Winds cause downed trees, power outages
Winds out of the northeast gusting stronger than 50 miles per hour raked the Mother Lode on Tuesday, knocking down mature trees, damaging property in at least one location, and contributing to temporary power outages.
One of the downed trees was a mature oak that came down Tuesday afternoon and damaged a Bobcat skid loader near Remington Mine Road in the Yankee Hill area outside Columbia. Phil Vanswoll shared a photo of the fallen tree on the Bobcat.
“Fortunately, no one was in the unit at the time, and no one was injured, but I don’t think our poor Bobcat will ever be the same,” Vanswoll said Wednesday. “Up until that point, the tree had looked perfectly healthy, so I guess you never know.”
Another tree came down into power lines Tuesday on Paseo de los Portales Road near the Phoenix Golf Course, Tuolumne County Fire Department staff said. A temporary outage knocked out power to more than 400 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers near Phoenix Reservoir and the Crystal Falls area.
The outages were reported about 4:20 p.m. and lasted about 30 minutes, PG&E spokesman Ben Spillman said Wednesday in a phone interview.
More trees came down elsewhere in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties. No one with either county could provide an estimate for the number of trees felled by winds Tuesday.
Sonora Fire Chief Aimee New said there were no reported trees down in the City of Sonora. The Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to
any incidents specific to the wind storm, Deputy Niccoli Sandelin said Wednesday.
Dore Bietz, the coordinator for Tuolumne County’s Office of Emergency Services said Wednesday she saw a photo of a tree into a home in Twain Harte. She said she had nothing official to share on requests for cleanup once the winds cleared out.
The strongest recorded gust in the Sonora area on Tuesday was 55 mph at Mount Elizabeth near Cedar Ridge, Emily Heller, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sacramento, said Wednesday in a phone interview.
Instruments measured gusts of 29 mph near Columbia, 31 mph near Twain Harte, 38 mph near Murphys and 40 mph near Jamestown, Heller said, emphasizing that some locations do not have accurate wind-measuring instruments.
“The strongest winds in the valley and the foothills were in the afternoon” on Tuesday, Heller said. “They were blowing down the mountain, from the northeast, toward the southwest. We call them northeast winds when they come out of the northeast.”
A high wind warning for the Central Sierra expired Wednesday morning as unstable weather dissipated. Thursday has a chance for “really light” snow showers above 5,000 feet, bringing 1 or 2 inches at most, Heller said. Friday should bring clearing skies. Saturday and Sunday are expected to be warmer, with daytime highs in the 70s, and Heller said it’s supposed to be “much warmer than normal for late March.”