Strong Storm Expected to Impact Northern and Central California Starting Today and Extending into Next Week
With meteorologists forecasting an impactful storm system [today] and into next week in Northern and Central California, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has thousands of workers standing by to respond to potential widespread power outages.
In advance of the storm, PG&E vegetation-management crews [were] working to keep trees away from powerlines during the forecasted wet and windy weather.
PG&E meteorologists, along with experts from the National Weather Service, forecast that the weather system is expected to begin across the north by Saturday afternoon and then spread east and south across our service area, delivering periods of gusty winds, widespread rain, heavy mountain snow and isolated thunderstorms. Most impacts of this stormy weather are likely to occur Sunday through Tuesday.
Rainfall totals with this system will be significant, with widespread totals of three to five inches of rain across the north, and rainfall equivalents of five to seven inches of rain likely across the northern Sierra. Significant snow in the Sierra above 5,000 feet is possible with multiple feet of accumulation in some locations. As the rain tracks southward through the storm’s progression, it will be joined by gusty winds, generally from the south, with expected widespread gusts of 30 to 40 miles per hour and localized gusts of at least 55 miles per hour possible in the higher terrain of PG&E’s service area.
“This strong storm has the potential to cause power outages due to significant rain, gusty winds and heavy snow in the mountains. We’re urging our customers to have a plan to keep themselves and their families safe. Our meteorology team is closely tracking the forecast and working with our crews in the field to ensure we’re ready to restore power safely and as quickly as possible,” said PG&E director of meteorology and fire science Scott Strenfel.
As seen with past storms, these wet and windy conditions might cause trees, limbs and other debris to fall into power lines, damage equipment and interrupt electric service. This remains a concern for this storm due to the drought-intensified conditions that weakened vegetation and could cause more trees to fall into our equipment and cause power outages.
PG&E’s meteorology team has developed a Storm Outage Prediction Model that incorporates real-time weather forecasts, historical data and system knowledge to accurately show where and when storm impacts will be most severe. This model enables the company to pre-stage crews and equipment as storms approach to enable rapid response to outages.
Workers are prepared to tackle restoration in challenging weather conditions and are supported by the utility’s geosciences team. Geosciences is monitoring potential post-wildfire debris flows from incoming rains which could impact PG&E’s equipment and vegetation around its equipment.
PG&E is also stockpiling power poles, power lines, transformers, and other electric equipment at yards throughout our service territory to restore power to impacted areas as quickly as possible.
We will also be activating local operations emergency centers throughout our service area in impacted regions to allocate all staff and resources to restoration efforts.
Keeping Customers Informed
PG&E knows how important it is to keep its customers informed. Customers can view real-time outage information on its website outage center and search by a specific address, by city or by county. This site has been updated to include in-language support for 16 languages.
Additionally, customers can sign up for outage notifications by text, email or phone. PG&E will let customers know the cause of an outage, when crews are on their way, the estimated restoration time, and when power is restored.
Storm Safety Tips
- Never touch downed wires: If you see a downed power line, assume it is energized and extremely dangerous. Do not touch or try to move it—and keep children and animals away. Report downed power lines immediately by calling 9-1-1 and then PG&E at 1-800-743-5002.
- Secure outdoor furniture: Deck furniture, lightweight yard structures and decorative lawn items should be secured as they can be blown by high winds and damage overhead power lines and property.
- Use generators safely: Customers with standby electric generators should ensure they are properly installed by a licensed electrician in a well-ventilated area. Improperly installed generators pose a significant danger to customers, as well as crews working on power lines. If using portable generators, be sure they are in a well-ventilated area.
- Use flashlights, not candles: During a power outage, use battery-operated flashlights, and not candles, due to the risk of fire. And keep extra batteries on hand. If you must use candles, please keep them away from drapes, lampshades, animals and small children. Do not leave candles unattended.
- Have a backup phone: If you have a telephone system that requires electricity to work, such as a cordless phone or answering machine, plan to have a standard telephone or cellular phone ready as a backup. Having a portable charging device helps to keep your cell phone running.
- Have fresh drinking water, ice: Freeze plastic containers filled with water to make blocks of ice that can be placed in your refrigerator/freezer during an outage to prevent foods from spoiling. Blue Ice from your picnic cooler also works well in the freezer.
- Turn off appliances: If you experience an outage, unplug or turn off all electrical appliances to avoid overloading circuits and to prevent fire hazards when power is restored. Simply leave a single lamp on to alert you when power returns. Turn your appliances back on one at a time when conditions return to normal.
