Rains continue to swamp Sonoma

While Sonoma Valley seems to escaped the brunt of last weekend’s storm, we may not be quite as lucky with the tempest that started Monday night.

The Valley received a little more than 2.2 inches of rain Saturday and Sunday, about half as much as other county locations – especially in West County and the Russian River.

The creeks rose and Schellville flooded, but it doesn’t take a lot of rain for the intersection of Broadway and Highway 121 to close because of high water. But there were few reports of downed trees or power outages that seemed to plague the rest of the county.

Ryan Walbrun, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the storm that started Monday evening could drop an additional two inches of rain in lower elevations and four-to-five-inches in higher elevations.

“Beside the rain, we’re going to have wind advisories,” Walbrun said. “And that could bring down some of the trees that were weakened in this weekend’s storm.”

He said the storm, which is expected to end late Tuesday, isn’t as strong comparatively speaking as the previous storm, but he said it could be considered a “moderate to strong system.”

After a weaker system blows through late Wednesday and early Thursday, the skies will clear and the Valley will get something it hasn’t seen much of lately – sunshine.

Walbrun said once the rain stops early Thursday, we’ll have about five days of dry – albeit chilly – weather.

He did say that the snowline, which was about 9,000 to 10,000 feet in the Sierra this weekend, was already falling Monday afternoon. This front is expected to drop the snowline to about 5,000 feet and leave two feet of snow at Lake Tahoe with four-to-five feet in the mountains.

Email Bill at bill.hoban@sonomanews.com.