SNOW BLANKETS LOCAL, STATE ROADS
Thousands of customers lose power, internet in most recent storm, more coming
The rain continued over to March in Humboldt County, with power and internet outages, hail storms and car crashes around the area.
The weather certainly had an impact this weekend, with over 1,800 in the Eureka area and over 350 more around Trinidad left without internet Saturday due to an Optimum outage. The internet provider placed blame on the weather and a local utility outage.
An even higher number of Humboldt County residents were left without power from PG&E due to down power lines. With more than a dozen outages (as of Saturday afternoon), 2,054 utility customers were left without power.
The area most affected was in Eureka off of Buhne Street where a fallen tree impacted multiple poles. Nearly 1,000 Eureka customers lost power with the majority of that because of the fallen tree. The utility said those customers are expected to have their power restored by Saturday evening.
The second-most affected area was Trinidad, with just under 600 customers without power after the weather-related wire-down outage at the corner of Patrick's Point and Midway Drive; that outage is also expected to be resolved Saturday evening. Myers Flat has 96 customers without power, the third largest amount around the area.
Eureka High School decided on Saturday morning to cancel its Winter Formal on Saturday due to a power outage at the school, but PG&E then provided the school with generators strong enough to power the school. After PG&E's help, Eureka High ordered the dance back on for Saturday night — much to the relief
of many who were vocal in protestations on the Eureka High Facebook page.
The National Weather Service placed advisories throughout the county for winter weather and storm warnings, while also warning of hail storms with the highest threats for hail coming on Friday and Saturday. Snow in 2,500-foot or higher elevations is expected until Monday, while the rain will likely persist through Monday and Tuesday.
“It's a little late in the year for a storm this cold, usually we get them in January, early February so it is a little late for a storm like this but it's not that uncommon,” said meteorologist Jacob Boomsma from the Eureka National Weather Service. “Just be careful. Look out for yourself, look out for others.”
Saturday morning a waterspout was spotted off the coast in Shelter Cove. A waterspout isn't too different from a tornado except for the fact that it takes place on water rather than land but they're not as much of a rarity as one might think. Boomsma describes them as “not too uncommon” but oftentimes they're farther off the coast so out of sight from people looking over the coast.
“That area, especially south Mendocino, has a lot of low-level (wind) shear. So you have winds coming in from different directions,” Boomsma said. “The first step is having something there to generate a waterspout and once you add in that shear, that perfect combination of winds you can get something like that, like the perfect storm.”
So far this water year, Eureka is 15% above average for its rainfall with that number likely to grow over the next few days. That number, despite being higher than average, is a “fairly normal year, just slightly wetter” Boomsma says.
State Route 299 is still open without chain enforcement in Humboldt County; state Route 36 is open but chains are required for vehicles on that east-west highway. State Route 199 was closed briefly on Saturday due to a landslide but the highway has reopened since, although just one lane as of Saturday afternoon. It's not a bad idea to have chains on hand for travel out of the county. Dylan McNeill can be reached at 707-441-0526.