Power Out in Pollock, Coldest Day in Downtown Sac in 98 Years

Loretta Kalb, lkalb@sacbee.com, Mar. 18, 2012

1,000 customers in part of El Dorado County without power included areas southeast of Pollock Pines from Union Hill to the North Fork of the Cosumnes River and portions of Sly Park. According to PG&E Spokesperson Jana Morris, El Dorado County has the largest outages. Morris says 1,013 customers southeast of Pollock Pines lost power at noon on Sunday. They do not have an estimated time as to when power will return for that area. Over 550 customers in Camino, north of Highway 50 lost power early this morning. PG&E says they should get their power by 7 p.m. Sunday.

Hail, rain, snow at 1,500 feet elevation keep utility crews busy

Rain and hail pounded the chilly Sacramento region, snow shrouded the foothills at elevations as low as 1,500 feet, and thousands of customers were without power Sunday, capping one of the year's wettest weeks.

By mid-afternoon Sunday, pea-sized hail was reported throughout the area - from Curtis Park to midtown to Rancho Cordova.

"We got hail here for about 10 minutes," Rancho Cordova Councilwman Linda Budge emailed The Bee. "Also thunder once. Temps dropped noticeably between noon and three."

And if you thought it was colder than usual, you were right. Sunday's daytime high of 55 was well below the normal temperature on March 18 of 67 degrees, the National Weather Service said.

Snow dropped to low levels, including Auburn, and that caused electrical problems in the region. At least 10 inches of snow fell overnight and it continued falling Sunday at the rate of about an inch an hour, adding weight to snow-laden tree limbs, which then damaged both lines and utility equipment.

Jana Morris, a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in Sacramento, said as many as 3,000 customers were without power in the utility's Sierra Division - generally the foothills and mountains east of the Sacramento Valley. By 3 p.m., about 2,000 customers remained without electricity throughout the Sierra Division, which includes El Dorado, Placer, Nevada and Sierra counties, along with the foothill portion of Yuba County.

The largest outage, which began about noon, affected just over 1,000 customers in part of El Dorado County.

That outage included areas southeast of Pollock Pines from Union Hill to the North Fork of the Cosumnes River and portions of Sly Park.

Electrical workers trying to restore service could not say when that would be accomplished.

The bright spot, however, was that 2.29 inches of rain fell between Monday and early Sunday, the weather service reported.

"We fared pretty well with these storms over the last week," said Tom Dang, NWS forecaster.

"Looking into the future, there may be a few weak lower pressure systems coming through. But there is no indication that the strong high-pressure ridge we had to deal with in January and February is recurring," he said.

He said the week of moisture laden snows in the mountains already made a difference at Folsom Lake.

Lake storage at was running about 69 percent of normal at the start of the week, Dang said. By Saturday, the level was at 87 percent...

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/18/43469/cloudsmaybe-with-rain-on-horizon.html