Rain douses Tulare County

Porterville sees more than half an inch

Porterville received over half of an inch of rain from the storm that moved through the Central Valley on Monday and Tuesday.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the National Weather Service in Hanford reported .63 inches had fallen in Porterville since Monday with the possibility of more falling in the form of scattered showers Tuesday night as the system pushed east.

Nearly all of the rain seen in Porterville, .55 inches, was recorded between early Tuesday morning into mid-tuesday.

According to the weather station at the Porterville Airport, .44 inches fell Tuesday bringing the season total to 1.07 inches.

Forecasters said this would be a wet storm and that rainfall totals could go as high as an inch in the Central Valley and up to four inches in the foothills.

“The storm came up from the south and had a lot of moisture,” said Carlos Molina, NWS Hanford meteorologist. “When they come from the north they are a little drier. This storm was able to tap into the moisture from the south. Southern California took a lot of the precip from this before it made it into Central California.”

The rainfall totals bear this out as Bakersfield saw .84 inches Tuesday, while Fresno was at .33 inches. Visalia had .52 inches.

NWS Hanford said they did not get any reports

of debris flows due to the Pier Fire that burned more than 36,000 acres this summer in the Tule River canyon above Springville.

Snow was forecast for locations above 8,000 feet with the possibility of it dropping to 5,000 feet as the tail end of the storm pushed through.

Tuesday afternoon

there were reports of four inches of snow near Lodgepole, which is at an elevation of 7,900 feet, according to the NWS Hanford. Above 10,000 feet, in Fresno County, 23 inches of snow had fallen.

With the storm exiting the region, NWS Hanford said, the next seven days should be dry, but fog will become a problem beginning

this morning.

“It will be patchy tomorrow (Wednesday) morning,” Molina said, adding that dense fog is going to be a real issue for the remainder of the week.

Molina said, according to their models the next chance for rain in the Central Valley is Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

RECORDER PHOTO BY CHIEKO HARA A truck drives through water Tuesday on Jaye Street. A storm brought rain to the Valley and snow to the mountains. The strongest system of the winter moved through the Central Valley Tuesday and was expected to be out of the area by Wednesday.