripon, and Lathrop.
As of 11 p.m. power was out to 2,801 homes and businesses in northwest Manteca. That involved almost all city customers north of Northgate Drive including Del Webb at Woodbridge and Union Ranch. Traffic signals were knocked out at a number of intersections including Airport Way and Louise Avenue, London Avenue and Union Road, Union Road and Lathrop Road and others.
The Ripon outages hit 480 customers in the eastern part of the city as far north as River Road. It included the Spring Creek area and neighborhoods near Ripona School. There were three customers in Lathrop without service.
As of 11 p.m., the hardest hit area in PG&E’s Northern California service territory was Stockton with 83 unique outages impacting 28,040 customers.
Winds slamming San Joaquin County reached at steady 28 mph at 8 p.m. By 11 p.m. the wind speed had ratcheted up to 44 mph with the highest gust recorded at Stockton Metro Airport at 54 mph.
The National Weather Service has a high wind advisory for the Northern San Joaquin Valley in place today through noon. The south winds were expected to peak at 35 to 45 mph with gusts up to 60 mph.
The wind and rain is part of a storm expected to drop up to a foot of snow on the northern Sacramento Valley in and around Redding and Red Bluff through Thursday night. The forecast is for between 80 and 100 inches of snow to fall in Lassen National Park with 48 to 60 inches of snow in Susanville east of the Sierra.
The two passes in the 209 — Tioga at the eastern edge of Yosemite on Highway 120 and Sonora on Highway 108 — were also expected to get between 80 and 100 inches of snow. The same forecast holds for Ebbetts Pass on Highway 4 and Carson Pass on Highway 88.
By contrast Echo Pass on Highway 50 is forecast to receive 48 to 60 inches by Friday while Donner Summit on Interstate 80 may have between 60 to 80 inches.
Snow levels Tuesday were expected to dip down to 500 to 2,500 feet. Today the National Weather Service anticipates them rising to 2,500 to 3,500 feet and then 3,000 to 4,000 feet by Thursday.
There is a flash flood warning in areas burned by wildfires last year including the massive Santa Clara Unit (SCU) Complex in the Diablo Range southwest of Manteca that burned 393,624 square acres. It was the third largest wildfire recorded in California’s modern history.
The warning applied to people living in or near the burn areas in San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Alameda, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara counties.
Manteca, Ripon, and Lathrop are forecast to receive 3 to 4 inches of rain between Tuesday and Friday as was Sonora. The rain total for the same time period in Yosemite Valley is expected to be between 5 and 7.5 inches.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
