Winter rains soak Sonoma

Storms bring rainfall total to near the yearly average.|

The atmospheric river phenomenon that brought four days of heavy winds and rainfall across Sonoma County has had an impact on the Valley, from fallen trees to swollen creeks and backed-up plumbing.

But the disaster scenario some predicted failed to materialize this far east, as the western part of the county has borne the brunt of the bad weather.

Almost 30 road closures were reported county-wide, many coming even Thursday morning once the brunt of the atmospheric river had passed. But the most impactful weather-related event in the Valley came early Thursday morning in El Verano. Saturated soil was the presumed cause of a tree that fell near the intersection of Railroad Drive and Solano Avenue, landing on the engine compartment of a white sedan and blocking Arkay Court. It was removed by a county Transportation and Public Works crew before noon.

The winds and rain were strong enough that Park Manager John Roney reported that Sugarloaf Ridge State Park was closed on Wednesday and Thursday this week. It is to reopen Friday.

Barry Dugan of Sonoma Water said the rainfall totals at the Sonoma Valley County Sanitation district treatment plant on Eighth Street East came to 4.1 inches over 48 hours, but no unexpected problems resulted. “On the wastewater collection side, we did have sanitary sewer overflows at two of the usual problem area: Lake and Vailetti and the 18900 block of Sonoma Highway,” he said.

Dugan was not able to confirm the volume of those overflows, though four spillovers last month in those areas resulted in less than 50,000 gallons of wastewater overflow.

Unlike previous years, there were no street-flooding events along the path of Sonoma’s two major creeks, Nathanson and Fryer. “There was some minor flooding, typical for a large storm, but not on the scale of flooding that can occur when there’s wet soils like we have now,” said Richard Dale of the Sonoma Ecology Center. “There was a lot of water at Sonoma Garden Park, too, but no damage reported.”

The rains did gift the elementary school students of Agua Caliente with a long weekend. “We are closing Flowery (Elementary School) today as we have no working plumbing and no estimate for when we will,” said Sonoma Valley Unified School District Superintendent Socorro Shiels on Thursday. “We do believe with tomorrow as a non-student day and a holiday Monday that all will be well for Tuesday.”

But the U.S. Weather Service isn’t promising any letup in the rain, even though the atmospheric river has moved south. It was a rain-bearing cold front that moved into the area on late Wednesday, and another was expected to follow Friday evening, bringing wet weather through most of the weekend – including possible thunderstorms.

Carolina Walbrun, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, distinguished between the atmospheric river that brought high winds and rain to the area on Monday through Wednesday, and the cold fronts that followed with their own charge of precipitation.

“It was the high winds of the first part of the week that brought heavy rainfall to areas usually in a rain shadow,” said Walbrun. “A change in wind pattern was the main reason why.”

While Flowery is the only local school as of noon Thursday affected by the storms, the Sonoma County Office of Education reported that four districts in the central and western part of the county were closed on Thursday because of roadway flooding, including Alexander Valley, Dunham Elementary, Geyersville and Guerneville.

While more than 3 inches of rain were reported in a single day elsewhere in the county, the biggest single-day rainfall in the Valley was 1.72 inches, falling between 4 p.m. on Tuesday and the same time on Wednesday, according to the weather station at the Vallejo Home in Sonoma.

Taken together, the week since last Friday has brought 3.38 inches of rain, bringing the year-to-date total to almost 21 inches, two and a half times what it was last year at this time (8.96 inches). Historically, according to U.S. Climate Data, Sonoma has seen 23.74 inches on average by the end of February, and 32.77 over a year. So while it seems to be a particularly wet winter, it really isn’t in historical terms – it’s about average.

Email Christian at christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.

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