Gilroy
– Except for what it’s doing to her hair, the recent deluge
doesn’t bother Marsha Bennett.
”
I like that the air is still warm and it’s not cold out, even if
it is raining. The thing is, I end up looking like this. My hair’s
flat. It’s just a mess,
”
she said, running her hand over a clear plastic rain bonnet
covering her curly gray hair.
Gilroy – Except for what it’s doing to her hair, the recent deluge doesn’t bother Marsha Bennett.
“I like that the air is still warm and it’s not cold out, even if it is raining. The thing is, I end up looking like this. My hair’s flat. It’s just a mess,” she said, running her hand over a clear plastic rain bonnet covering her curly gray hair.
Bennett, 68, was one of the lone few braving the rain and strolling through downtown Gilroy Tuesday afternoon. The city received 1.4 inches of rain Monday night through Tuesday afternoon, and it’s not expected to let up anytime soon.
“There’s at least five or six days with a good chance of rain,” said Duane Dykema, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Monterey. “The best chance is over the next few days, through Friday night,” with chances diminishing over the weekend.
The storm is the result of a low-pressure system stationed off the Northern California coast.
At least one event in Gilroy was postponed as a result of the rain, the groundbreaking ceremony for the city’s new multi-purpose sports complex park on Monterey Road and Luchessa Avenue. Originally scheduled for today, the ceremony was kicked back to March 23.
“Groundbreaking is usually a celebration of getting a project started,” said Bill Headley, the city’s facilities and parks development manager. “We tend to try to do that in reasonable conditions, so we can get the benefit of as many folks as possible and have good picture weather.”
Headley said a fairly long list of people were planning to attend the ceremony, so safety also was a major concern.
City staff has been keeping a close eye on the weather forecast and will hope for the best in March, Headley said.
“The contractor is making whatever adjustments are needed so they can ensure the project will still come in on time,” he said.
So far this year, Gilroy has received about 19.4 inches of rain, but Dykema said the current storm likely wouldn’t push Gilroy’s rain totals over the annual average of 26.75 inches, though the storm was expected to dump another inch or two on Gilroy. But, that was the case in Monterey, where the annual average of 19.64 inches was met at 12:40pm Tuesday. Average annual rainfall is measured from July 1 to June 30.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the rain had not caused any major floods or other catastrophes in Gilroy, with city maintenance crews out clearing trouble spots.
“It’s been very, very quiet,” said Carla Ruigh, the city’s operations services manager. “The leaves are all down by this time of the year, and that reduces the amount of street flooding we experience. Staff has been very diligent in doing preventative maintenance to keep storm drains clean and to minimize on-street flooding.”
In the early months of the rainy season, rainstorms sweep leaves off trees and into the streets, clogging storm drains. About three years ago, Ruigh said, an early storm caused significant back-ups because many storm drains were choked by soggy leaves.
Mike DiMarco, spokesman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District, said crews were out Tuesday monitoring the Uvas and Llagas creeks, but no problems were reported. As of 5:30pm Tuesday, Coyote Reservoir was at 54 percent capacity, Anderson Reservoir at 75 percent, Chesbro Reservoir at 80 percent and Uvas Reservoir at 71 percent.
