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Subscribe to RSSA new storm system dumps more rain on the already soaked region. NBC's Jay Gray reports.
Updated at 12:20 p.m. ET: SAN FRANCISCO -- Slammed by three powerful storms in five days, Northern California dodged a bullet this weekend as the fast-moving system that hit Sunday didn’t produce the extensive flooding that had been feared.
But the region faces a new threat Tuesday, with forecasters saying a new system could bring up to seven inches of rain in parts of Oregon and California.
Sunday’s storm was less devastating than forecast, but it still dumped as much as an inch of rain per hour, felled trees and toppled utility poles, knocking out power to tens of thousands of people.
Truckee River, near Lake Tahoe, and other areas expected to experience serious flooding were spared because colder temperatures turned heavy rains into a mix of rain and snow, NBC Bay Area reported.
Much of California was hammered with its third round of wicked winter weather in just five days, with flash flooding and power outages crippling several parts of the state. NBC's Miguel Almaguer reports.
“The snow is great,” The Weather Channel’s Chris Warren told NBC News. “It means two things: First, the rain is no longer melting the snow that is already on the ground, and the moisture that’s in the snow stays on the ground and does not flow into the river.”
"It (the storm) moved through a lit bit faster than it was looking like it would, so it didn't plant on top of us and keeping raining," said Austin Cross, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "The period of heavy rain didn't last as long."
TODAY's Al Roker reports on another West Coast storm, this one set to stay more to the north of California and hit the Pacific Northwest, bringing up to eight inches of heavy rain along the coast and 1-2 feet of snow in the mountains.
In Napa, where officials had handed out more than 8,000 sandbags and about 150 tons of sand before the storm hit, officials breathed a sigh of relief.
More coverage from weather.com
"There were predictions of the river getting above flood stage, but that did not occur," Napa city spokesman Barry Martin said. "We've had some minor street flooding and some of the intersections were flooded."
Flood construction projects were credited with keeping the river within its banks through the city, while most of anticipated flooding, expected around 6 p.m. Sunday, was expected to hit a mostly agricultural area outside of the city, officials said.
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In Truckee, 30 miles west of Reno, city officials were focusing on snow removal Sunday afternoon instead of flood control after the town received 4 to 5 inches of snow in the morning, said Assistant City Manager Alex Terrazas.
"We continue to keep an eye on the river, but things are certainly better than they could have been," he said. "We'll transition back to flood management if we need to."
Meanwhile, as Pacific Gas & Electric crews worked on restoring power. As of Sunday afternoon, about 57,000 people from Santa Cruz to Eureka, including about 13,000 people in the San Francisco Bay area, remained without electricity, officials said.
"It really did broadside California," PG&E spokesman Joe Molica said of the storms.
Wind gusts were blamed for knocking over a big rig truck as it drove over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge at around 5 a.m. Sunday.
Tow crews had to wait for the winds to subside later in the morning before they could remove the truck, officials said.
NBC Bay Area reported that one wind gust was "clocked at 80 mph in the hills of Los Gatos."
Weather.com: Flood, wind, snow reports
Also, train service on the Bay Area Rapid Transit system was disrupted for about an hour Sunday morning because of an electrical outage blamed on the weather.
Noah Berger / AP
A can makes it way through a flooded underpass in San Rafael, Calif., on Sunday after days of heavy rain drenched the region.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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OK Let's hear about globel warming and how this is Obama's fault.
*global.
Sorry. Global. My mistake but it's early.
Who corrects people at 5:03 in the morning? At least wait until the sun is up.
I am originally from Massachusetts and still remember thunderstorms there that sounded like the end of the world. They could go on for hours. The only thing close to that was when I lived in Santa Cruz California but they didn't last half the night like back east. Now I live in San Diego County and it takes a really strong El Ninio to come any where close.But the wimpy storms we do get turn into real monsters when they hit the Rockies.
We are getting the same storms that hit Northern CA, and guess what, we haven't (yet lost power), the problems CA has. The soil here can absorb a lot of water, gives us good snow pack in the higher elevations, and it's just the typical December here.
No matter where you live, the weather has it's own ways, just get used to it. But overall, the West Coast has the best weather in the USA. Never real hot, or real cold, not as humid as the East Coast, and a lot more scenery to look at.
I have lived in California, as well as Florida. Hands down, California is the best. Florida is humid beyond tolerance and the landscape is totally nondescript. Not to mention hurricanes.
Mother Nature is just cycling her storms through the various sections of Earth. A few months ago it was the East coast. A few months before that New Orleans. And in a few months ahead probably the Rocky Mountains will get pummeled with 20 foot snow storms (like they did at Xmas 82'). Natural variation just like sunspots. All life is a series of cycles.
It's just that man hasn't been around long enough to know the extent of those cycles--which are tens of thousands of years long if not millions of years so global warming nut heads go pointing fingers at CO2, etc. It's just normal change brought on by normal events--and people are normal events too just like algae blooms, new life forms that spew forth O2, etc.
Life is change. Get used to it.
Not to worry - Gov. Moonbeam Brown is on the job!