The good news for the North Bay is that the worst of the storm appears to have abated. Periods of rain will continue into Monday -- but not serious, sustained intense rain. Meantime, the main focus of the storm has shifted south, where flooding concerns continue in parts of southern/eastern Santa Clara County.
Theme 2: Lots of power outages, with PG&E reporting more than 100,000 customers without power in its service area as of early Sunday afternoon. A quick tally of the hundreds of outages the company is reporting shows more than 40,000 Bay Area customers without electricity.
According to PG&E, Bay Area communities with 1,000 or more customers currently suffering outages early Sunday afternoon include:
Antioch: 4,934
Bodega Bay: 1,746
Daly City: 4,060
El Granada: 2,033
Guerneville: 1,249
Larkspur: 2,935
Orinda: 1,870
San Bruno: 1,175
San Francisco: 5,401
San Geronimo: 2,684
San Jose: 6,557
Sebastopol: 2,981
Major outages outside the Bay Area include about 7,000 customers in the communities of Pine Grove and Pioneer in Amador County, about 3,500 customers in Twain Harte (Sonora County) and 2,500 in the town of Mendocino.
Original post, 7:55 a.m. Sunday: The big storm forecasters have told us for days we could expect this weekend swept across the Bay Area late Saturday night and was causing a mess by early Sunday.
The main area of concern at daybreak is southern and central Sonoma County. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for Santa Rosa and nearby communities.
The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office reported that U.S. 101 was closed in both directions at Windsor, just north of Santa Rosa, and that at least two motorists were rescued from vehicles near Old Redwood Highway and Eastside Road, on Windsor's northern end.
Waters rose in the North Bay as the dense plume of moisture feeding the storm swung north through the region overnight. After something of a break in the deluge for some areas Sunday morning, the heaviest rain is expected to swing south again before finally tapering off late in the evening.
PG&E reported dozens of power outages throughout Northern California affecting tens of thousands of customers, including 21,000 in the Bay Area.
The most extensive Bay Area outage early Sunday appeared to be in Daly City and adjacent areas of San Francisco, where nearly 6,000 customers were reported without power.
Other notes from the nine-county Bay Area:
- The California-Nevada River Forecast Center says the Napa River will crest above flood stage in St. Helena and just at flood stage in the city of Napa later Sunday.
- The Guadalupe River is also expected to reach flood stage in San Jose Sunday afternoon.
- The Russian River is expected to reach flood stage early Monday morning and crest later in the day with some inundation forecast in Guerneville.
As far as rainfall is concerned, the National Weather Service commented in its early morning forecast discussion that overnight rainfall totals are somewhat less than expected. The highest 12-hour rain totals through 7 a.m. Sunday are mostly where we'd expect, in the northwest Sonoma County hills (4.60 inches at Venado) and Santa Cruz Mountains (2.53 inches at Ben Lomond).