The central San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada should begin drying out this morning after the first storm of the season moves on, leaving behind power outages and a mind-boggling amount of rainfall.

Nearly 14 inches of rain fell in the last 24 hours in Dinkey Creek, 10 inches at Wishon Dam, 8 inches at Shaver Lake and 9.25 inches at Mariposa Grove.

"It's nuts," said Jim Dudley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford. "It doesn't happen very often. That's a lot of rain."

Dudley said he had been watching the rainfall figures climb through the night. "It's been pretty interesting."

Other areas recording high amounts of rainfaill include Yosemite Valley with 4.83 inches and Oakhurst with 4.46 inches.

Dudley said he couldn't say for sure whether the Dinkey Creek monsoon was a rainfall record, but it may well be. "It's definitely the most anybody we've been talking to has seen," he said.

On the Valley Floor, Fresno received 1.39 inches, Hanford 1.26, Merced 1.66 and Visalia 1.8. Fresno's rainfall set a record for the date; the previous high in the city was 0.88. Emergency crews worked into the night Tuesday as the powerful Pacific storm turned power poles into matchsticks, toppled trees and created deadly road conditions.

After a long, dry summer, the first big storm of the season had many effects in the Valley: cars veered off roadways, about 29,000 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers lost electricity, and many residents lugged sandbags to their homes to prevent flooding.

A flash flood warning issued this morning was canceled. The warning had covered Rancheria Creek, Balch Camp and all locations along the North Fork of the Kings River downstream to Pine Flat Reservoir. Residents who live along streams and creeks were advised to move to higher ground.

Along with the rainfall comes clean air. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District forecasts good air quality throughout the region.

Elsewhere in the state, the news was even more dramatic, with flooding evacuations in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a critical power transmission line knocked out in Moss Landing.

The good news was that there could be an early ski season.

A spokesman for Sierra Summit ski area said today that several inches of snow fell at its highest elevation, but lower elevations received rain. Boomer Devaurs estimated the snow accumulation at about four inches.

The forecast calls for a 50% chance of showers in Fresno this morning, then a cloudy sky that gradually becomes sunny. The high should reach near 72 degrees, and winds could gust to as much as 23 mph.

29,000 lost power

PG&E reported about 29,000 customers lost electricity Tuesday night from 75 outages scattered around Fresno, Kings and Tulare counties.

The three largest outages -- affecting a total of 23,500 customers -- were in north Fresno and Clovis, bounded roughly by the San Joaquin River and Copper, Sunnyside and Bullard avenues.

Another outage caused night classes to be canceled at the Willow International campus in northeast Fresno.

By 2 p.m. today, power was restored to all but 115 PG&E customers across Fresno County, utility spokesman Denny Boyles said.

Ground soaked up threat of flooding

Fresno County reported few flooding problems, as dry ground soaked up much of the rain. But some trees were blown down by heavy winds, said Bob Palacios, manager of the county's road maintenance and operations division.

The storm was not severe enough to warrant distributing sandbags, said city spokesman Randy Reed, but Clovis, Merced, Visalia and other communities distributed them.