4 feet of snow at Huntington, flood advisory in Central Valley as winter storm continues

A heavy storm front remained fixed over the central San Joaquin Valley on Thursday, with a winter storm warning for the Sierra Nevada — all part of an atmospheric river bringing much-need precipitation to the area, the National Weather Service said Thursday morning.

The California Highway Patrol reported at 5:30 a.m. that heavy snow had closed Highway 168 at the Shaver Lake Marina. The CHP said that the snow was too high for plows to manage without snow-blowing machinery, which was not available.

The roadway won’t reopen until at least Saturday, the CHP said.

Farther up Highway 168 at around 7,000 feet elevation, China Peak Ski Resort at Huntington Lake was closed for the day unless the roadway reopens.

Highway 168, like Highway 41 through Oakhurst toward Yosemite National park, had been open to four-wheel drive vehicles and cars with chains.

Most of Thursday’s snowfall was expected to be above 5,000 feet, the NWS said. On Wednesday, the snowline was around 3,000 feet.

Huntington Lake has received nearly 4 feet of snow since Tuesday and Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows reported 32 inches of snow since Wednesday morning. The settled snow depth (snow on ground) was 58 inches.

The weather service reported that the rain will continue through Friday, with a clear weekend, before more rain rolls in early next week.

NWS service issues flood advisory

On Thursday, the National Weather Service issued a flood advisory for areas of Fresno, Madera, Merced and Mariposa counties, where rain totals in the foothills could hit more than 4 inches. A Small Stream Flood Advisory was issued for parts of southwestern Fresno County Thursday afternoon. That includes the cities of Huron and Coalinga.

The rainfall has been mostly light to moderate in the lower elevations, according to the weather service’s daily forecast discussion, though there were some heavy rain totals in areas where the storm sat for extended periods.

Northwest Merced reported a 24-hour rain total of 1.77 inches, while in Kings County to the south more than three-quarters of an inch was reported at Lemoore Naval Air Station.

The 24-hour rain totals for other areas include: Fresno City College, .51; Northwest Clovis, .51; Northeast Madera, 1.02 ; Hanford, .30; and Visalia, .12

While Fresno’s rainfall on Wednesday was nearly a quarter inch more than the daily norm, the area remains below typical rainfall levels for the month.

Driving conditions: I-5 remains open

Interstate 5, the main route to Southern California, remained open but slowed for most of the day, with CHP escorting traffic over the Grapevine for a time.

Highway 58, the route eastward to Las Vegas, was open with no restrictions.

Highways 50 and 80 in Sacramento into to Tahoe area were closed Thursday afternoon.

The morning commute in Fresno included at least one weather-related incident, according to the CHP traffic log. Around 8:30 a.m., a Dodge Charger was reported to have spun out and hit the center divider on westbound Highway 180 near the Fulton Street exit.

PG&E power outages

PG&E continued to deal with storm related power outages on Thursday morning, when more than 4,000 customers in the Yosemite Division were without power, mainly in the mountain and foothill communities north of Merced.

In the Fresno area around 8:30 a.m., 215 customers were without power because of the storm.

This story was originally published January 28, 2021 at 6:41 AM.