GILROY
– By the time the sun sets west of town tonight Gilroy will have
doubled its year-to-date rain total in the last four days, and
there’s plenty more wet stuff to come, according to local
forecasters.
Another 1.5 inches of rain is expected to fall in Gilroy today,
and with storm systems backed up across the Pacific Ocean all the
way to Asia, Gilroy’s skies are expected to remain soaking all the
way until the new year, said Bob Benjamin, a forecaster with the
National Weather Service in Monterey.
GILROY – By the time the sun sets west of town tonight Gilroy will have doubled its year-to-date rain total in the last four days, and there’s plenty more wet stuff to come, according to local forecasters.
Another 1.5 inches of rain is expected to fall in Gilroy today, and with storm systems backed up across the Pacific Ocean all the way to Asia, Gilroy’s skies are expected to remain soaking all the way until the new year, said Bob Benjamin, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Monterey.
Gilroy recorded a combined 3.91 inches of rain Friday, Saturday and Sunday, bringing its year-to-date total to 7.94 inches since July 1. Last year a total of 16.78 inches of rain fell in the city from July 1, 2001 to June 30, 2002.
“It looks like there will be an unsettled pattern the rest of the year,” Benjamin said Monday morning. “This system is very backed up and looks like it will keep coming. We expect the next round of storms to start early Thursday.”
At 11:30 a.m. today the city closed Miller Avenue at Christmas Hill Park where Uvas Creek spilled over the roadway – which is common during a large storm. It is the only road closure in the city since the storm rolled into town Thursday night.
But despite the dreary forecast and sloppy weather, Gilroy is getting off lucky compared to some of its neighbors. Pacific Gas & Electric did not record any power outages in Gilroy over the weekend, although more than 800,000 Bay Area homes were without power for a period of time during the weekend, and another 100,000 remained without power this morning.
“It’s not too-heavily wooded down by Gilroy, so you guys get off pretty lucky,” PG&E Spokesman Jeff Smith said this morning. “And with the storms coming later this week there isn’t supposed to be as much wind, so it’s not much of a concern right now.”
Gilroy’s schools also withstood the weekend storm front. Brownell Middle School, built in 1949, reported only a few leaks. Gilroy High School reported a couple of new leaks along with flooding in the outdoor quad, which measured foot-and-a-half deep.
Gilroy High School will continue with its normal schedule and no events have been canceled yet, but that could change, Assistant Principal Greg Camacho-Light said.
“If there is a decision to make, you can imagine which way that will go,” he said this morning.
Camacho-Light also said that several teachers and a good percentage of students were absent today, and that school administrators are helping out in classrooms.
In Morgan Hill, Jackson Elementary School did get an unexpected holiday Monday morning when several classrooms flooded after a wild night of heavy rain clogged a city storm drain.
Morgan Hill received 2.3 inches of rain in five hours Monday between 2 and 7 a.m., according to Public Works Director Jim Ashcraft.
While storms with so much moisture in such a small amount of time raise the potential for flooding, all South County waterways were in check as of this morning.
“Uvas (Reservoir) is filling pretty quickly, but we don’t think it will overflow,” said Mike Di Marco, spokesman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “We are keeping a close eye on all the watersheds, but so far no problems have been reported.”
Di Marco said the water district is planning to release water from several local reservoirs into local creeks over the next two days to give the reservoirs added capacity for the next round of storms scheduled for Thursday.
