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Pacific storm cluster soaks western United StatesUp to foot of rain possible in some areas
MONTEREY, California (CNN) -- A cluster of Pacific storms caused heavy rainfall across most of the western United States on Friday, knocked out power across wide areas and caused widespread flooding. More rain and high winds are expected into the weekend. "What we have is a series of weak storms moving onto the West Coast," said Brian Korty, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. "They're getting very heavy rains." In the 24 hours since Thursday morning, more than 6 inches of rain had fallen on some areas, he said Friday. "Some of those areas are going to receive another 5 or 6 inches." The storm was felt not only along the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington, but also in the interior, where it soaked parts of Nevada, Utah, Idaho and northern Arizona, Korty said. Higher elevations in some of those areas were getting heavy snow, he said. Such storms are not unusual in December, but Korty said this one is "a little early." The storm that began Thursday morning is not related to El Nino -- it was caused by remnants of tropical storm Huko. High water, strong windFlood watches and high-wind and surf advisories were posted along wide swaths of coastline from Southern California to Washington state. Korty said the worst of the rain will end by Friday night. Crosswinds were so fierce Thursday night in the Bay Area that some pilots bound for San Francisco International Airport landed instead at airports in San Jose and Oakland. "That doesn't happen often," San Francisco International Airport spokesman Mike McCarron said. The gusts reached 63 mph on the runways, he said, but the airport did not close. Wind on Thursday night blew the roof from an Air Canada air cargo building and caused the south wall to collapse, he said. No one was hurt. Arrivals and departures were "pretty much normal" Friday, but air traffic was expected to be delayed later in the day as more rain arrived. "It's going to get worse," he predicted. Power problemsPacific Gas & Electric, which provides service from Bakersfield in the Central Valley to Eureka five hours' drive north of San Francisco, said nearly a quarter of its 4.6 million customers lost power. "It's been a significant storm," spokesman Jon Tremayne said. Since the storm began, "we've had 1.1 million customers affected." Power has been restored to 860,000 of them, but another 272,000 remained in the dark Friday morning. More than 90 miles of lines were blown down, 94 poles were snapped and 113 transformers were blown, he said.
The high winds led the California Highway Patrol to shut the San Rafael bridge in Richmond for 90 minutes Thursday night because of wind so strong it pushed a truck into the bridge's superstructure, said Sgt. Wayne Ziese in San Francisco. Traffic was halted on Interstate 101 in Petaluma for five minutes so electrical workers could repair power lines that had fallen across the road. Overwhelmed and clogged storm drains caused sporadic flooding on freeways, county roads and city streets, and traffic signals were dark at a number of intersections, he said. More rain expectedIn the nine Bay Area counties, 290 auto crashes were reported Thursday, up from 126 the day before, Ziese said. "It's been a humdinger of a storm," said Steve Kohler, a spokesman for the highway patrol in Sacramento. Thursday night, he drove from San Francisco to Sacramento on I-80. "It was the woolliest and wildest I've ever seen it, and I grew up in Wyoming," he said. "The wind was blowing sheets of moisture off the pavement like waves on the ocean. It was amazing." He drove along the interstate at 35 mph, "and I wasn't sure that was safe." One to 3 inches of rain fell Thursday across San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties in the Los Angeles area, said Dessa Garton, a hydrometeorological technician in the weather service's office in Oxnard. As much as another 1.5 inches of rain were expected Friday in the region, she said. "It looks like rain throughout the day, with perhaps a break this afternoon." The downpour was not expected to let up until Saturday night, she said. "We should see some drying on Sunday, when a high pressure system begins to build in." She predicted coastal flooding in low-lying areas.
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