- Safely clean up: After the storm has passed, be sure to safely clean up. Never touch downed wires and always call 8-1-1 or visit 811express.com at least two full business days before digging to have all underground utilities safely marked.
Other tips can be found at www.pge.com/beprepared.
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Got the generator ready to go. Plenty of dry oak firewood on hand. Good stock of canned goods. Propane for the Coleman stove. Let it rain.
Good for you, hope most are prepared like you. And do not try driving out in the hills with 2 wheel drive cars with worn tires. Check on your neighbors, and be ready like the kid
Thanks Eyeball Kid, you inspired me…
A little TLC, and the genny is good to go…
Just in time before the rain…
Glad to hear it, Guest. There are a few other possibles to have on hand “just in case”, but some things are better left unsaid. Be well.
Thanks.
We are fortunate enough to have a good amount of dry oak firewood as well, a luxury for sure.
Your mystery has made me curious…
But I’ll take your word for it.
How much is a cord of oak now? Price wise
Real Oak?
Hard to find.
$400.00 plus. Probably more.
Right now customers are screaming for dry firewood and having to pay a premium, in addition to waiting out lengthy delivery times. If, otoh, a customer is willing to take green firewood, price can be well under 400 and delivery can be almost immediate. When I take delivery on a cord, I know I won’t be putting it into the woodstove for probably 2 1/2 years.
Take my word for it, yes. And think in terms of a failure of civility.
Where can I get a solar powered generator? I want to be environmentally correct during a significant outage.
Go out in your yard or the woods. Both should be full of Solar powered generators. (Plants)
Or you can get one of these..GOAL ZERO YETI 3000X PORTABLE POWER STATION
$3399.95
Or 47 products in Portable Solar Generators at Lowes.
Sale of portable gas-powered generators banned starting 2028 under new California law
Or propane powered generators are also available
My Generac is connect to my propane tank…
I got a champion Hooked up to mine…
Good advice grey fox.
These are really nice. I power my whole house with one all summer not counting propane appliances. Only problem in a storm is they won’t charge in cloud cover. You can also charge it off a regular generator, significantly reducing running those noisy gas hogs more than you have to.
Tesla sells battery powered generators. They installed some at Fortuna’s pump house at Kenmar. They sell residential units too.
🎅🎅Thank you for that information. ☃️☃️
LOL, good one, Grumpy! I’ve noticed myself that solar-powered stuff doesn’t usually work all that great after a few days of heavy cloud cover.
Lowes and Home Depot offer some but they’re expensive…
Solar panel +battery, add charge controller and inverter. Sit back and watch a movie about the whorld falling apart,
Sure. Battery bank runs about 1k dollars. And they die every few years. Talk about world falling apart- you can help it!
Congratulations, you were obviously trying to be an ass and you made a very clear that you are one.
Haha wow do you realize how you sound?
I’d get a Blueetti. They’re better than the yeti. Check them out. Solar powered. Can also charge battery on grid.
Something else to be prepared for. The sun sloughs off material regularly, but it usually doesn’t hit Earth, just by chance. Our luck has to run out eventually, though. Scientists estimate there’s around a 12 percent chance of a massively disruptive coronal mass ejection hitting Earth…
You might have heard the buzz about an asteroid called 4660 Nereus, coming closest to Earth on Saturday, December 11, 2021. Close is a relative term. The 1,083-foot (330-meter) asteroid will come within 2.4 million miles. But you never know…
Hey, beam of sunshine, thanks for the heads-up. Maybe I’ll put off dealing with the Christmas cards, buying all those presents, might wait just a bit. Always a silver lining, huh?
Your safe the asteroid missed us. Just be glad you don’t live in Kentucky
Daily thankful, though they don’t seem to have wildfires. I have kin there but not planning a visit soon. There are Goblins there as well as tornedos.
“From goblins and ghosties and long legged beasties and things that go bump in the night God protect us” Scottish prayer
I’m am glad, but not just because of the tornado.
“The sun sloughs off material regularly…”
Don’t conflate a CME with asteroids, sir. Some folks might be inclined to believe you.
We have a high wind advisory up here on the Oregon coast, it’s currently 39mph with gusts up to 60.
Already dug out books to read when the power goes out, propane lamps at the ready. Fortunately we live on the part of the grid that the big freezers of the fish plants depend on. We always get our power back first.
Stay off the beaches folks. Storm Warning in effect here. Gale Warnings off Humboldt County’s coast.
