Wild weather just beginning? Snow – not just hail or graupel – could land on Valley floor

Valley residents might wake up to snow Thursday morning.

Carlos Molina, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Hanford, said it’s likely that temperatures will be as low as 31 degrees in Fresno and other urban areas, and it will be even colder at rural addresses, down to as low as 29.

Whether there is snow, however, will still be a roll of the dice.

Where the moisture drops, there will be a strong chance it turns to snow or at least graupel, which is a hybrid between rain and snow that results in tiny ice pellets.

Graupel was reported in isolated areas around the region Wednesday.

Meanwhile at elevations above 1,000 feet, snow is pretty much a certainty.

Residents in Coarsegold and Oakhurst can expect the snow, and the amount will increase exponentially as elevation increases.

Molina said the Sierra Nevada could expect two to three feet of snow.

Also, expect the weather to get wilder by Friday, said Molina.

There’s an expectation of more strong winds on the horizon with the possibility of a blizzard on the Grapevine connecting the Central Valley to Southern California.

On Wednesday, heavy snow caused the closure of Highway 58, which links the Valley to Las Vegas.

Valley residents received a preview of what snow can do to travel Wednesday night as snow caused spinouts on the four-lane section of Highway 168 leading to Shaver Lake, and five vehicles were trapped in the snow on the Jose Basin Road.

The most recent precipitation left Fresno with 9.83 inches of rainfall for the year, within closing distance of the normal seasonal rainfall level of 10.99 inches for Oct. 1 of 2022 to Sept 30 of 2023,