First measurable rain of the season soaks the Bay Area
The first measureable rain of the season is hitthe Bay Area. The storm will last until at least noon and is packing more punch than originally forecasted. It will be cloudy this afternoon and cooler with temperatures ranging from upper 70s Inland to mid-60s at the Coast.
The rain is a very welcome sight after the region came out of a very dry summer. Water officials say it's a good start, but we are a long way from any real relief from the drought.
Local grape growers hope rain holds off
Water officials in the South Bay said the rain probably won't do much for the reservoirs in Santa Clara County, which are currently just under 36 percent of capacity.
"We certainly are happy to see that the rainy season is upon us. But we do need it to rain in our watershed and we need it to rain where our reservoirs are at," said Abby Figueroa of EBMUD.
About the only thing this initial rain might allow is for people to turn off their sprinklers and maybe not water at all for a week.
Beyond that, there's no great relief expected. In fact, water agencies are busy preparing more drought restrictions just in case, it doesn't rain much by the end of the year.
The rain did bring messy morning commutes for drivers and power outages across the Bay Area. There were hundreds of accidents during the morning commute. More than 65 were listed on the California Highway Patrol incident log by 7 a.m.
One place that's normally tricky to navigate and becomes doubly troublesome on a wet day is Highway 17. A car heading northbound spun out at the bottom of the first treacherous curve, just north of the summit. No one was injured.
Windshield wipers were tested on Highway 87 near the San Jose Airport, with the CHP responding to several accidents around the Bay Area.
In Oakland, a crash involving a tanker truck on Interstate 880 near 980 tied up traffic for miles.
The accident was cleared up around 7 a.m. but the slow-down lingered.
PG&E said there are currently 10,000 customers without power, from 150 outages across the region. Power was restored to three Richmond schools that briefly lost power this morning.
Power poles also paid a price in San Jose. Several fires were reported because of failing transformers. A power pole in Willow Glenn on Fuller Avenue caught fire after the transformer appeared to explode.
"The top of pole was dropping embers, hot embers all over the place and it was actually on fire," Jeff Parrington, a Willow Glen resident said.
Neighbors said firefighters told them to stay inside until the fire was out and power lines were secured.