Good thing is the water, and the snow in higher elevations. Though I’m sure, as much as I love rain, I’ll be sick of it by the end of the week.
If history teaches us anything, its that some damn fool will go down to look at the big waves and get swept in..
Wearing a mask no doubt!
That “damn fool” was somebody’s family. Sadly people and visitors can be ignorant with tragic results Barney.
Snowing here now.
Where is here, fndrbndr?
Horse mountain
🎅🎅Break out the sleighs. ☃️☃️
Have my gas (soon to be outlawed) generator ready. Plenty of food, etc. Stupid Newsom is outlawing all small gas engine devices. I guess he thinks we can just buy a battery generator for power!!!
You can keep using it just won’t be able to buy a new one in California. So take good care of it
I’ll keep buying my gas equipment in Oregon or Nevada. I prefer Oregon as it’s closer to me with no sales tax. Just wait, they will eventually change the border ag checkpoints to include gas powered equipment:
“Do you have any fresh fruit, vegetables, live plants or gas powered equipment with you today?”
I may have to just start taking the Hwy 199 route back from Oregon at night. The checkpoint is never open. Best way to bring clones and teens back home.
Well not anymore…
As I found out and many already know….the larger chainsaws equipped by law w/ CA emissions don’t idle worth a crap. Had to go Oregon to get a decent saw! Glad to live close enough to do a shopping trip to Grants Pass or Eugene every now and then…again we find that CA laws passed to manage the huge populations in the cities only works against us up here in the north.
And look how long a chainsaw will last. I had a Pioneer still running good after 10 years. If you have any mechanical skills at all you could rebuild the engine if need be. Spark plug, new bar, chains about all I ever needed to replace.
Oregon isn’t that far away if you really want a Portable Gas Generator go there!!!
I have a whole house propane backup generator. Which I haven’t used in over a decade. In fact, once I developed a preparation plan, I found I look forward to the blessed silence of no fridge, fan or other noise producers. I have battery powered solar lanterns and radio. Have back up rechargable power packs for phone and tablet. Have storage water tanks. I cook on the wood stove and luckily most power outages are in colder weather so keeping frozen food is not an issue. The longest that power was out was 14 days. By that time I admit I looked forward to simply switching on a light. But for short periods, the quiet reminds me of how people used to live. Except of course for the distant sounds of other people’s generators.
I love the first few minutes of quiet that comes in a big snow storm blackout.
All you can hear are trees and limbs snapping but it doesn’t take too long and I’m firing up mine
Nooo, i think there are few of us. Glad you commented. I don’t understand why people can’t go a few hours or days without the modern world. Everyone’s always bitching about it, but watch them when they can’t have it for a minute!
I detest generators. I don’t understand the need for them. They’re obnoxious, rude, and unnecessary in most cases. (I recognize that there are a small number of people with medically necessary electricity-dependent devices, but i bet that’s not why most people say they need the juice.)
I enjoy NOT having the modern world on. But you’re right, other people’s generators fire right up to remind me of it. Only they’re not so distant here. The so-called “environmentalist” earth-loving hippie seems to have gone nearly extinct in my neck of the woods.
Wood heat, gravity-fed water, landline phone, fridge with no meat that sits out on the porch anyway in the cold, and candles; plus a few uses of nasty modern fuels in my propane cookstove and battery lantern and headlamp… but at least those things keep me from needing to run a fuming generator.
Damn, how am I suppose to keep the ladies in flower without a gennie? Hate them all you want but I can only wish I had hydro or enough solar power to run the gavitas.
Ironically, backup gas generation is what makes a fair number of solar generation systems viable. Sometimes you just need those extra amps.
Don’t forget your battery chainsaw for getting tree limbs out of the road,
I’ll bet the folks just devastated by the tornado that ripped a 200 mile swath thru the middle of the country last night, need more than a solar battery or two.
Just heartbreaking….
Take care of your generator. It will last a long time.
Nobody is going to come pry your cold greasy hands off it.
The state legislature writes the laws, not the governor. California has always been ahead of the curve on environmental law.
If you don’t like it, you can go elsewhere and you won’t have to be subject to California law.
You will be subject to the effect…when the place you move finally adopts the rules set here first.
You’re welcome!
Sometimes you can do the right thing, the wrong way. California could do the right thing without being seen as overbearing, if some of the regulation was incentive based, and less punitive.
Most citizens don’t actually get directly affected by the laws they pass. I say,
“Sure I want good air quality”
And leave it at that.
Then a well intentioned directive gets passed to insulated vindictive bureaucrats.
