Rivers monitored, wind advisory issued as rain starts to hit Modesto region

Modesto braced Saturday for overnight rain that is expected to swell waterways and flood streets in the region Sunday.

The National Weather Service expects about 2 inches to drop Sunday in Modesto. That comes in addition to the 0.54 inches of rain that had fallen by Saturday evening in the downtown area, according to the Modesto Irrigation District. The National Weather Service also issued a wind advisory for 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Modesto, Stockton and the Central Sacramento Valley-Southern Sacramento Valley could experience southerly winds increasing to 20 to 30 mph with gusts of 40 to 50 mph.

Weather service meteorologist Travis Wilson said the rain should last through the morning Sunday in the Central Valley, then taper off by the afternoon. Lighter showers are forecast for Sunday evening. But the larger problems are expected to come from the runoff into the Valley from the Sierra and foothills. A foot of rain is forecast in the Sierra, and Wilson said snow levels will be at more than 9,500 feet.

“Almost all the Sierras will see rain except for the highest peaks,” Wilson said. “That will create runoff and rises in the rivers.”

By Saturday afternoon, the Tuolumne River through Modesto already had reached monitor stage, at 50.5 feet, so levee patrollers began continuously checking the river levels. The Flood Operations Center from the state Department of Water Resources expects that the Tuolumne River will crest in Modesto about noon Sunday around 52 feet, below the 55-foot flood stage. Smaller tributaries in the area, such as Dry Creek, are expected to crest Monday.

Area residents were at the city of Modesto corporation yard picking up and filling sandbags to prepare. The city announced earlier this week that up to 20 sandbags per household were available for free to all city residents. In Turlock and Oakdale, sand and bags are available for people to fill on a self-serve basis.

The wet weather already led to one rescue Friday when Stanislaus Consolidated firefighters saved two steers from Dry Creek. The steers had fallen down a muddy hill behind the ranch where they live on North Hopper Road, west of Waterford. The two waterlogged bovines wound up about a quarter-mile downstream, caught in briar bushes in the frigid water.

Stanislaus Consolidated Fire Protection District firefighters set up a rope system to get them out. Their owner, Lano Rodriguez, was chest-deep in the approximately 52-degree water alongside them, coaxing them toward the shore. It took about 30 minutes to remove the first steer, and a winch was needed to extract the second.

Meanwhile on Saturday, crews from the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts were standing by, according to company representatives, ready for calls of downed lines and other possible outages as the storm progresses through the weekend.

StanEmergency’s website offers sandbag pickup locations, contact information for reporting flooded streets and broken tree limbs, a way to register for emergency notifications and other helpful emergency preparedness information; go to www.stanemergency.com/naturalDisasters/weather.shtm.

This story was originally published January 7, 2017 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Rivers monitored, wind advisory issued as rain starts to hit Modesto region."