22K Bay Area customers stuck without power

Snow falls on Mt. Hamilton near San Jose

PG&E crews toiled Thursday morning to restore power to tens of thousands of the utility's customers in the Bay Area after this week's windstorm — and snow was visible at daybreak on Mt. Hamilton near San Jose.

As of very Thursday morning around 6 a.m. about 22,800 PG&E customers in the Bay Area remained without power, the utility reported.

The lack of power — and the ability to run heating systems in the affected residences — materialized just ahead of a freeze warning that began early Thursday morning.

Here's how many PG&E customers were without power in the utility's Bay Area districts:

• Peninsula, about 20,900 customers

• South Bay, 1,400

• North Bay, 300

• East Bay, 37

• San Francisco, 83

Early Thursday morning around midnight, about 24,100 PG&E Bay Area customers were without power. Wednesday night around 6 p.m., an estimated 35,400 PG&E customers were without electricity in the region.

Early Wednesday afternoon, about 42,700 were without power in the Bay Area, including at least 32,000 on the Peninsula and 6,200 in the South Bay, PG&E reported.

Wednesday morning, PG&E reported that more than 64,000 were without power in the Bay Area.

A map on one of PG&E's web pages showed that the hardest hit locations for power outages in the Bay

Area as of midnight were in southern San Mateo County and in the Ben Lomond area along and near State Route 9.

The National Weather Service issued a freeze warning that was scheduled to go into effect at midnight on Wednesday, then last until 9 a.m. on Thursday.

Throughout the Bay Area, temperatures were expected to dip into the 30s, according to the National Weather Service office in the region.

The Weather Service issued a winter storm warning — the first for the Bay Area since 2011 — for much of the region. Snow flurries were expected to appear in at least some parts of the Bay Area, according to the forecasts.

Snow was expected to fall to as low as 1,500 feet in the chilliest regions and during the coldest hours in the Bay Area, official forecasters said. Some snow fell during the evening in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a motoristrecorded video showed.

High peaks such as Mt. Hamilton received snowfall, visual observations of the peak in the hills east of San Jose showed Thursday morning.

Snow showers fell during the night in the Santa Cruz Mountains.