High Wind — Central Sacramento Valley, California

2024-02-04 to 2024-02-05 · Central Sacramento Valley, California

Event narrative

Local broadcast media reported the death of an elderly man that was killed when a large redwood tree fell on his home and crushed him. Around the time of the report, Marysville Airport reported a gust of 53 mph. Yuba County Airport reported a wind gust of 68 mph at 6:29 pm, about an hour later. Oroville Airport reported a max wind gust of 70 mph. Sutter County OES reported 4 schools closed with over 11,000 customers without power and proclaimed a local emergency. Butte County OEM proclaimed a local emergency due to wind damage, as hundreds of trees were downed leading to outages, road closures, and property damage.

Wider weather episode

A major winter storm moved in from the south on February 4th, bringing heavy rain, strong winds, thunderstorms and heavy mountain snow through February 7th. Damaging winds brought down trees and caused widespread power outages. Flooding and strong winds resulted in multiple fatalities. Chain controls were observed in the mountains. Heavy rain brought nuisance flooding on roads and urban areas and rises to rivers, creeks and streams, with generally 1 to 3 inches of storm total rain reported across the Valley and foothills.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1162823. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.