Officials prepare for heavy rain to hit parts of Central Valley | CBS47 and KSEE24

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Rain and strong winds lashed the San Joaquin Valley over the weekend.

David Spector of the National Weather Service in Hanford said the storm brought widespread rain to parts of Fresno.

“This is the largest storm we have really experienced in our region since March 2023,” Spector explained. “It pulled up surges of deep moisture and spread it into California. We had a wave that looked like an atmospheric river come in Friday night and Saturday. It didn’t hit us that hard. We still had significant rainfall, especially from about Fresno to the north.”

PG&E’s Jeff Smith said crews responded to intermittent outages over the weekend.

“We continue to monitor the situation as we expect some more rain this week,” he noted.

He said the company plans for major weather events in advance to ensure crews are prepared and ready to restore power as quickly as possible.

“Sometimes it’s about giving them a rest period so that if the weather cooperates later in the week, the crews can work longer if needed. Often 24, 36 hours at a time to respond to outages that may occur due to winter weather,” Smith explained.

Spector said more wet weather is expected to arrive early Monday. He said this was already causing unrest among local governments.

He said: “Emergency managers are really concerned about potential flooding and evacuations. They remembered what happened two years ago. We had a very active winter this year and there were several storms that caused very heavy rainfall and some of those storms, particularly the warmer ones, resulted in widespread flooding. And this is a warmer storm.”