Update: Modesto area is in for several days of possible rain going into next week
After a few clear days, the Modesto area will enter an extended period of possible rain starting Saturday night.
Modesto received 0.17 inches of rain from the latest storm earlier this week. More importantly, the snowpack in the city’s Sierra Nevada watershed could be starting to rebuild after three years of drought.
The Modesto Irrigation District recorded 0.12 inches at its downtown rain gauge Tuesday and an additional 0.5 inches Wednesday. The total is 0.22 inches for the water year starting July 1, but most of the storms tend to come from November through March.
MID gets 12.2 inches in an average year. Much greater amounts of rain and snow fall in the Tuolumne River watershed it shares with the Turlock Irrigation District and San Francisco.
TID had several power outages among its electricity customers Tuesday, according to the daily incident report for the Turlock Fire Department. The district reported none Wednesday. TID also recorded more rain than did MID: 0.27 inches for the first three days of November.
Thursday’s seven-day forecast from the National Weather Service for Modesto shows a chance of rain that starts Saturday night and continues through Wednesday.
The chance of precipitation Saturday night, mostly after midnight, is 60%, decreasing to 50% Sunday. That early rain Saturday night and Sunday morning is expected to be less than 0.10 inches.
But the brunt of the storm system will be Sunday afternoon through Tuesday night, the weather service says, and Modesto could get between 1 and 2 inches.
As for the hills and mountains, the Sonora area may see as much as 3 inches of rain, and Yosemite 4 inches.
Snow levels are predicted to be 5,500-6,500 feet Sunday, dropping to 2,500-3,500 by Monday morning. Between Sunday afternoon and Tuesday night, Ebbetts Pass and Sonora Pass each could get between 3 and 4 feet of snow.
Drivers should watch out for slick conditions in the mountains, and residents should protect pets and sensitive plants from temperatures in the 30s. Modesto is forecast to dip to 41 early Friday but will have higher overnight lows on other days.
The California Department of Water Resources has not yet reported snowpack accumulation for the 2022-23 water year. It was below average the past three years, but reservoir storage from the wet 2017 and 2019 has buffered the impact.
This story was originally published November 2, 2022 at 3:50 PM.
