Rainy Wednesday in the North Bay, more on the way

A brief but robust storm passed through the region before dawn Wednesday, packing strong winds and knocking out power in pockets of the county.|

A brief but robust storm passed through the region before dawn Wednesday, packing strong winds and knocking out power in pockets of the county.

Wednesday’s was the first in a series of three storms due within a week - a similar storm is due Friday and a stronger one on Monday, according to current weather forecasts.

Rainfall totals Wednesday appeared to peak at about one inch on Mount St. Helena in Napa County and varied greatly throughout Sonoma County from light dampness to quick, heavy downpours, according to rainfall watchers reporting to the National Weather Service.

In the hills above Healdsburg .6 inches was recorded as of 7 a.m. Wednesday. There was .33 inches in Cloverdale and .38 inches on the Healdsburg plain. In the west county as much as .59 inches fell in Cazadero, .43 inches in Occidental, .27 in Sebastopol and .32 in Guerneville.

Santa Rosa weather watchers reported as much as .28 inches. There was .3 inches in Windsor although nearby at the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport the official gauge showed .12 inches.

To the east, Glen Ellen and Boyes Hot Springs showed .14- and .13 inches of rain, according to National Weather service reports.

Bob Benjamin, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the early strong band of rain was accompanied by gusty winds that came and quickly moved south, leaving only the chance of a few stray showers for Wednesday morning.

“We knew this was not going to be a very ominous storm in respect to rain. It dropped off drastically south of the Golden Gate,” Benjamin said.

The CHP reported several minor crashes involving vehicles spinning from slick roadways and PG&E reported a handful of outages had occurred.

“There were outages in a number of towns in Sonoma County,” said Brittany McKannay of PG&E.

The largest outage involved 2,800 customers in Sebastopol. Another 850 customers were knocked out of power in Occidental, 385 customers in Graton were out, and 200 were out in Santa Rosa, 26 in Bodega, 10 in Forestville and six in Guerneville.

All were repaired either during the night or by Monday morning, McKannay.

While far more rain is necessary to put a dent in the current drought gripping the western states, a high pressure ridge appears to be weakening as fall settles in and two more systems are headed this way.

The first should arrive late Friday and be gone by early Saturday. “It looks to play out much similar to this one,” he said, regarding rainfall amounts. Forecasts are calling for about .2 inches in the North Bay valleys and about .5 inches in the northern and coastal hills.

More promising – at this point – is a storm due in Monday morning, which could bring an inch or so to the North Bay.

“It’s a one-day shot for the most part,” Benjamin said, with heavy rains expected mid day and the storm tapering off Monday night. “We can’t quite say the storm door is open. But we’re getting into a track we want to be in.”

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