FRESNO (KMJ) — The Central Valley is in for a stormy weekend. Not only is wind set to batter our part of the world, but rain is expected alongside that too.
“We’re going to see a lot of precipitation, a lot of rain in the valley,” explains the National Weather Service’s Christine Riley.
“For the valley, we could see anywhere between about a half an inch to an inch of rain between this [Friday] morning and early Saturday morning.
“As far as winds go, we could easily see wind gusts valley wide over 30 miles an hour, and a few places in the valley we could even see wind gusts close to 50 miles an hour – especially in the Merced area.”
Snow is anticipated above 7000 feet, with between 1ft and 2ft likely to fall. Drivers are being asked to take extra care as well.
“We’re advising people that, especially because the grounds are so saturated and we have so many dead trees up in the Sierra Nevada and even in the valley from the drought conditions that we’ve had in the past few years, it’s going to be really easy to bring down trees.
“And even with the strong winds the possibility of bringing down some power lines.”
However, conditions in the Central Valley pale in comparison to those further south. Forecasters predict Friday on the Grapevine will see gusts as strong as 90 miles an hour.
