Editorials

SACRAMENTO — Power outages and traffic accidents brought in the rainy season Thursday, as northern and central Californians stumbled their way through their first storm of the fall. 

About 73,000 customers in the San Francisco Bay area lost power sometime during the day, according to Paul Moreno, a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokesman. All but 7,300 had their power restored by early evening. 

“It’s a very busy outage,” Moreno said, explaining that high winds were taking a toll on power lines. “We definitely feel this one.” 

The gusts blew tree limbs onto electric lines that then tumbled into each other, which can cause a short circuit. Mighty winds also prompted the California Highway Patrol to shut down the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge Thursday night due to construction debris blowing across the roadway. 

The lights also went out in Sacramento County for 1,500 homes, said Chris Capra, spokesman for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. 

Some of the outages were caused by high winds, he said, but most were the result of “typical first-storm conditions.” 

That’s when the first storm doesn’t carry enough rain to wash off the accumulated dust and dirt on power lines, he said. Instead, there’s just enough moisture to create “a mud-like substance that drips down the lines to the pole.” 

“Electricity is always seeking ground, and the mud now provides an off-ramp and will short-circuit the lines,” he said. 

The CHP also spent Thursday scrambling to respond to a slew of traffic accidents caused by drivers struggling to adjust to lower visibility and more slippery roads. 

“The oil is clearly mixing with the water, and it’s becoming a formula for disaster in our state and local highways,” said Sgt. Wayne Ziese of the CHP’s Golden Gate Division, which oversees most of the Bay Area. 

Incidents of cars spinning out and crashing in that area have more than tripled overnight since the rain hit, Ziese said. 

The National Weather Service has issued a high surf advisory along much of the California coast and coastal flood watch in the northern and central part of the state through Sunday. 

The wet weather has been a much-needed change for California’s skies, after a hot, dry summer that has driven Central Valley farmers to request federal relief funds. 

Rainfall has been down as much as 70 percent in the San Joaquin Valley and southern California. 

The rain broke Sacramento’s third longest dry spell in recorded history — 167 days without rain. The city only saw less rain in 1903, with 174 consecutive dry days, and 1880, with 194. 

The storm, covering most of northern and central California, has also laid down a fresh layer of snow on the slopes. The Boreal ski resort announced it would be the first California slopes to open on Saturday, thanks to recent snowfall. 

Meteorologists are predicting unstable weather conditions in the coming months because of El Nino, a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can dramatically affect weather patterns across much of the world. 

This year’s El Nino, considered a moderate but solid one, is expected to bring above-average rainfall across much of the South, Nevada and California.