Rich people are too busy making 6 figures to work on their own homes. They hire the folks to do the work, and hate the sound of their tools.
It’s easy to blame trucks for all our air quality problems, and CARB takes advantage of that, and 99% of us don’t have to buy and run a truck to deliver your crap.
An article in the ‘Bay last week about gas leaf blower laws quoted an “Air District official” saying a leaf blower running for 1 hr., was equivalent to a Camry driving from LA to Denver. Sounds shocking, but it’s bullshit. The Camry would burn 29 gallons of gasoline. The leaf blower burns 1qt. of gasoline. If you are talking about global warming, and greenhouse gasses, then you must mean CO2, right? Carbon in, carbon out? Did they discount the CO2, and just count 2 stroke oil? Was it really 3.0 litres of leaf blower motors, all running at once?!
I like clean air, but if you want good policy, don’t blow smoke up our asses!
Global warming!?!? Didn’t you get the memo: it’s called climate change! Please stop with you anti-woke terminology.
Also, it would be appreciated if you didn’t use critical thinking and just learned to regurgitate the narratives. Thank you.
I ain’t going anywhere, except out of state to go buy my replacement gennies, power equipment, etc, then returning home.
Funny how the legislature thinks that banning things in Cali can stop my lifestyle. Didn’t work with cannabis, not gonna work with gas powered equipment either. Someday they will ban critical thinking, but it still won’t stop me.
“The state legislature writes the laws, not the governor.”
Newsflash. They write many of them at the behest of the governor. The governor can veto stupid laws. The governor is a [edit].
“California has always been ahead of the curve on environmental law.”
The curve downward into the toilet with pointless, idiotic laws?
“If you don’t like it, you can go elsewhere and you won’t have to be subject to California law”
No thanks. I will ignore those laws same way I ignored weed laws.
“You will be subject to the effect…when the place you move finally adopts the rules set here first.”
People are leaving this shithole in droves to avoid stupid ass rules, made by stupid ass politicians, voted in by stupid ass people. No one else (maybe NY) is dumb enough to oulaw gas chainsaws. Liberalism is a mental disorder!
Your welcome.
I’ve read a bunch of articles about the small engine ban. They keep repeating how much pollution the leaf blowers use. I never used a leaf blower in my life! Like an old stupid Boomer I use rakes and my arms!! But they keep repeating that line about leaf blowers- like it’s a good reason why they need to shut down my chainsaw… The media is again channeled into being a propaganda arm of the government and leading the urban masses into the desired progrom, much like that corporate “legalization” of cannabis push. I don’t like crooked government and I really don’t like crooked media telling me what is best for my rural life because a bunch of idle-minded and dim-witted city dwellers need to be actively managed from above…
What are these rakes that you speak of, Farce?
There will always be laws constraining people’s lively hood. For people like ourselves we will be as you said outlaws. Unfortunately the Biden regime with it’s attack on domestic fuel production will push the price per gallon to 10 dollars. So what will we do then is the question. Firewood powered generator?
The people who make these laws are enriched at the publics expense. Have you heard of AL Gores electric consumption?
So the first test of all the clearcutting along the roads. Pge went overboard into lawyer recommended devastating $ spending measures. Now we watch while our roads get undercut or buried by said clear-cuts. We will see. Drive extra safe.
I’m ready! Made choc raisin fudge! Box of candles, water jugs full, camp stove set, plenty of food, full tank of Blue Star propane, chickens got goods and bucket of worms to snack on, hooter and hot tea out front. Completely blessed! Everyone please be safe and sound! Don’t go out in it! We’ll catch up in front of Flavors like usual afterwards.
There are a few companies in the area that could set up a system of solar cells and battery wall. The cost has come down a bit from 2-3 years ago.
There seems to be a sense of goodwill and camaraderie on this thread that I don’t encounter very often here on The Belt. If it’s just me, don’t spoil the illusion, please. If you sense it too, let’s rejoice.
The storms bring us together. So thankful for the rain! And whatever challenges come they are worth it for being able to live here…
I believe you’ve got that right, Farce. 🙂
Back when I had to meet writing deadlines for a living, I bought a 12 volt battery to keep my laptop going, It gave me days of power. Alladin lanterns, propane lanterns, Coleman Lanterns and stoves all helped and heating with wood kept me warm. Frozen ice jugs in the freezer and refrigerator would keep them cold for several days. I only cranked up a generator if stuff was starting to thaw in the freezer. These days I live in a neighborhood of indoor growers so there is generator noise all the time. Luckily, I appear to be going deaf.